Preview: Papal Infallibility and the Siege of Paris: 150 Years Ago

On Monday, February 10, we'll discuss two interconnected anniversaries on the Son Rise Morning Show: The dogmatic definition of Papal Infallibility at the First Vatican Council on July 18, 1870 and the Siege of Paris at the end of the Franco-Prussian War beginning on September 19, 1870.

The First Vatican Council was convened by Pope Pius IX (Blessed Pope Pius IX, whose feast is February 7) on December 8, 1869 (the feast of the Immaculate Conception, celebrating the dogma Pope Pius IX had declared in 1854 via the Papal Bull Ineffabilis Deus). 

The purpose of the First Vatican Council was to clarify the Church's teaching about the Church itself. The bishops met, not in the Lateran Basilica like previous councils held in Rome, but in St. Peter's Basilica. As the bishops met in council, Pope Pius IX was already the "Prisoner of the Vatican", as Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia had conquered the Papal States. Troops from the French Empire, ruled by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon III, protected the Pope in Rome, which had not yet been taken by the Italian revolutionaries.

Although the First Vatican Council is most famous for the proclamation of Papal Infallibility, there was another document issued, Dei Filius, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, on April 24, 1870. It has four chapters: 1. God, Creator of All Things; 2. Revelation; 3. Faith; 4. Faith and Reason. It begins (in translation):

The holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church believes and confesses that there is one, true, living God, Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, omnipotent, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in intellect and will, and in every perfection; who, although He is one, singular, altogether simple and unchangeable spiritual substance, must be proclaimed distinct in reality and essence from the world; most blessed in Himself and of Himself, and ineffably most high above all things which are or can be conceived outside Himself.

This sole true God by His goodness and "omnipotent power," not to increase His own beatitude, and not to add to, but to manifest His perfection by the blessings which He bestows on creatures, with most free volition, "immediately from the beginning of time fashioned each creature out of nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely angelic and mundane; and then the human creation, common as it were, composed of both spirit and body" [Lateran Council IV, can. 2 and 5]

But God protects and governs by His providence all things which He created, "reaching from end to end mightily and ordering all things sweetly" [cf. Wis 8:1]. For "all things are naked and open to His eyes" [Heb 4:13], even those which by the free action of creatures are in the future.

The document on the nature of the Church, which included the role of the Papacy, faced more opposition and therefore, Pope Pius IX decided the bishops should define only the role of the Pope in that document, which became known by its first words, Pastor Aeternus, defining Papal Infallibility as one of its topics. Pastor Aeternus was finally adopted on July 18, 1870 with two dissenting votes. One of those dissenting votes was cast by the Bishop of Little Rock, Arkansas: Edward Fitzgerald, whose family had left Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine! He was concerned--as was St. John Henry Newman in England--that the declared definition of the doctrine would hamper his efforts to evangelize. Like Newman, he agreed that the Pope exercised magisterial infallibility in declaring dogma in certain limited occasions; he just thought the public definition was inopportune. The other dissenter was Aloisio Riccio of Sicily. Both accepted the doctrine after it had been declared.

With two documents completed, and after the bishops had been in Rome for seven months, the bishops were to return to their home dioceses for a summer break and then come back to the Vatican for further consultations, taking up the document on the nature of the Church, for example, on the role of the bishops. That's when the Franco-Prussian war intervened.

Prussian troops were advancing in France quickly, so Napoleon III had to recall the French troops garrisoned in Civitavecchia in August of 1870. When the French were defeated at the Battle of Sedan at the beginning of September that year, the new Kingdom of Italy invaded Rome and took over the city, removing it from Papal jurisdiction. On September 20, 1870, Pope Pius IX suspended the First Vatican Council indefinitely. It was formally closed in 1960, before the Second Vatican Council convened.

So while the unification of Italy proceeded apace, so did the Franco-Prussian War, and the French were losing. Just as the Kingdom of Italy needed to take Rome to be unified, the Prussian-German nation needed to take Paris to be victorious. Thus, the Siege of Paris beginning on September 19, 1870.

More about that Monday!!

Newman and Papal Infallibility

As I previewed on Friday, today's topic in our Santo Subito! series on the Son Rise Morning Show is Newman on Papal Infallibility. (7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central).

Newman was not opposed to Papal Infallibility per se as the First Vatican Council met. He was more opposed to what some in the Ultramontanist Party at the Council meant by Papal Infallibility, going beyond faith and morals and into political and social definitions and even verging on Papal Indefectibility, holding that the Pope could make no personal error. Newman was also concerned that some wanted to vest Infallibility in the person, not the office.

