Letters

Papal infallibility (letter)

Fr Brian Harrison OS

Contents - Aug 2003 - Buy a copy now Editorial: 'Do this in memory of Me' - Peter Westmore Documents: Ecclesia in Europa - Pope challenges Christians to re-evangelise Europe - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World - AD2000 Bioethics: End-of-life decisions: the moral issues at stake - David Perrin US research survey: younger priests are generally more orthodox - AD2000 Catalyst for Renewal Address: The legacy of Vatican II - Archbishop George Pell Church architecture: overcoming iconoclasts and cult of ugliness - Larry Henderson Is Pope John Paul II canonising too many saints? - Michael Casanova Priesthood: Clerical celibacy 'for the sake of God's Kingdom': the Church's teaching - John Young Letters: Catholic hymns (letter) - Noel Decker Letters: Beautiful hymn (letter) - Therese F. Sellick Letters: Confession (letter) - Joe Slowiak Letters: Papal infallibility (letter) - Fr Brian Harrison OS Letters: Sex education in SA (letter) - Kevin McBride Letters: Martyrdom ignored - Tom King Letters: Orthodoxy? (letter) - Brian Dethridge Letters: Pantheism (letter) - Fr G.H. Duggan Letters: New Mass (letter) - Kevin Beck Letters: Lourdes appeal (letter) - Jenny Davies Books: Will Catholics be Left Behind, by Carl Olson - Envoy Magazine (reviewer) Books: The Divine Primacy: The Bishop of Rome and Modern Eastern Orthodoxy - Fr Peter Knowles OP (reviewer) JESUS: According to the Gospel of Luke (CD-ROM and Book) - Roberta Wilson (reviewer) Priests 24/7 : A video documentary - Michael Gilchrist (reviewer) Books: Great books at the best prices! Reflection: The Apocalypse: proclaiming the final victory of Christ and His Church - Fr G.H. Duggan SM

Father John Crothers' letter (April 2003 AD2000) shows unfortunate confusion on the subject of papal infallibility.

He claims that we do not have to recognise any papal document as infallible until such time as the Pope himself declares it to be infallible. This opinion is gratuitous, with no foundation in any document of the Church's teaching authority.

If Fr Crothers were correct, there would be no papal statements at all that Catholics would be bound to recognise as infallible; for no Pope has ever issued a personal declaration to the effect that any specific document is infallible! The word "infallible" appears nowhere in the 1854 and 1950 papal documents solemnly defining the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption respectively. And no separate papal documents were ever issued subsequently declaring either of those definitions respectively to be "infallible." Yet both of them are of course infallible. So is Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. Their own solemn wording makes this clear.

FR BRIAN HARRISON OS
Ponce, Puerto Rico

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 16 No 7 (August 2003), p. 15