Rome's Change on Infallibility
How would you answer the question, "Has the Roman Catholic Church changed its teachings?" Please cite incontrovertible facts.
It is a well-known claim of the Roman Catholic Church that it never changes, that it is "semper eadem," always the same. In view of this claim we will here cite the testimony of Roman Catholics which disproves it. Here is one notable example:
In January, 1837, a debate was held in Cincinnati, Ohio, between the Protestant minister, Alexander Campbell, and the Roman Catholic bishop of Cincinnati, John B. Marcell. This debate, according to the title page, was "taken down by reporters, and revised by the parties." In his first speech Bishop Purcell made the following statement concerning the infallibility of the pope:
"Appeals were lodged before the Bishop of Rome, though he was not believed to be infallible. Neither is he now. No enlightened Catholic holds the pope's infallibility to be an article of faith. I do not; and none of my brethren, that I know of, do. The Catholic believes the pope, as a man, to be as liable to error, as almost any other man in the universe. Man is man, and no man is infallible, either in doctrine or morals. Many of the popes have sinned, and some of them have been bad men." —"A Debate on the Roman Catholic Religion," p. 23.
In 1851 there was published in New York "A Doctrinal Catechism," by Stephen Keenan, a well-known defender of the Catholic faith. This was the "Second American Edition, Revised and Corrected." On pages 305, 306 of this catechism the following question and answer appear:
"Q. Must not Catholics believe the pope in himself to be infallible?
"A. This is a Protestant invention; it is no article of the Catholic faith; no decision of his can oblige, under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the teaching body,—that is, by the Bishops of the Church."
These two accredited teachers of the Roman Catholic doctrine plainly declared that the infallibility of the pope was not an article of faith, and one of them charged Protestants with being the source of any such claim. But what has happened since 1851? After the Vatican Council of 1870 there appeared the third American edition of this same catechism by Stephen Keenan, "Revised and Corrected, Conformably to the Decrees of the Council of the Vatican," in which the following questions and answers are found on pages 170, 171:
"Q. What dogma was defined in this council?
"A. The dogma of papal infallibility; that the pope when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals, is possessed of that infallibility with which our Redeemer endowed the church.
"Q. When does the pope speak ex cathedra?
"A. The pope speaks ex cathedra, when in his character of Universal Master and Pastor of all Christians, by his sovereign and apostolic authority, he defines some doctrine regarding faith or morals for the whole Catholic Church.
"Q. Whence comes it that the Pope cannot teach error in place of truth?
"A. He is infallible: because God assists him, because the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of all truth, aids him according to the promise made to Peter, and in him, to his successors."
It is here taught that after the Vatican Council of 1870 the pope possessed "that infallibility with which our Redeemer endowed the church." Note the facts, according to Roman Catholic teaching: "Our Redeemer endowed the church" with infallibility, but more than eighteen centuries later representatives of that church positively denied that the Roman Catholic Church believed this, and one of them referred to such a claim as "a Protestant invention."
But the question asked is this: Does the Roman Catholic Church ever change, or is it always "rem per eadem"? The reliable answer is found in Roman Catholic teaching. Before 1870 the claim of papal infallibility was "a Protestant invention;" since 1870 it has been an article of faith.
If this does not mean a radical change concerning a most important doctrine, then it is difficult to understand what would indicate such a change.
Of course it will be asserted that Bishop Purcell and Stephen Keenan were not authorized to speak for the Roman Catholic Church; but who was authorized? Only the general councils. But these councils had never declared infallibility to be an article of faith, and therefore any accredited teacher correctly interpreted the councils when he denied that infallibility was a dogma of the church.
W. W. PRESCOTT.