which he decrees to be the judgment of faith ought to be received by all the faithful, by divine precept, as a doctrine of faith. And he is to be believed to use that authority, so often as, in controversies of faith, he determines an opinion in such a way as to oblige the whole Church to receive it.'[1] Gonzalez says: 'Precisely the same is to be said of the Roman Pontiff, whenever he speaks to the whole Church from the Chair of Peter, and expounds to it, as supreme doctor, what it must believe as Catholic doctrine, what it must avoid as heretical falsity; what teaching it is to embrace as sound, what it is to beware of as noxious; and whenever, in his office of universal pastor, he points out to the sheep committed to him by Christ the pastures of virtues on the one hand, that they may be fed by them to everlasting life, and the poisonous growth of vices on the other, lest by tasting them they should bring upon themselves everlasting death. Under this view, then, we are to lay down and prove in the present treatise, by various arguments, as a thing most certain, that the Roman Pontiff, when he addresses the universal Church from the Chair of Peter, as the common
- ↑ Quotiescumque Romanus Pontifex in fidei quaestionibus definiendis, ilia qua est praeditus auctoritate utitur, ab omnibus fidelibus tanquam doctrina fidei recipi divino praecepto debet ea sententia, quam ille decernit esse sententiam fidei. Toties autem eum ipsa auctoritate uti credendum est, quoties in controversia fidei, sic alterutram sententiam determinat, ut ad eam recipiendam obligare velit universalem Ecclesiam.—Greg. de Val. disp. v. q. 1. De Objectis Fidei, p. vii. q. 6.
