CHAPTER XIX
THE INFALLIBILITY DOCTRINE
It is essential to the completeness of our exposition that we should analyse the doctrine itself which the Vatican Council decreed. The Vatican affirmation is that, under certain circumstances, the Pope is infallible, or divinely protected from error in his official utterances on faith and morals to the whole Church. We will omit for the present the limitations and confine our attention solely to the Council's statement that the Pope's Infallibility is "that with which God was pleased to endow His Church." Thus Papal Infallibility is considered co-extensive with the Church's Infallibility.
But what is Infallibility? It does not imply the granting of a new revelation. It is concerned with the exposition of a revelation already given. It is not equivalent to Inspiration, such as the Apostles possessed. It is merely "assistance by which its possessor is not permitted to err whether in the use of the means for investigating revealed truth or in proposing truth for human acceptance."[1] It is, according to Newman,[2] simply an external guardianship, keeping its recipient off from error: "as a man's guardian angel, without enabling him to walk, might,
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