Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/194

182 is, a grace which makes the person acceptable in God's sight—but a gratia gratis data, or a grace the benefit of which is for others, such as prophecy or healing, and the like. Now these gifts, as may be seen in Balaam, Caiaphas, and Judas, were not graces of sanctification, nor gifts that sanctified the possessor. They were exercised by men whose sin is recorded for our warning. By this also is excluded another misconception, if indeed any sincere mind ever entertained it namely, that if Popes are infallible they are therefore impeccable; that if they cannot err in faith, they cannot sin in morals; that if their intelligence be guided by divine light, their will must be necessarily conformed to divine grace. But it is to be doubted whether any man in good faith was ever so confused in mind. To be impeccable is to be confirmed in the sanctifying grace which makes men acceptable before God. To be illuminated or guarded from error may co-exist with the sin of Caiaphas, who was a prophet, and crucified the Redeemer of the world. The decree says that this charisma was given by God to Peter and his successors that in the discharge of their office they might not err. It does not even say that it is an abiding assistance present always, but only never absent in the discharge of their supreme office. And it further declares the ends for which this assistance is given—the one that the whole flock of Christ on