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Papal Infallibility

The purely ecclesiastical policy of Pius IX was guided by the earnest desire to see the doctrine of Papal Infallibility brought to universal recognition. The definition of the Immaculate Conception (1854) and the proclamation of the Syllabus (1864) were finger-posts pointing the way to the Council of 1870.

The convocation of the Vatican council was fixed for December 8th, 1869. The Vatican Council (1869-1870) was the first general council the Catholic Church had held since that of Council Trent, three centuries earlier. The Vatican Council was convened by Pius IX, attended by nearly eight hundred prelates, and made famous by its solemn ratification, despite earnest opposition from a minority of its members, of the dogma of papal infallibility. In the speech from the crown, Victor Emmanuel had expressed the hope that from this assembly would issue some expression conciliating faith and science, religion and civil life. The assembly proclaimed instead the dogma of papal infallibility, thus setting the seal to the antithesis between church and state.

The actual definition of papal infallibility laid it down as "a dogma divinely revealed, that the Roman pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, - that is, when in discharge of the office of 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 him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining faith or morals; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are per se immutable and independent of the consent of the Church. But if any one - which God avert - presume to contradict this our definition: let him be anathema."

The pope had been persuaded that the proclamation of the new dogma would be effected without difficulty and without discussion; and when the pronouncement actually met with opposition, he was both surprised and embittered. For a moment the idea was entertained of giving way to the opposition and deferring a decision in the matter, or, in the manner of the fathers in the Council of Trent, adjourning it to the Greek kalends.

But the party that needed for its purposes an infallible pope readily persuaded Pius IX that if the council broke up without arriving at a decision favorable to the papacy, this would be tantamount to a serious defeat of the Holy See and an open victory for the Gallican system. The consequence was the bull Pastor Aeternus, which Pius IX. issued on the 15th of July. This did not by any means represent all the demands of the Jesuits, and it was couched in terms which appeared not unacceptable to the majority of the Catholics. The fact that the bishops were prepared to forego their opposition was not unknown in Rome. It was anticipated by the authorities.

The fathers who subscribed to this doctrine of papal infallibility in 1870 did not think that they were devising a "new" dogma; they believed that they were merely interpreting and defining what had been in the mind of the Church ever since the days of St. Peter and of Christ Himself ; and certainly not many of them thought that they were departing from what had been a well-recognized practice for many centuries.

Nevertheless, the definition of papal infallibility elicited immediate opposition. It was to be expected that agnostics would scoff at it and that Protestants would denounce it as an unwarranted or even blasphemous assumption. But, while no Catholic bishop left the Church and while it was only a few thousand laymen in southern Germany and in Switzerland who, following the lead of a group of university professors, actually seceded and formed the "Old Catholic" sect, it was difficult for many nominal Catholics not to be adversely influenced by the crisis. Several historians wrote learned works in an endeavor to prove that various popes in the past had been "fallible." Controversialists maintained that the doctrine was essentially new and that it was in flat contradiction to the Council of Constance and to the long-supported "liberties of Statesmen the Galilean Church." But the most telling blows were in the field of politics. Statesmen represented the Vatican Council as an astute scheme on the part of Pius IX to secure a ratification from the whole hierarchy of his policies against liberty and nationalism, and in the decree of papal infallibility they pictured as a monstrous attempt to exalt the papacy above all secular states and to extend "faith and morals" to the political domain. The fear became general. The Austrian government promptly denounced the decree and took occasion to annul the Concordat. Even Gladstone thought it worth his while to indite a pamphlet to his fellow-Britishers on the need of combating papal intolerance and papal interference with the civil power.

Bismarck soon inaugurated a campaign against the Catholic Church in Prussia. In Germany, as also in France, the waves of anti-Infallibility were rolling so high, that the further development of events was viewed with no small concern. Under normal conditions, the situation could not fail to terminate favorably for the Vatican. That the Kalturkampf had followed so rapidly upon the war was the greatest piece of good fortune that could have befallen the Holy See. The war demanded both in Germany and France the sacrifice of all available energy and public spirit; while the Kulturkampf, by bringing into relief the question of the external existence of the Church, thrust all internal dogmatic interests and problems completely into the background.