Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus II (Pars Altera): Demonstratio Catholica

1. The magisterium of the whole dispersed Church is understood as the doctrine which the entire episcopate proposes by its ordinary and daily exercise everywhere on earth. We here regard only the doctrine of the whole episcopate, because Jesus Christ, as we have shown, conferred infallibility not upon individual bishops, but upon the whole episcopate, insofar as, morally united with the supreme pontiff, it represents the apostolic college.¹ The universality, however, or consensus, of the dispersed magisterium is either moral or physical. Physical, or mathematical, consensus bends absolutely all bishops into one opinion; moral consensus is present when nearly all bishops think the same. Physical consensus is not required, but moral consensus suffices. For individual bishops lack not only infallibility of right, but also of fact, i. e., not only can individuals err, but they are proved to err by that very fact, as often as they oppose the universality of those teaching. Therefore their dissenting opinion is not to be regarded, but the agreeing doctrine of the morally universal Church is to be followed.

2. The infallibility of the magisterium of the whole dispersed Church proposing the faith is proved from the words of Christ, from the indefectibility of the Church, and from the persuasion of antiquity.

a) From the words of Christ, by which He promised His assistance in teaching to the magisterium of the Church: “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”² Christ therefore promised His assistance, and consequently infallibility, to the ecclesiastical magisterium “all days”. But if the ecclesiastical magisterium were infallible only when gathered in councils, those words of Christ would be illusory, since councils cannot be celebrated “all days”. Therefore infallibility in teaching is by no means restricted to councils.

b) From the indefectibility of the Church. Since the faithful in believing follow, and must follow, the daily magisterium of the bishops and of their delegates, if the daily magisterium failed, the faith of the faithful would also fail, and consequently that of the Church itself. But the faith of the Church can never fail.³ Therefore the ordinary and universal magisterium of the Church will always be infallible.

c) From the persuasion of antiquity. The Church at no time failed to propose the faith and peremptorily to repel heresies by the universal and daily consensus of the magisterium. Thus in the first three centuries, in which there were no ecumenical councils, it commonly, and in the later centuries frequently, condemned heretics and established and safeguarded the true faith by an extra-conciliar consensus. Thus St. Augustine refuted the Pelagians appealing to a council: “Or was there need of a gathering of a synod, that an open pestilence might be condemned? as though no heresy had ever been condemned except by a gathering of a synod: whereas rather very few are found, for the condemning of which such a necessity arose; and there are many, incomparably more, which, where they arose, there deserved to be disapproved and condemned, and from there could become known throughout the other lands as to be avoided ... But truly the pride of these men ... is understood to seek after even this glory, that on their account a synod of the East and of the West should be gathered. For since, the Lord resisting them, they cannot pervert the catholic world, they at least attempt to disturb it.”⁴

Finally, to the extraconciliar magisterium of the whole Church and to the solemn definitions of the councils there are added: