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Rh serving and truly interpreting, by the same divine assistance, the depositum fidei preserved in the Church. This apostolical teaching of the Popes, he says, the venerable Fathers and all orthodox teachers in the Church have, from of old up to the present time, accepted with a full and perfect conviction that the See of blessed Peter, by virtue of the Divine Providence of our Lord and Saviour, has been constantly kept from all error; for so Jesus Christ spoke to Peter: 'I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and do thou, in thy turn one day, strengthen thy brethren' (Luc. cap. xxii. v. 32). The reason is also added why God gave this great grace to St. Peter and his successors in the office of supreme teacher—viz. that they might exercise this office for the spiritual benefit of all the faithful, that thereby the Church, trusted by God to their supreme pastoral care, might through those who exercise this office of supreme teacher be maintained with out fear of error in the divine truth, and thus the whole Church be preserved in unity. Therefore, in accordance with that tradition which has ever existed in the Church from the beginning of the Christian religion, and which has always been maintained inviolate, it is declared by the Vatican Council, to the glory of God and for the salvation of Christian people, to be a constituent part of the Catholic faith revealed by God, 'that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks from his chair of teaching, (or ex cathedrâ)—that is to say, when he, in the exercise of his office as pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, defines a doctrine which concerns faith or morals to be held de fide by the whole Church—