Papal Infallibility and Florovsky Week

The fathers of the First Vatican Council voted on July 18, 1870 to approve the statement on Papal Infallibility published in Pastor Aeternus. This dogmatic constitution states that the Pope has "full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church" (chapter 3:9); and that, when he

speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals [chapter 4:9]

On the back of the program of the inaugural Florovsky Week, which I attended (parts of it) last week, the Eighth Day Institute announces the topic for next year's meeting, "returning to the sources for Christian unity": THE PATRISTIC VIEW OF CHURCH AUTHORITY: BIBLE, POPE OR PENTARCHY?

Last week I attended the Banquet Tuesday night, gave my own talk on "Reformation and Counter-Reformation: The Catholic Mission in England and Why It Failed" on Wednesday afternoon, attended one evening Plenary Lecture, another afternoon session of three papers (all held in different buildings at Newman University), and the Saturday Plenary lectures at St. George's Orthodox Cathedral (three lectures and lunch). Although Martin Luther's doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone was the title focus, matched by the image, most of the discussion I heard was about the Patristic View of Salvation, theosis or divinization or participation in the divine nature. The Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes the First Letter of St. Peter, two Fathers of the Church and St. Thomas Aquinas in paragraph 460:

"For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."79 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."80 "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."81 

78 2 Pt 1:4.
79 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939.
80 St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B.
81 St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57, 1-4.

Every event I attended was excellent and I look forward to next year's Florovsky Week.

In the meantime, the organizers are researching ways to publish the papers presented: three Plenary sessions by the designated Catholic (Kenneth Howell), Orthodox (Bradley Nassif), Protestant (Hans Boersma) with responses by the other two main speakers from Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at Newman; three more Plenary presentations by those speakers on Saturday at St. George's; the opening banquet speech by Erin Doom, and 26 (twenty-six) academic papers!! I submitted my academic paper to the EDI for consideration, so we'll see what happens!