It is a great misfortune that many discussions surrounding the doctrine of papal infallibility as defined by the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) only center around the text of the dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus. In one sense, of course, this is quite natural, since this is the final text which emerged from the council, and is the definitive statement on the matter for the Catholic Church. On the other hand, however, as with all councils, there can often be just as much left unstated or understated when we take a document such as Pastor Aeternus and do not read about its genesis within the council and the debates held over it, not to mention the personalities that were personally responsible for the editing and presentation of a given document.
In this brief essay, I would like to focus on one document in particular, namely the so-called relatio of bishop Vincent Ferrer Gasser. The relatio, presented at the council on July 11, 1870, served as the official presentation on the meaning of papal infallibility, and thus its importance for interpreting Pastor Aeternus cannot be understated. Indeed, as Dom Cuthbert Butler wrote in his history of the First Vatican Council, "Msgr. Vincent Ferrer Gasser, Prince-Bishop of Brixen, Austria Tyrol, stands out as the most prominent theologian of the council" (Gasser & O'Connor 8). This statement is further corroborated by the fact that the Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution of the Church, Lumen Gentium, cites Gasser's relatio four times in the footnotes to chapter III, section 25 (footnotes 43-46, specifically), which deal with the doctrine of infallibility in passing. Thus, we are not unjustified in reading Gasser's relatio as highly revealing in regards to the mind of the bishops at Vatican I, and especially of the mind and intent of its principal authors and editors, as regards the dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus
Following the write up of a draft for chapter four of Pastor Aeternus by the deputation de fide, it was accepted as a working document by the council which was to be edited and revised as necessary. Two days before giving the relatio, certain proposals were made regarding the draft, and a reworking of the definition was made. It should be kept in mind that all of Gasser's remarks in the relatio are in reference to this draft and the proposed changes. In short, Gasser was entrusted by the deputation to relay its recommendations to the bishops and of giving an official explanation of the emended meanings to explain precisely what they would be voting on. On the day of the presentation, the explanation took nearly four hours to deliver!
Let's get to the document itself though. In the document it is explained that all of the Apostles were granted the gift of infallibility, albeit in different ways. For example, St. Peter was said to have possessed his infallibility in an ordinary manner, in a way connected with his primacy and the promises of Christ in Matthew 16:18-19, passing this infallibility onto his successors among the Bishops of Rome. With the other Apostles, however, the infallibility they possessed could be described as extraordinary, granted solely for the purpose of being witnesses to the risen Christ unto the ends of the earth. The apostolate, as we know, did not continue through time, but it was succeeded by the episcopate, which guards the deposit of the Apostles (2 Tim. 1:13-14). The episcopate, taken individually, does not come with a charism of personal infallibility, instead, this infallibility is only present in a corporate sense when the Bishops are joined together with their head, the Pope, together with the infallible aid of the Holy Spirit. The role of the successor of St. Peter, who has, as we have seen, inherited the ordinary infallibility of St. Peter, stands as the rock and center of unity for the Church (Gasser & O'Connor 22-26) It is his role to strengthen his brother Bishops. The proof from this is taken from the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus says to St. Peter:
“Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32)
Thus, the promise given by Christ to St. Peter in its original context is said to transfer or carry down through the ages.
Following some historical discussion, Gasser gets on to the definition of papal infallibility itself. Gasser states the following:
"When we attempt a more accurate determination of the state of the question [of papal infallibility], we must first come upon the words which have already so many times been ordered into exile from this hall, but which have not yet gone into exile. Those words are: infallibility that is personal, separate, and absolute. In reality the question hinges on these words." (Gasser & O'Connor 44, emphasis mine)
As Gasser makes clear, this is one of the most important and crucial parts of the entire document, that on which the doctrine of papal infallibility truly stands or falls at the bar of history.
Let's briefly summarize what Gasser says regarding each of these three points—
(1) The nature of papal infallibility being personal is meant to exclude a distinction between the Pope and the Roman Church. Or, to put it another way, the "infallibility is to said to be personal in order thereby to exclude a distinction between the See and the one who holds the See" (Gasser & O'Connor 45). Gasser makes it clear that infallibility does not belong to the Pope as a private person, but only as a public person in relation to the Church universal, and that the Pope is only infallible when he is defining a matter of faith and morals for the Church universal—it is this which would have divine assistance.