As the Council continued and reports demonstrated that his concerns about how the Ultramontane group (and even Pope Pius IX) was treating those who thought the timing for the definition unfortunate, he became more concerned. But he also knew that this was how Councils were: Church History showed him that men and not angels were proposing and debating crucial issues in the Church. Even the early Councils of the Church, defining what the Church believed about the Person of Jesus and His Natures, led to division and confusion. When the bishops left Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, or Chalcedon, new heresies arose and they had to meet again and again to define the truth--and even after the Church's teaching about Jesus was finally expressed, there was schism.

As I told the participants at the Eighth Day Institute's Florovsky-Newman Week:

When Pastor Aeternus was finally voted on, he was pleased to see that Papal Infallibility was narrowly defined; he waited to see how the dissenting bishops responded: securus judicat orbis terrarum! Newman made no public statement except to again deny rumours that he was going to leave the Catholic Church (he had to make these periodically!)

Only when William E. Gladstone, former Prime Minister, published The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance in 1874 did Newman respond in 1875 with his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, addressing his counter-argument to the pre-eminent Catholic peer, Henry FitzAlan Howard, scion of a family with two martyrs (Philip Howard and William Howard) in its pedigree. Selecting the 15th Duke of Norfolk as his public correspondent was testing Gladstone’s main contention: that Catholics could not be loyal Englishmen if they accepted Papal Infallibility. Was the Earl Marshall of England, who happened to be a Catholic and a graduate of Newman’s Oratory School, not a loyal Englishman? Did Gladstone really mean that?

We discussed Newman's response to Gladstone's notion that Catholics in England would have to suppress or ignore their consciences in order to accept the doctrine of Papal Infallibility in March when we talked about Newman and Conscience. What Newman also accomplished in A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk was explaining how limited the use of Papal Infallibility was. Again, from my paper:

Besides, he reminded Gladstone, the Pope’s Infallibility is limited to speaking on matters of faith and morals as abstract doctrine and principles, not on individual decisions of what to do or not to do in a certain situation. . . .

In a later chapter, on “The Vatican Definition” Newman emphasizes that the Pope speaks infallibly only under certain conditions:

He speaks ex cathedrâ, or infallibly, when he speaks, first, as the Universal Teacher; secondly, in the name and with the authority of the Apostles; thirdly, on a point of faith or morals; fourthly, with the purpose of binding every member of the Church to accept and believe his decision.

When the Pope is speaking his mind on any subject like the interpretation of scripture, economics, history, etc., he is not infallible because “he is not in the chair of the universal doctor.” Even if the Pope makes dogmatic statements in an encyclical, as Pope John Paul II did in The Gospel of Life, reiterating Catholic teaching against abortion, for example, those are not exercises of Papal Infallibility. 

Since the definition of Papal Infallibility in 1870, only one Pope has used this power: Pope Pius XII when defining the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1950. In spite of his reservations about the First Vatican Council's conduct, Newman accepted the work of the Council, but he knew that the Church--the whole Church, including the laity and the theologians, needed time to understand the theology and practice of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. The First Vatican Council was abbreviated by the Franco-Prussian War and the cause of Italian unity, as the Italian Army was soon at the gates; the Papal States were lost and the long period the Pope as "the prisoner of the Vatican" began. 

Newman was always ready to obey the Pope and pray for the Pope as this 1866 Sermon preached at the Birmingham Oratory shows. He also helped Catholics and non-Catholics understand Papal Infallibility, providing an explanation that Father John O'Malley, in his book Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church, says “soon achieved almost canonical status” by answering Gladstone's objections.

The First Vatican Council and Infallibility

From Harvard University Press:

The enduring influence of the Catholic Church has many sources—its spiritual and intellectual appeal, missionary achievements, wealth, diplomatic effectiveness, and stable hierarchy. But in the first half of the nineteenth century, the foundations upon which the church had rested for centuries were shaken. In the eyes of many thoughtful people, liberalism in the guise of liberty, equality, and fraternity was the quintessence of the evils that shook those foundations. At the Vatican Council of 1869–1870, the church made a dramatic effort to set things right by defining the doctrine of papal infallibility.

In Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church, John W. O’Malley draws us into the bitter controversies over papal infallibility that at one point seemed destined to rend the church in two. Archbishop Henry Manning was the principal driving force for the definition, and Lord Acton was his brilliant counterpart on the other side. But they shrink in significance alongside Pope Pius IX, whose zeal for the definition was so notable that it raised questions about the very legitimacy of the council. Entering the fray were politicians such as Gladstone and Bismarck. The growing tension in the council played out within the larger drama of the seizure of the Papal States by Italian forces and its seemingly inevitable consequence, the conquest of Rome itself.

Largely as a result of the council and its aftermath, the Catholic Church became more pope-centered than ever before. In the terminology of the period, it became ultramontane.

The Contents:

Introduction
1. Catholicism and the Century of Lights
2. The Ultramontane Movement
3. The Eve of the Council
4. Under Way and Moving toward Dei Filius
5. Infallibility
Conclusion
Appendix: English Translation of Pastor Aeternus
Basic Chronology
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

I've read Father O'Malley's book on Trent and really look forward to another book that's forthcoming, When Bishops Meet about Trent, Vatican I and II.

Why I read this book now: the Eighth Day Institute's second annual theological conference, this year called the "Florovsky-Newman Week", takes up the subject of authority in the Christian Church. The title and description:

The Patristic View of Authority: Bible, Pope, or Conciliarity?

Co-sponsored by Eighth Day Institute and the Gerber Institute for Catholic Studies, the Florovsky-Newman Week promotes a “return to the sources for Christian unity.” Heeding Fr. Florovsky's advice, rather than simply overlooking differences, this conference seeks to overcome the different views of church authority. And we do so by returning to the common Tradition, by learning to read the Fathers as living masters, rather than as historical documents. Our hope is for you to deepen your understanding of the authority by which the Church grounds her faith and morals, examining authority from our respective traditions as Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians. Join us for this unique event as we dive into the Church Fathers in order to explore, challenge, and encourage one another to better love God and neighbor.

Note the addition of Blessed John Henry Newman to the title (last year it was just "Florovsky Week"!):

Soon to be St. John Henry Newman, this 19th century educator, poet, pastor, and theologian is considered by many to be the most important (and controversial) figure in the history of England. As a leader in the Oxford Movement, his immersion in the early Tradition of the Church, especially the Church Fathers, led to his conversion from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. Cited frequently by Fr. Georges Florovsky, a case can be made that Newman's emphasis on the Fathers was key to the development of Florovsky's ecumenical proposal for a neopatristic synthesis.

As at last year's event, three speakers, one Catholic, one Protestant, and one Orthodox, will make presentations in the evening and weekend plenary sessions. The other speakers will respond: the Catholic and the Orthodox to the Protestant speaker, etc. During the day there are academic paper sessions, time for prayer, meetings at Eighth Day Books, etc. The banquet and presentations on Wednesday through Friday are at Newman University; on Saturday, we move to St. George Orthodox Cathedral.

So anyway, this book is part of my preparation--I've submitted a proposal for a paper, but I haven't received notice officially that it's been accepted--for the conference.

Father O'Malley devotes three of the five chapters to the background of the First Vatican Council, the first Church Council since Trent in the 16th century. He reviews the political and culture situation in Europe, especially in Italy, where the Pope's temporal authority over the Papal States and Rome was in danger in the drive for Italian unity and nationhood. He examines the relationship between Church and the nations in Europe, especially trends like Gallicanism,  Febronianism, and Josephinism through which the state or the ruler controlled education, formation of priests, selection of bishops, monastic and religious foundations, etc. O'Malley's survey in those three chapters thus begins in the eighteenth century, explores the grassroots origins of the Ultramontane movement--meaning grassroots from the laity, to the priesthood, to the academic world, and to the episcopacy--and the pontificate of Pope Pius IX (including the history of the treatment of the popes personally during the revolutionary movements of France and Italy).

As Deal Hudson points out in his interview with Father O'Malley from April 2018, Pope Pius IX (Pio Nino) does not come off very well in the narration of the events at the First Vatican Council. He and Archbishop Manning and others in the majority Ultramontane party do things that range from the manipulative to the vindictive. They were already in the majority; there was going to be some statement on Papal Infallibility from the Council; they did not need to treat certain bishops so abusively. The two chapters on the events of the Council also point out how much the press, Catholic and secular, especially Louis Veuillot's Univers, not only covered, but influenced the Council. At the same time, Lord Acton, William Gladstone, and Johann Dollinger were gathered (as shown in the picture above) to talk about the Council and its activities, trying to lobby against a decree on Papal Infallibility.

