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DO POBRANIA: tapety : zip : pdf : radio : księgarnia	Infallibility of The Magisterium	Authentic Magisterium of the Catholic Church

CHAPTER I, part 2
THE MAGISTERIUM OF THE CHURCH AND RELATED ISSUES

THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE MAGISTERIUM

As noted in Chapter I, the Church, by God's will, is a hierarchical institution. At its 'head' is the Pope, the vicar of Christ, the 'rock' on which the Church is founded. He is endowed with all the unique authority of Jesus Christ 'who is the shepherd and bishop of our souls' (1 Pet. 2:25), and depending upon Him, the pope is also - but vicariously - the shepherd and bishop of the whole flock, both of the other bishops and of the ordinary faithful (John 21:15-17) He is the evident and effectual sign of the presence of Christ in the world, and it is through him that Christ who is invisible in the bosom of the Father, visibly presides over all the activities of this enormous Body and brings it under His control. As Dom Grea has said, 'the pope is with Jesus Christ - a single hierarchical person - above the episcopate, one and the same head of the episcopate, one and the same head, one and the same doctor, pontiff and legislator of the universal Church.' Or more precisely, 'Jesus Christ Himself is the sole Head, rendered visible, speaking and acting in the Church through the instrument whom He provided for Himself. Christ proclaims Himself through His Vicar, He speaks through him, acts and governs through him.' When Christ speaks, acts, and governs through the pope, the pope is endowed with infallibility, a quality which derives, not from him as a private person, but from his being 'a single hierarchical person' with Christ13.

This conception is made clear by Pope St. Leo's third sermon on the anniversary of his own election where he paraphrases the words of Christ: 'I make known to thee thy excellence, for thou art Peter: that is, as I am the invulnerable rock, the cornerstone, who make both one, I the foundation beside which there can be laid no other; so thou too art a rock, in my strength made hard, and I share with thee the powers which are proper to me. And upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it...' (Office of St. Peter's Chair at Antioch, Feb. 22.)

The pope is also a private person (an ordinary human being) and a private theologian (doctor). It is however, only when he functions as 'a single hierarchical person' with Christ that he is endowed with infallibility (or partakes of the Church's, i.e., Christ's infallibility.) It is only then that Christ's Scriptural statement 'he who hears you, hears me' applies. And it follows logically that his authority is extended through those bishops who 'are in union with him' in governing the flock. The bishops have no independent authority apart from him for the simple reason that he has no independent authority apart from Christ. Thus it is that he is called the 'Bishop of bishops', and that he 'confirms' them in their doctrine - not the other way around. Thus it is that no statement of an Ecumenical Council has any authority until it receives his approbation.

The pope then has an almost limitless authority. He can however loose this authority in a variety of ways. He can lose it when he dies (physical death), if he loses his reason (madness), if he separates himself from the Church (schism), or when he loses his faith (heresy and therefore spiritual death). At such a point the pope is no longer pope because it is the very nature of this bishop's function and ministry to be the Vicar of Christ and nothing else14.

The pope's authority is almost unlimited - however, it is not absolute. He has full powers within his charge, but his powers are limited by his charge. In order fully to understand this doctrinal point, let us once again recall the nature of this charge.

The ecclesiastical hierarchy was instituted by God to teach, that is to say, to transmit the deposit of the faith. At the head of this teaching Church Christ appointed a Vicar to whom He gave full powers to 'feed the faithful and the shepherds' (John 21:11-17). Consequently, it is within the bounds of this function, the transmission of the deposit of the faith, that the Pope has 'full powers'. He has these precisely to enable him to transmit the deposit of the faith - in its entirety - 'in the same meaning and the same sense' (Denzinger 1800). 'For', as Vatican I clearly taught, 'the Holy Spirit has not been promised to Peter's successors in order that they might reveal, under His inspiration, new doctrine, but in order that, with His help, they may carefully guard and faithfully expound the revelation as it was handed down by the Apostles, that is to say, the deposit of the faith' (Pastor Aeternus, Ds. 1836).

Hence it follows that the Pope can and must make all his determinations entirely within the bounds of orthodoxy, and this is true whether they concern the reformation of the Liturgy, of Canon Law, or to use the phraseology of earlier Councils, the reformation of the clergy 'in its head or in its members.' The Pope may indeed abrogate all the decisions of his predecessors, even those deserving of special mention, but always and only within the limits of orthodoxy. As The Catholic Encyclopedia (1908) states: 'the scope of this infallibility is to preserve the deposit of faith revealed to man by Christ and His Apostles.' It goes without saying that under such circumstances, any changes introduced would affect only matters that are mutable and never the faith itself. A Pope who presumed to abrogate the smallest iota of dogma, or even attempted to change the meaning of the Church's constant teaching, would step outside the bounds of orthodoxy and outside the limits of his function of preserving the deposit of the faith. He would in doing so, teach a new doctrine and a 'new gospel', and as such would be subject to the anathema pronounced by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians (1:8-9).

It is then clear that the infallibility of the Magisterium or 'teaching authority of the Church' derives from the Pope functioning as one hierarchical person with Christ. Thus the source of this infallibility is Christ, and indeed, it could be not be otherwise. For the Church to claim infallibility on any other grounds would be absurd. And just as there is only one source, so also there is only one Magisterium. When the Pope uses his infallibility - be it by solemn proclamation or within the bounds of the ordinary magisterium, he partakes, not of some personal, but of Christ's infallibility. As the official text puts it, 'when he speaks ex cathedra... he has the same infallibility as that with which the divine Redeemer invested His Church when it is defining a doctrine concerning faith or morals; and that therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, irreformable'. (Ds. 183915)

FOOTNOTES