are promulgated from the Chair of supreme authority as Universal Doctor of the Church in faith and morals.
We have been lately told, by those who desire to hinder the definition of this doctrine by secular opposition rather than by theological reason, that there are some twenty opinions as to the conditions required to authenticate an utterance of the Pontiff ex cathedrâ. I will therefore venture to affirm that no other conditions are required than this: That the doctrinal acts be published by the Pontiff, as Universal Teacher, with the intention of requiring the assent of the Church.[1]
This, then, is the opinion which, in the following pages, we shall exclusively intend by the terms ex cathedrâ.
It will be observed that the fourth Gallican Article differs from all the above-cited opinions, inasmuch as it asserts that the judgments of the Roman Pontiff in matters of faith are not irreformable, unless the assent of the Church—that is, either congregated or dispersed, either previously or subsequently—shall adhere to them.
The Gallicans maintained the infallibility of the See of Peter, but not the infallibility of his Successor.
The tradition of the Church, while it refuses to
- ↑ This cannot be better expressed than in the words of F. Franzelin, Professor of Dogmatic Theology in the Roman College: 'Sive Concilio sive Pontifici infallibilitatis charisma competit, quando et quatenus, ut divinitus constitutus magister Ecclesiæ, intendit definitivâ sententiâ docere Ecclesiam universam auctoritate postulante consensum in veritatem propositam.'
'Locutio ex cathedrâ nihil est aliud quam descripta propositio authentica doctrinæ. Quid enim est cathedra apostolica nisi snpremum authenticum magisterium pro universa Ecclesia?'