In his Conclusion Father O'Malley discusses the aftermath of the First Vatican Council, including, all too briefly I think, Newman's response to Gladstone's overreaction to Pastor Aeternus. In his interview with Deal Hudson, O'Malley opines that since the decree on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, there has been no exercise of Papal Infallibility in matters of faith and morals. But the Church has been more centered on the role of the Pope in the everyday lives of Catholics, with Papal documents, speeches, travels, audiences, etc. One could also argue that the greatest event of the twentieth century for Catholics was the Second Vatican Council, which changed many aspects of daily Catholic life on the local, not Papal, level. Father O'Malley doesn't discuss this, but the long papacy of Pope Saint John Paul II also changed Catholics' view of the pope's role in our lives: his travels, his theological and philosophical influence, the saints he canonized, the reforms he instituted (Canon Law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, World Youth Day, the Synods of Bishops, etc), his great project of the celebration of the Third Millennium of Christianity, have formed our image of what a pope should be and do.

Father O'Malley is great historian and writer. He uses the sources well; writes succinctly and clearly; analyses cogently.

Highly recommended: except that I think he should have dedicated a few paragraphs to show how Newman's response to Gladstone formed the mainline interpretation of Papal Infallibility and authority.

Note that I purchased my copy of this book.

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!

Newman, Gladstone, and Conscience AND Obedience

Tod Worner writes for Aleteia:

The attack was swift and fierce. The leading light and liberal lion in British politics, Prime Minister (sic) W.E. Gladstone, launched a scathing broadside against Catholics in the British Empire. Fearful that a Catholic’s allegiance to the Church in Rome threatened a vile treachery, Gladstone fulminated that “no one can become [the Catholic Church’s] convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another.”

It wasn’t the first time it had happened, English Catholic priest (and convert from Anglicanism) John Henry Newman surely lamented. Nor would it be the last. And so he was compelled to respond. In his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk written in 1875, Newman schooled the prime minister on the true “moral and mental freedom” of the Catholic faithful. The letter, in fact, turned into a brilliant treatise on the Catholic Conscience. And it is doubtful Gladstone even knew what hit him.

Read the rest there, which includes excerpts from the chapter on conscience in Newman's letter.

Gladstone wasn't Prime Minister in 1874 when he wrote his pamphlet four years after the declaration of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility in 1870 at the First Vatican Council: The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance. He did know what hit  him: he responded to Newman's Letter to the Duke of Norfolk in another pamphlet, Vaticanism: an Answer to Reproofs and Replies. In that second pamphlet, Gladstone states that England has not yet realized what it lost when Newman became a Catholic--it would take time, as it had in the case of John Wesley, for historians to assess the effects of Newman's conversion on religion in England.

I'd recommend the chapter on "Newman and Gladstone" (as well as the entire book) from Edward Short's Newman and His Contemporaries to understand this entire episode and Newman's great achievement in writing his pamphlet. Short describes how Newman wanted to respond to not only Gladstone but those ultra-Ultramontanists like W. G. Ward who were saying things like the Pope "has the power of deposing any sovereign, whose government he may consider injurious to the spiritual welfare of that country" and that "the Pope's temporal power is 'the very bulwark and citadel of Catholic order, liberty, and progress'" (page 234). Newman complained how much Ward mistrusted him, even hoping that Anglicans would not come to the Catholic Church through his influence! Short also describes how carefully Newman wrote this pamphlet, quoting him: it was "the toughest job I ever had." He was not only reminding his audience of the classic Catholic idea of conscience, with all its responsibilities and rights, but also narrowing the kind of papal statements Catholics would respond to with required obedience: to matters of faith and morals, not practical matters. Whatever the pope teaches, however, the Catholic must consider it with a fully formed and developed conscience, not its counterfeit. As I wrote in the January/February 2014 issue of OSV's The Catholic Answer Magazine:

Since the teaching authority of the pope and the Church concerns matters of faith and morals, of “abstract doctrine” and “the condemnation of particular and given errors,” Newman states there is no conflict at all between it and the individual conscience: the conscience seeks truth, and the Church teaches and defends truth. The pope’s authority as Christ’s Vicar on Earth relies upon the authority of conscience, that “aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”

Blessed John Henry Newman further states that for one to oppose even “the supreme, though not infallible authority of the pope” in some matter (he uses the example of a pope prohibiting Catholics from drinking wine or beer), the individual cannot rely on the counterfeit idea of conscience: “serious thought, prayer and all available means of arriving at a right judgment” must be followed, and the burden of proof is on the individual, not on the pope.

