 Seminarian: Josh Miechels
Joshua Miechels is a seminarian of the Archdiocese of Sydney in the Emmanuel Community.
Why
infallibility? In a world passing from modernism (what is good and
true is limited to what I can see and intellectually abstract) to
post-modernism (what is good and true is limited to how I feel),
some might suggest that this is an area - maybe the biggest! - where
the Catholic Church has it's head in some serious sand. After all,
humanity cannot really access the Truth can it?
Every man and woman has a right to hear the truth. But who can
objectively know what is true? God knows – and if he doesn't, you're
not talking about God. God is true, and he gave us His son Jesus
Christ to bring all men and women into the truth.
The first role of a bishop then is to proclaim Jesus Christ – the
Truth - to all men. To be able to do this – to proclaim Jesus Christ
as He really is, not as we might like to think that He is – the bishops
need of course to have the authority of no-less than Christ Himself.
Luckily, then, they do. During His earthly ministry, and after the
Resurrection, Jesus gave the Apostles – the first bishops – the mission
to proclaim the gospel, and the power to do so: a share in His Own
infallibility. Jesus fully confirmed them in this mission by the gift
of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost: "But you shall receive power when the
Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in
Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."
(Acts 1:8). Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, Christ ensured and
ensures that the Church, His own body, rests united to Himself, the
unique head of His body.
It's important to clarify that this infallibility is a limited
one. The Church cannot teach infallibly on any subject she likes, but
only on questions of faith and morals. She exercises this teaching
authority (the magisterium – coming from 'magister' the Latin word for
'teacher') in an infallible fashion in two ways. The first is through
the bishops, united in an ecumenical council in union with the
successor of St Peter, the Pope, on a question of faith and morals.
The last such council was Vatican II.
The second is through the successor of St Peter himself, as Jesus
articulated to Peter: " And I tell you, you are Peter [Rock], and on
this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not
prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,
and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever
you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. " (Matthew 16:18-19).
In practice, the Pope teaches infallibly when he chooses to speak
specifically in his office as Pope, making a declaration on either
faith or morals, with the intention to speak ex cathedra – that is to
say to speak "from the chair" of Peter. In all history, he has done
so only twice:- the definition of the Immaculate Conception by Pope
Pius IX in 1854; and the definition of the Assumption of Mary by Pope
Pius XII in 1950.
This infallibity is a great thing for Christianity, and for all
mankind. God shares His infallibility with man. This is an amazing
gift, a real witness to how much God loves us. In this way, we know
that what the Church teaches is not simply what she thinks, or what she
reckons, or what is probably true but isn't, or what we think we will
never change but might in 50 years. It's solid, it's secure – it's
true. We can trust it, we can really believe in Jesus Christ, we can
really let ourselves be made holy and happy and free by him through His
Body the Church. More fundamentally, it means that mankind has access
to, man can believe and live in Truth.
Fallible post-modernity needs Catholic infallibility. And so does each one of us.
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