Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/214

 194 of their predecessors or of the Church. Janus gives numerous instances. It became necessary, therefore, to specify some distinctive marks by which the product of Infallibility might be recognised. Accordingly, since the sixteenth century there grew up the famous view that papal judgments, when pronounced ex cathedra, were infallible. The remarks of Janus on this point ought to be given as far as may be in the writers' words.

The writers acknowledge that "the distinction between a judgment pronounced ex cathedra and a merely occasional or casual utterance is a perfectly reasonable one," not only in the case of a Pope, but in the case of any teacher. Every teacher will at times speak offhand, and at times speak officially and deliberately. "No reasonable man will pretend that the remarks made by a Pope in conversation are definitions of faith." But beyond this the distinction has no meaning. Every official utterance of a Pope must be an ex cathedra utterance. When a Pope speaks publicly on a point of doctrine, he has spoken ex cathedra; for he was questioned as Pope, and has answered as Pope. To introduce other conditions, such as whether he is addressing an individual, or a local Communion, or the entire Church, is to make purely arbitrary distinctions which are really prompted by the existence of certain inconvenient papal decisions inconsistent with the theory of his Infallibility.

This question, "Which of the papal decisions are infallible?" is indeed momentous to the Roman churchman. The authors of Janus are profoundly disturbed, for instance, to know whether the doctrines of the Syllabus produced under Pius IX. in 1864 are or are not included among infallible utterances.

No one will now deny that it was an act of discretion on the part of the authors of this book to produce it