That the Church is infallible is clear to everyone who reflects on the teaching and purpose of Christ. For if our Lord came to establish a body of teachers who might yet teach as His doctrine what was really in contradiction to it, then man could hardly be expected to gain any benefit from it, nor indeed to be certain when he had actually obtained it, or, when obtained, whether it would be any advantage to him to have done so. The new Gospel delivered by the Apostles to an unbelieving world was obviously a Gospel on which much depended for the betterment of the children of men, since it required the death of God-made-Man to establish it as a kingdom. All the years of teaching devoted by our Lord to the training of the Twelve would seem to have been futile, unless on it rested the supposition that truth was obtainable and that these were the men whom Christ Himself deputed to preach it. The meaning, therefore, of the New Testament is that a definite message had come into the world -so important, that the words of Moses were not to be esteemed as of greater authority, and that the Law itself no longer compelled. The Apostles, too, were conscious of the enormous claim they were making in continuing the very work of our Lord, for, remembering His promise to send the Paraclete to take His place, they promulgated their decrees at the Council of Jerusalem with the tremendous prologue: "It hath seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." They assert, therefore, that they and the Holy Spirit are as it were conjoint forces, whose purpose was to teach the world the truth of God. For this office of teaching, then, it is essential that there should be an infallible teacher.
But the need for infallibility of teaching did not cease with the Apostles. In a sense it might seem that during their lifetime the need was less, for obviously the early converts would have been content to accept the decisions of those who had lived with the Master, had been trained by Him, and, by their personal familiarity with His modes of expression and even the very inflexion of His voice, had been able to give authoritative interpretations to the simple teaching that alone would at first be considered necessary. But as time went on and all who had actually known our Lord had died, and as, too, the restless mind of man was perpetually asking for new decisions upon new points of moral perplexity, and new interpretations or explanations of the being and actions of God, there must have appeared the need for an infallibility that should be living and final. An appeal to the past is always a secret appeal to the prejudice of the present, for into the past each reads his own interpretation, unless there is some final court that has power to declare what the past itself intended. In the early centuries we find that councils were called together and debated the points at issue, and then announced what the tradition of the people of God was; but this method depended largely upon local conditions, and there were people who hurried through councils to prevent the opposing party from arriving in time to vote. Hence it became clear that even the decisions of the council required to be ratified by some other authority before they would be accepted by the Church as a whole.
Thus, partly by necessity, partly because our Lord had so laid it down in the general supremacy bequeathed to Saint Peter, and partly because there was no one else who could perform the office, the Pope or Bishop of Rome began to be recognized by the faithful as the mouthpiece of the infallible Church. Even in the lifetime of Saint John, the Christians appealed to Saint Peter to settle a disputed election to the bishopric of Corinth. Then as the centuries went on and the means of communication became so much easier, the need and possibility of quick appeal to Rome meant the increase of central authority. Then, finally, the infallibility of the Pope was declared an article of faith at the Council of the Vatican in 1870. What tradition had always approved, the Church now declared to be the immemorial belief of the faithful of Christ, not as to His every utterance, as some had contended, but only (a) when, as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, (b) he defined (c) a doctrine concerning faith or morals (d) to be held by the whole Church. If any of these four conditions is unfulfilled, then, though the decision may be true and valid, it is not to be held binding on the conscience. The extreme defenders of an exaggerated infallibility had to bow to the wise and just definition of Pope Pius IX, while those, too, who judged it to be inopportune, lived to thank God for the divine prudence and economy wherewith His heavenly plan had worked through the ages. I must therefore not allow myself to be led astray by any feelings of irritability against those decisions of the Holy See which seem to me to conflict with principles of common sense. I have to remember that the voice of the Pope is the voice of the age-long tradition of the Christian people, and that the Pope has no power to make new dogmas, but only to declare what was the faith once delivered to the saints.
- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.