a dogmatic definition, and so as matter of Infallibility.'[1]
(6) Lastly, the Council adds that the definitions of the Pope, in which, by virtue of his office as Pastor and Doctor, he lays down a certain doctrine on faith or morals as firmly to be held de fide by all Christians, are per se irreversible, i.e. of their own nature, and not only irreversible when they receive the subsequent assent of the Church. It is not meant by this that the Pope ever decides anything contrary to the tradition of the Church, or that he would stand alone in opposition to all the other Bishops, but only that the Infallibility of his definition is not dependent on the acceptance of the Church, and rests on the special divine assistance promised and vouchsafed to him in the person of St. Peter for the exercise of his supreme teaching office.[2] Since, then, it is here expressly said that those definitions on which the Infallibility of the Pope exercises itself are per se unalterable, it follows, as a matter of course, that all those laws which are issued from time to time by the Pope in matters of discipline, and which are alterable, are, by the very reason that they are alterable, not included in the de fide definition of the Vatican Council.
10. Having now by these remarks on the de fide definitions of the Vatican Council cleared our view of their meaning and import, we find ourselves in a con-
- ↑ 'Quæ in conciliorum vel Pontificum decretis vel explicandi gratia inducuntur, vel ut objectioni respondeatur, vel etiam obiter et in transcursu præter institutum præcipuum, de quo crat potissimum controversia, ea non pertinent ad fidem, hoc est, non sunt Catholicæ fidei judicia.'—Melch. Canus, De Locis Theologicis, lib. v. cap. v.
- ↑ See note A, end of this chapter.
