From these statements it follows:
1. First, that what depends on no other is altogether independent.
2. Secondly, that what is circumscribed by no condition is absolute.
3. Thirdly, that what is by God committed to one alone, depends on God alone.
But perhaps it will be said that all this relates not to infallibility, but to the power of jurisdiction only.
To this I answer:
1. That if the primacy be personal, all its prerogatives are personal.
2. That the doctrinal authority of the Pontiff is a part of his jurisdiction, and is therefore personal.
3. That infallibility is, as the Definition expressly declares, a supernatural grace, or charisma, attached to the primacy in order to its proper exercise. Infallibility is a quality of the doctrinal jurisdiction of the Pontiff in faith and morals.
And such also is the doctrine of Ballerini, who lays down the following propositions:
'Unity with the Roman faith is absolutely necessary, and therefore the prerogative of absolute infallibility is to be ascribed to it, and a coercive power to constrain to unity of faith, in like manner, absolute; as also the infallibility and coercive power of the Catholic Church itself, which is bound to adhere to the faith of Rome, is absolute.'[1]
- ↑ Ballerini, de Vi et Rat. Primatus: Unitas cum Romana fide abso-
circumscriptam, personalem solius Petri ac successorum esse instituerit, uti primatum jurisdictionis instituit personalem, qui sine personali jurisdictione intelligi nequit.—Ballerini, de Vi et Ratione Primatus, cap. iii. sect. 4, p. 13.