Joseph Ratzinger, both as cardinal and as pope, had praised Newman’s “clear avowal of the papacy.” Commenting on Newman’s beatification in his comments to the Roman Curia on Dec. 20, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI summarized Newman’s understanding of conscience: “Conscience is both capacity for truth and obedience to the truth which manifests itself to anyone who seeks it with an open heart.” Because Blessed John Henry Newman followed the “kindly light” of truth, it led him to become a Catholic in 1845, and as Pope Benedict noted, that conversion cost him everything “that was dear and precious to him,” perhaps even his great opportunity to influence Christian theology in his lifetime. His life as a Catholic was obscure and filled with failed projects, but his letter to the Duke of Norfolk provided a great example of the influence he could have.

The chapter on conscience ends with a toast that many have misinterpreted: “Certainly, if I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts (which indeed does not seem quite the thing), I drink — to the pope, if you please — still, to conscience first, and to the pope afterwards.” Pope Benedict provides us with the correct interpretation: Newman is not reverting to that counterfeit version of conscience as “the right of self-will.” In the first toast Newman is again expressing our natural ability to seek and find the truth; the second toast is “dedicated to the pope because it is his task to demand obedience to the truth.”

144 Years Ago Today: "Pastor Aeternus" Proclaimed

On July 18, 1870, the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility was declared at the First Vatican Council in the First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ. Pastor Aeternus actually made four doctrinal statements about the Office of the Pope: 1. St. Peter's primacy over the Church conferred by Jesus; 2. The permanence of that primacy in the pontiffs succeeding St. Peter; 3. The power and authority of the pontiffs in teaching dogma and morals, discipline, and governance of the Church; and what everyone remembers, 4. Papal infallibility:

Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the christian faith, to the glory of God our savior, for the exaltation of the Catholic religion and for the salvation of the christian people, with the approval of the Sacred Council, we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff 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. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable.

Father Juan Velez explained Blessed John Henry Newman's reactions to the definition in this article for ZENIT in 2010:

[In his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk] Cardinal Newman repeated the teaching of the constitution "Pastor Aeternus" of Vatican Council I, which asks Catholics for obedience to the Pope only in matters of faith and morals, and in matters of discipline and ecclesiastical government. Cardinal Newman explained that by obeying the Pope in such matters, the moral conscience is neither eliminated nor substituted by the Pope's authority.

Papal infallibility

As Vatican I asserted, the Pope's authority extends only to matters of doctrine and morals. We are obliged to believe, for example, what he teaches about the Holy Eucharist or marriage. His teaching does not extend on how to organize the water supply of a city, raise taxes, run elections, etc.

Cardinal Newman explained to his fellow Englishmen, who out of prejudice considered the teaching of the Pope's infallibility as a threat to English government or sense of pride, that this doctrine does not make Catholics puppets: did the Pope speak against Conscience in the true sense of the word, he would commit a suicidal act. He would be cutting the ground from under his feet. His very mission is to proclaim the moral law, and to protect and strengthen that "Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world." On the law of conscience and its sacredness are founded both his authority in theory and his power in fact…I am considering here the Papacy in its office and its duties, and in reference to those who acknowledge its claims.

Cardinal Newman pointed out that so many types of acts by a Pope, such as the excommunication of a person in error or the Pope's blessing of the Spanish Armada, are not a matter of exercising his pontifical authority in an infallible manner, which would bind the faithful in conscience. Cardinal Newman wrote that Catholics are not bound by the Pope's personal character or private acts, but by his formal teaching (although it should be pointed out that, in the case of a person excommunicated, that is a canonical act that is indeed binding, whether or not it is infallible).

Difficult cases

If a scholar were to disagree with a doctrinal or moral teaching of the Church he should submit his judgment to the Church's teaching out of humility and obedience. Here too Cardinal Newman offered advice and good example. A theologian or for that matter a pastor should not create unrest among the faithful, much less confusion. Such a person should have the humility to admit that his opinion is likely mistaken, especially if the magisterium has already pronounced on the matter.

Upon being received in the Church Cardinal Newman accepted all its teachings, including the ones he did not fully understand. As the declaration of papal infallibility drew near, Cardinal Newman accepted this teaching, even if he thought that despite its truth it was not an opportune moment to make it. The English hierarchy had only just been restored in England in 1850, and there was a lot of prejudice against Catholics in England. In that country the so-called Ultramontane Catholics who advocated a temporal power by the Pope were making matters worse. In sum, Cardinal Newman thought this was not the best time for such a declaration, but he submitted to it.