Overcoming the Key of Knowledge with the Key of Power; The Problematic Development of Papal Infallibility
If the historical evidence of the Catholic Church for the stability of the faith in the See and the Successor of Peter be not sufficient to prove, as a fact of history, that the Christian Church has so held and taught, history is altogether a poor and slender foundation for the events and actions of the past, The pretentious historical criticism of these days has prevailed, and will prevail, to undermine the peace and the confidence, and even the faith of some. But the City seated on a hill is still there, high and out of reach. It cannot be hid, and is its own evidence, anterior to its history and independent of it. Its history is to be learned of itself. -Cardinal Edward Manning,: The oecumenical council and the infallibility of the Roman pontiff : a pastoral letter to the clergy, &c (1869) This post will be an exposition of the theological development of the concept of papal infallibility. Its main thesis is that papal infallibility is an inference or derivation from the ...