(2) Next, papal infallibility is defined as being separate or distinct, in the sense that it rests on a special promise of Jesus Christ to St. Peter. It is "a special assistance of the Holy Spirit, which assistance is not one and the same with that which the whole body of the teaching Church enjoys when united with its head" (Gasser & O'Connor 46, emphasis mine). Though Gasser is at pains to stress that the Pope is not separated from his union with the Church, he is emphatic that this infallibility is distinct, and it is distinct precisely because of the role of the Roman Pontiff within the Church—as the rock and center of unity, the papacy is necessary to the divine constitution of the Church in the same way that a foundation is inseparable from its edifice. Despite this 'separate' nature of papal infallibility, Gasser stresses the infallibility of the Pope does not come from inspiration or revelation or anything of that matter, but rather from divine assistance. It is worth quoting Gasser briefly here to give better insight in his view regarding the separate nature of infallibility and the issue of cooperation with the Church:
"[W]e do not thereby exclude the cooperation of the Church because the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff does not come to him in the manner of inspiration or of revelation but through a divine assistance. Therefore the Pope, by reason of his office and the gravity of the matter is held to use the means suitable for properly discerning and aptly enunciating the truth. These means are councils, or the advice of the bishops, cardinals, theologians, et cetera. Indeed the means are diverse according to the diversity of situations". (Gasser & O'Connor 47)
(3) For the third word, absolute, Gasser is frank in admitting that "in no sense is pontifical infallibility absolute, because absolute infallibility belongs to God alone" (Gasser & O'Connor 49). All other varieties of infallibility have terms, conditions and limits. In summary, he says:
"[I]n reality, the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff is restricted by reason of its subject, that is when the Pope, constituted in the chair of Peter, the center of the Church, speaks as universal teacher and supreme judge: it is restricted by reason of object, i.e. when treating matters of faith and morals; and by reason of the act itself, i.e., when the Pope defines what must be believed or rejected by all the faithful" (Gasser & O'Connor 49).
What follows is perhaps one of the most eyebrow-raising sections of the relatio. Gasser goes on to mention that some of the Bishops present at the Council want to add even more conditions onto the three which were just summarized. Namely, some of the Bishops desired a definition for the form which the Pontiff would use in making of these infallible judgments. What does Gasser reply? He says:
"But, most eminent and reverend Fathers, this proposal simply cannot be accepted because we are not dealing with something new here. Already thousands upon thousands of dogmatic judgments have gone forth from the Apostolic See; where is the law which prescribed the form to be observed in such judgments?" (Gasser & O'Connor 51).
The exact content of the doctrine to be defined is further specified later on in Gasser's relatio, when he denies that the ideas of Dutch Catholic theologian Albert Pighius (c. 1490-1542) are under discussion, which, essentially, held that the Pope as an individual or private teacher was only able to err from a certain sort of ignorance, but was never able to fall into heresy or teach heresy. What Gasser does say, however, is that:
"[T]he doctrine in the proposed chapter [of Pastor Aeternus] is not that of Albert Pighius or the extreme opinion of any school, but rather it is one and the same which Bellarmine teaches in the place cited by the reverend speaker and which Bellarmine adduces in the fourth place and calls most certain and assured, or rather, correcting himself, the most common and certain opinion" (Gasser & O'Connor 59)
The citation here is found in book 4, chapter 2 of St. Robert Bellarmine's five-book De Romano Pontifice. To quote,
"The fourth opinion is that in a certain measure, whether the Pope can he a heretic or not, he cannot define a heretical proposition that must be believed by the whole Church in any way. This is a very common opinion of nearly all Catholics" (Bellarmine 153)
Before going into a discussion of Gasser's relatio on a deeper level, let us look at the summary that Gasser gives himself regarding the definition under consideration. The subject of infallibility is said to be the Roman Pontiff as Pontiff, i.e. as a public person in relation to the universal Church. Furthermore, the Pontiff is said to speak ex cathedra not when he decrees something as a private teacher, nor only as the bishop and ordinary of a particular See and province, but when he teaches as exercising his office as supreme pastor and teacher of all Christians. And even this is not enough, according to Gasser, there is required a "manifest intention of defining doctrine, either of putting an end to a doubt about a certain doctrine or of defining a thing, giving a definitive judgment and proposing that doctrine as one which must be held by the universal Church" (Gasser & O'Connor 77). And indeed, this last point is said to be intrinsic quite literally to "every dogmatic definition of faith or morals that is taught by the supreme pastor and teacher of the universal Church. Indeed this very property and note of a definition, properly so-called, should be expressed, at least in some way, since he is defining doctrine to be held by the universal Church" (Gasser & O'Connor 77-78). Here we can see where Gasser probably gets his ideas that there have been thousands upon thousands of such judgments! There are said to be two things stipulated as necessary for an ex cathedra judgment, however, namely, that it must be held by the Church de fide, and that it is within the scope of faith and morals (Gasser & O'Connor 81).
