The Decree Of Infallibility
The Vatican council opening on October 11 and lasting for an indeterminate time will have far-reaching consequences on both the Catholic and the Protestant worlds. Its influence may well extend to those who wish to be known as simple Christians. This council, predicted to be one of the most momentous in the long history of Catholicism, will seek particularly to promote and encourage the growing rapport between Roman Catholicism and certain branches of the non-Catholic world. For any adequate understanding of what is involved in this council the student of church history should have clearly in mind what happened in that former great council at the Vatican more than ninety-two years ago when the decree of papal Infallibility was announced. On July 18, 1870, "in the midst of one of the fiercest storms ever known to break across the city, accompanied by thunder and lightning, while rain poured in through the broken glass of the roof close to the spot where the Pope was standing, Pius IX read in the darkness, by the aid of a candle, the momentous affirmation of his own Infallibility." (Simpson — Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility, p. 273.)
What, then, is the decree of papal infallibility? The document is entitled the "First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ" and is divided into four chapters. Chapter One deals with "The Apostolic Primacy in the Apostle Peter," and pronounces an anathema on any who shall say "that blessed Peter the Apostle was not appointed the Prince of all the Apostles and the visible Head of the whole Church Militant." Chapter Two deals with "The Perpetuity of the Primacy of blessed Peter in the Roman Pontiffs," and again calls down an anathema on any one who should deny "that it is by the institution of Christ the Lord, or by divine right, that blessed Peter should have a perpetual line of successors in the Primacy over the universal Church, or that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy."
Chapter Three speaks of "The Power and Nature of the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff," and affirms that the Roman Pontiff has the office of "full and supreme power of Jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which belong to faith and morals, but also in those which relate to the discipline and government of the Church spread throughout the world!' And once again an anathema is called down upon the head of any who would deny this. Finally, Chapter Four set forth the ultimate statement concerning "The Infallible Teaching of the Roman Pontiff," and defines the dogma as follows:
'We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the of- fice and pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church.
"But if any one — which may God avert — presume to contradict this our definition: let him be anathema."
It might be well to remember that this decree was adopted only over the fiercest opposition of many of the world's leading Catholics, and, indeed, led to the withdrawal of a number of these prelates from the Roman Church. Here in America bitter opposition to the decree finally resulted in several national groups of Catholics breaking free from the Papacy and setting up their own independent governing bodies, the largest of these being the Polish National Catholic Church, now numbering some 250,000 members and centering at Scranton, Penn. Throughout the world Catholic scholars were embarrassed and chagrined by the decree, for many of them were on record in the strongest kind of language (in years preceding 1870) declaring that "infallibility" was no part of the teaching of Catholicism, was a "devilish doctrine" invented to prejudice non-Catholics, and would never under any kind of circumstances be adopted by the Catholic Church as a part of her teaching!
There are groups both within Catholicism and within Protestantism now working for eventual merger of several Protestant bodies with the Catholic Church. The "High Church" Anglicans are most ardent right now for such a union. But we believe that the decree of infallibility will be an insuperable barrier to any such joining. Before the groups can really be of accord, that doctrine will have to be modified or abrogated. And we doubt that such will happen at any time in the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, those who are content to follow Christ will observe such meetings with interest, but with no feeling of kinship or vital concern. The unity we seek, and for which Christ prayed, is one that is "in truth" and not in error. Any time a faithful Christian is in fellowship with God he is, by virtue of that very fact, in fellowship with every other faithful Christian on earth. Christian unity is that simple, and that easily attained. Let every reader examine his own heart, his own life, and see whether or not the Bible conditions for unity are present.
— F. Y. T.