teacher and supreme judge of questions appertaining to faith and morals, can never err. For to us it appears evident, either that there is no supreme judge in an assembly, or that the office belongs to him who presides over the whole; so that, in fact, it is not less certain, to our minds, that the Pontiff speaking ex cathedrâ to the whole Church cannot err, than that the Pontiff presides over the whole Church.'[1]
Suarez is equally explicit: 'Nevertheless, it is a Catholic truth, that the Pontiff defining ex cathedrâ is the rule of faith, which cannot err, when he authoritatively propounds anything to the whole Church, as to be believed of divine faith: such is the teaching
- ↑ 'Idem prorsus de Romano Pontifice dicendum est, quoties è Cathedrâ Petri totam Ecclesiam alloquitur, eique ceu supremus Doctor exponit, quid tanquam Catholicum dogma credere debeat, quid tanquam hæreticum figmentum vitare: quam doctrinam amplecti ceu sanam, quam cavere ceu noxiam: et quoties, pro universalis Pastoris officio, commissis a Christo sibi ovibus salubria hinc demonstrat pascua virtutum, ut ad immortalem iis vitam alantur; venenifera inde vitiorum, ne iis degustandis sempiternam sibi mortem consciscant.
'Juxta hunc itaque sensum probandum statuendumque nobis in hac Tractatione omni argumentorum genere est, tanquam omnino certum, Romanum Pontificem, dum è Cathedrâ Petri universam Ecclesiam, ceu communis Magister, et supremus quæstionum ad mores atque fidem spectantium Judex alloquitur, errare neutiquam posse. Evidens namque nobis apparet, vel nullum in aliquo cœtu supremum Judicem esse, vel hoc munus ad eum, qui toti præest cœtui, pertinere; ut sane non certum minus nobis sit, Pontificem è Cathedrâ toti Ecelesiæ loquentem errare non posse, ac certum sit, Pontificem toti Ecclesiæ præesse.'—Gonzalez de Infallibilitate Rom. Pontif. Disp. i. sect. 1.