So before moving on, we should probably define two more things—the first is the meaning of 'matters of morals' in the scope of papal infallibility. O'Connor, the translator of this relatio, attempts to define them as follows:
"Matters of morals" included not only what was directly revealed by God, but also the natural law, and the specific, concrete decisions that the Church had to make on moral matters for which an answer was not found in revelation. That the matters of morals were interpreted thus broadly can be seen by looking at two of the major theologians present at the Council itself. The Jesuit John Baptist Franzelin (1816-1886) held that the natural law was included under "matters of morals"; cf. his Tractatus de Divina Traditione et Scriptura, 4th edition, Rome, 1896, p. 112... He actually held these things to pertain to the "deposit of faith". Another Jesuit, Joseph Kleutgen (1811-1883) was a philosopher and theologian, went to Vatican I as the theologian for Konrad Martin of Paderborn and was the official relator for the Deputation de fide on the draft chapter of the proposed Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. In his remarks at that time, Kleutgen sets forth the position that holds that "matters of morals" include particular and specific moral decisions for which "an answer must be found in revelation itself" (Gasser & O'Connor 91)
And, to define 'define' itself, I will leave it to Gasser, who actually addressed this himself a few days after presenting his relatio:
"Now I shall explain in a very few words how this word "defines" is to be understood according to the Deputatio de fide. Indeed, the Deputation de fide is not of the mind that this word should be understood in a juridical sense (Lat. In sensu forensi) so that it only signifies putting an end to a controversy which has arisen in respect to heresy and doctrine which is properly speaking de fide. Rather, the word "defines" signifies that the pope directly and conclusively pronounces his sentence about a doctrine that concerns matters of faith and morals and does so in such a way that each one of the faithful can be certain of the mind of the Apostolic See, of the mind of the Roman Pontiff; in such a way, indeed, that he or she knows for certain that such and such a doctrine is held to be heretical, proximate to heresy, certain or erroneous, et cetera, by the Roman Pontiff. Such, therefore, is the meaning of the word "defines" (Gasser & O'Connor 92).
And there we have it, this is the gist of Gasser's presentation of papal infallibility that he gave in his relatio before the bishops of the First Vatican Council. Whatever one thinks of this doctrine, it certainly cannot be said that it is not the product of a great many holy and intelligent theologians throughout Catholic history, and that Gasser himself was certainly an erudite mind and skillful presenter of the proposed dogma. I hope that the presentation I have given of Gasser's own presentation has been illuminating in many respects in helping readers better grasp what exactly Pastor Aeternus is getting at with its doctrine of papal infallibility.
