as supreme Head and Pastor of the Universal Church, as, Feed My sheep, &c.'[1]
Therefore, infallibility is the privilege of Peter not as a private person, but as a public person holding the primacy over the Universal Church.
In the Pastoral addressed to you so long ago as the year 1867, this was pointed out in the unmistakable words of Cardinal Sfondratus. 'The Pontiff,' he says, 'does some things as a man, some things as a prince, some as doctor, some as Pope, that is, as head and foundation of the Church; and it is only to these (last-named) actions that we attribute the gift of infallibility. The others we leave to his human condition. As then not every action of the Pope is papal, so not every action of the Pope enjoys the papal privilege.'[2]
The value therefore of this traditional language of the schools is evident.
When the infallibility of the Pontiff is said to be personal, it is to exclude all doubt as to the source from which infallibility is derived; and to declare
- ↑ 'Duo namque sunt in Petro. Unum personale et aliud publicum, ut Pastor et caput Ecclesiæ. Quædam ergo tantummodo personæ Petri conveniunt, ad successores non transeunt; ut quod dicatur: Vade post me, Satana, et similia. Quædam vero dicuntur de eo quatenus est persona publica, et ratione officii Supremi Capitis et Pastoris Ecclesiæ universalis; ut Pasce oves meas, &c.'—Ignatius de Fiume, Schola veritatis orthodoxæ, apud Bianchi, de Constitutione Monarchica Ecclesiæ, p. 88. Rome, 1870.
- ↑ Pontifex aliqua facit ut homo, aliqua ut Princeps, aliqua ut Doctor, aliqua ut Papa, hoc est ut caput et fundamentum Ecclesiæ: et his solis actionibus privilegium infallibilitatis adscribimus: alias humanæ condition! relinquimus: sicut ergo non omnis actio Papæ est papalis, ita non omnis actio Papæ papali privilegio gaudet.'— Sfondrati, Regale Sacerdotium, lib. iii. sec. 1.