Ruminations on the Relatio
I do not intend to wrap up this post quite yet though, because I would like to discuss theoretical issues that I see with the relatio. Let's return to the three words that Gasser himself says that the doctrine hinges on - personal, separate, and absolute. Immediately, I will discard 'absolute' from the discussion here, since I have no problems with what Gasser says in this area of the relatio. Where I do begin to wrestle with this doctrine a bit is when the infallibility of the Pontiff is said to be 'personal'. As we have seen, when Gasser says that "infalliblity is to said to be personal in order thereby to exclude a distinction between the See and the one who holds the See" (Gasser & O'Connor 45), this is eliminating the distinction that some theologians made between the Sedes and the Sedens (the seat, and the one who sits). This distinction was one of the tenets of Conciliarism, and had a long history in the Church. For example, many of the canonists in the high Middle Ages, besides believing that in matters of faith that a council is more than a pope alone, they were also convinced that an individual pope could hypothetically fall into heresy. The famous principle that "prima sedes a nemine iudicatur" (the first see is judged by no one) was often paired with the so-called 'heresy clause' which entered into a collection of Church law called Decretum Gratiani (ca. 1140) by way of Humbert of Silva Candida. The 'heresy clause' qualified the dictum of prima sedes a nemine iudicatur with the words "nisi devius a fide deprehendatur" (except when he is convicted of deviation from the faith) (Schatz 95). Only later, of course, would such ideas really take on a life of their own when the Church was thrown into chaos with multiple papal claimants in the 15th century's Western Schism. The takeaway from this, of course, however, is that there seems to have been a sedes / sedens distinction at work here.
Another famous case would come from the Second Council of Constantinople in 553. The council was about the issue of the Three Chapters, particularly the figures Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus and Ibas of Edessa, whom Justinian wished to be condemned in order to reconcile with the Miaphysites. Eventually a general council was convened, mostly full of Eastern Bishops. After Pope Vigilius initially attempted to boycott the council and settle the matter himself with his First Constitutum, refusing to condemn the Three Chapters in toto, the Emperor Justinian leaked a dossier to the bishops of the council which included the repeated promises of the Pope to condemn the Three Chapters. The Pope was humiliated, and Justinian issued an edict to the Bishops, removing Vigilius from the diptychs, "emphasizing that it was the man Vigilius, and not the See of Rome, he was rejecting: non sedem, sed sedentem ('not the see itself, but the one who sits in it')" (Duffy 57). The bishops concurred, retaining communion with Elder Rome. It certainly doesn't seem like the Bishops of Constantinople II had any sort of idea that the Pope had a personal infallibility that he possessed qua Pontiff that did not permit him to be condemned in his person for the troubles he had caused. Now of course, I am very wary of calling Pope Vigilius a heretic in the sense that Pope Honorius was later condemned repeatedly. I will not cover Honorius in this essay, but it could certainly add an interesting dimension to the discussion. I say this regarding Vigilius because he never wavered on his adherence to the Christological dogmas of the Council of Chalcedon (451). The main issue of the Three Chapters Controversy involved whether certain deceased writers should be condemned post-mortem. Vigilius was not inclined to do such a thing, because they were deceased, and because these figures were seemingly accepted without much comment at the Council of Chalcedon, and for this reason, many Bishops in the West reacted with extreme hostility towards the idea of the condemnation of the Three Chapters, given how they saw the condemnation of these figures as showing a betrayal of Chalcedon. So, is it heretical to waver on condemning figures while not denying Chalcedon? It doesn't really seem like it to me.
Regardless, the Vigilius issue gets even thornier when we read his First Constitutum, which was issued in an attempt to settle the issue outside of the council, was also seemingly ignored by the Bishops at Constantinople II, i.e. it was not confirmed by them, which seems to raise the spectre of the fourth of the Gallican Articles, which expressly maintains that while the Pope has chief part in questions of faith, and his decrees apply to all the churches, yet still, his judgment is not irreformable without the consent of the Church. The attitude of the council to the the seemingly definitive nature of this decree stands out quite starkly:
"We...enact and decree that no one with ecclesiastical dignity and rank is permitted to hold or write or produce or compose or teach anything about the oft-mentioned Three Chapters contrary to what we have declared and enacted in this present definition, or to raise any further inquiry subsequent to the present definition. But if in the name of anyone with ecclesiastical dignity and rank there has been, or will have been, done, said and written, by whomsoever and wheresoever it so transpire, anything in breach of what we have here declared and enacted concerning these Three Chapters, this we totally annul with the authority of the apostolic see over which by the grace of God we preside" (Price 211)
Keeping in mind that Gasser has already told us that the infallible definitions are meant to bind the entire Church on a given judgment definitively on a matter of faith and morals, and that said definitions need no distinct formulas. Perhaps someone with a jesuitical mind could say, 'See, he only forbids people of ecclesiastical dignity and rank, not the entire Church", but I am unsure about this. However, I mention this forbidding of writing against the Chapters because later Vigilius will do a complete reversal after he is removed from the diptychs and detained after Constantinople II. First, Vigilius essentially blames the machinations of the devil at work in the world for the resulting chaos in the Church, he appeals to the example of St. Augustine who issued his own retractions, and now he says:
"We anathematize and condemn the aforesaid three impious chapters... Whosoever at any time believes that these ought to be accepted or defended, or ever tries to rescind the present condemnation we condemn with an equal anathema, while we hold as brethren and fellow priests those who, preserving the correct faith proclaimed by the aforesaid four synods, have condemned or condemn the afore-mentioned Three Chapters. But whatever was done by myself or by others in defence of the afore-mentioned Three Chapters we annul by the authority of our present letter" (Price 217-218).
It certainly seems like one seemingly definitive judgment is made, and that Vigilius would nullify his own retraction in the second letter of Vigilius to Eutychius with the statements of the First Constitutum. Perhaps I am overthinking all of this, though, and none of this is a good example. I will revisit this in the future, however, I do believe that it has been shown that the Bishops of Constantinople II and the Emperor Justinian had some notion of the sedes / sedens distinction and stood in judgment in an ecumenical council over the Bishop of Rome. And even if my contention that Vigilius was not, strictly speaking, a heretic is true, this would just be so much the worse for the case, because the prima sedes would be being judged without necessarily meeting the stipulation of the later 'heresy clause'.
Regarding the 'separate' or 'distinct' character of infallibility, I honestly have less of a complaint, though to be honest I do not like the way that Gasser articulates it in his relatio, namely in distinguishing it from the infallibility of the Church, as we have seen, he says it is a "a special assistance of the Holy Spirit, which assistance is not one and the same with that which the whole body of the teaching Church enjoys when united with its head" (Gasser & O'Connor 46). Personally, I recently found the notion of infallibility put forward by Hermann of Schildesche in the 14th century, who wrote the following:
"The pope's decision is founded on the Catholic Church, which cannot err or fall away from the infallible truth, just as the judgment of the head is rooted in the body.... Thus the pope will never make a false judgment in such things or err if he is well integrated into the body of the Church (si bene corpori Ecclesiae coaptetur)" (Schatz 120).
We can see a difference here from theologians such as Augustinus Triumphus (d. 1328), who took the position that "the pope is the head of the whole mystical body of the Church in such a way that he receives nothing of power and authority from the members, but only exercises influence on them, for he is purely and simply the head" (Schatz 94), Hermann's position uses the head/body dichotomy in a different way, where it is not a one-sided dependence of the body on the head alone, but the living organic relationship between the body and the head is stressed (Schatz 120). It is true that Gasser himself does not necessarily claim that the Pope is utterly isolated from the rest of the Church due to his separate infallibility, for as he says:
"[W]e do not separate the pope, even minimally, from the consent of the Church, as long as that consent is not laid down as a condition that is either antecedent or consequent. We are not able to separate the Pope from the consent of the Church because this consent is never able to be lacking to him.
Indeed, since we believe that the Pope is infallible through the divine assistance, by that very fact we also believe that the assent of the Church will not be lacking to his definitions since it is not able to happen that the body of bishops be separated from its head and since the Church Universal is not able to fail" (Gasser & O'Connor 47-48).
Thus in Gasser's notions of ecclesiology, the body is well-connected with the head, but there is no real question of the head, seemingly, becoming disconnected or not being well-rooted in the body. This again raises the specter of the Vigilius case in his reaction to the Three Chapters, with all of the early caveats in mind, but I digress.
Finally, I would like to dwell momentarily on the fact that these definitions of the Popes need no definitional formula, and that thousands of such judgments have gone forth. This is a kill-shot for those Catholics today who try to restrict ex cathedra statements to only two statements, both in the last two hundred years, that deal with dogmas related to the Virgin Mary. This is untenable in light of the relatio, and such readings of Pastor Aeternus simply must be rejected out of hand, along with those who try to claim that certain statements in the past simply cannot be infallible because the Pope didn't explicitly say 'I define, decree.., etc.' or whatever formula some of the people I have interacted with seem to believe is necessary. Gasser rejects this in his presentation, and so I would argue, it is rejected essentially by Pastor Aeternus as well.
I do think that this whole dogma gets messy at some point though, are we able to determine what these 'thousands' of ex cathedra statements are? And given that there is no set definitional formula, we are even more in the dark. Of course we have Gasser's stipulations in the relatio which are certainly helpful, but they will be no more than just that, helpful. When we get to the question of the Roman Pontiff being a public teacher of the whole Church, how does this apply in cases like Pope Francis' repeated condemnations of the death penalty? Previous Popes such as Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, it is true, spoke against the death penalty on the grounds of the increased effectiveness of modern detention methods, but Pope Francis has gone much further than his predecessors, not only condemning it, but has even put its condemnation in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which now reads: "no matter how serious the crime that has been committed, the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and the dignity of the person.” (CCC 267). Indeed, in 2017 he even said that the death penalty "is in itself contrary to the Gospel because it is voluntarily decided to suppress a human life, which is always sacred in the eyes of the Creator and of which God only in the final analysis is the true judge and guarantor." Though he said this latter quote in a speech, surely appealing to development of doctrine, claiming that the death penalty is inadmissible, cruel, an affront to the dignity of humanity, etc. and putting it in the Catechism of the Catholic Church means something in terms of doctrinal authority, doesn't it? One can lawyer about this all day, of course. He's not teaching as a private person, that is absurd given what we have said, he is teaching the universal Church as Pope, and saying that it is inadmissible now. Given that the death penalty is a matter of faith and morals and is within Scripture itself (Genesis 9, etc), is this not a matter of faith and morals? One will likely ask now, 'But did he bind the Church?' He certainly taught the Church on a matter of faith and morals and said it's a grave affront to human dignity and put it in the Catechism. If that doesn't have an extremely high level of authority from within the Catholic paradigm, I don't know what does. I doubt Pope Francis would excommunicate dissenters over this, but excommunications for him seem to be reserved to those who are traditionalists more than anyone else, so it is hard to say. Mainly, however, I am just floating various ideas and concerns that I have about the dogma, more than putting my foot down anywhere in particular.
This essay has just been a brief overview of Gasser's relatio, hoping to educate some people on a document that unfortunately remains far too little known despite its importance at Vatican I and its continued relevance at Vatican II as well. I recommend anyone interest pick up the book The Gift of Infallibility translated by James T. O'Connor, and published by Ignatius Press. I quite literally read the entire book in one sitting, reading for nearly eight hours straight when I first read it last year. It is a fascinating work, and despite the difficulties that I have with Pastor Aeternus in some respects, as my readers will have witnessed here, I couldn't help but come away after reviewing the text in the process of writing this and reviewing my notes that Vatican I is more sensible than some people think. I do not sit completely easy with it though, there are many other issues I could have considered, but as I thought, I wrote, and as I knew, I said. This essay was created largely on a whim in one sitting. Maybe I will write more on this topic one day. Thanks for reading.
Sources
Bellarmine, Robert, De Controversiis: On the Roman Pontiff, Vol. 2: Books 3-5
Duffy, Eamon, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes
Gasser, Vincent Ferrer & O’Connor, James T, The Gift of Infallibility
Price, Richard, The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553
Schatz, Klaus, Papal Primacy: From Its Origins to the Present
Links
Letter to the Bishops regarding the new revision of number 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty, from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 02.08.2018:
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2018/08/02/180802b.html
Lumen Gentium:
https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html
Pope Francis: Death penalty is contrary to the Gospel: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/36985/pope-francis-death-penalty-is-contrary-to-the-gospel