Negative effects of claims of religious infallibility

The historical church can never claim to be infallible or inerrant in regard to any of its decisions or traditions, for all of them are relative to historical conditions. Even the relative authority which can be claimed for a decision or tradition will depend upon its adherence to the mandate: "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you".

The errors of the ecclesiastical teaching office in every century have been numerous and indisputable: a close scrutiny of the Index of Forbidden Books would be particularly revealing in this respect. An yet the teaching office constantly found it difficult to admit these errors frankly and honestly. Mostly the correction was only made "implicitly," in a veiled way, without any frankness and particularly without admitting the mistake. It was feared that awareness of the admitted falliblity of certain important decisions would restrict or even finally shut out the prospect of claiming infallibility for certain other important decisions. (Hans Kueng).

Although much of the activity and statements of Catholic officials in the past can be convincingly explained by reference to the presumptions and biases of the time, the difficulty with this approach is for writers, including modern popes, who wish to argue that moral values are absolute and timeless, despite earlier statements condoning the inquisition and some forms of slavery. The gradualist and non-absolutist approach of some modern Catholic Apologetics for the Church's approach to slavery (and especially the slave trade) in the past conveniently ignores this absolutism, typically retreating to notions that the Church was doing the best it could. Unfree servitude, where a person has sold his or herself is still considered, if inadvisable, as consistent with natural law.

Some of the "errors" cited, do not logically at least, invalidate claims to magisterial or papal infallibility. The main defense would be that the error was not "asserted as infallible", or that the person making the error was acting in an unofficial capacity.

In the writings of non-Catholic authors against the definition of Papal Infallibility, the dogmatic propositions on the unity of the Church, the necessity of belonging to it for the attainment of eternal salvation, the position of the Pope as supreme head of the Church, and the duty thence arising of submission to the Pope in order to belong to the Church and thus to attain salvation (Boniface VIII, 1302) have been used against the papal primacy in a manner not justified by its content. The statements concerning the relations between the spiritual and the secular power are of a purely historical character, so far as they do not refer to the nature of the spiritual power, and are based on the actual conditions of medieval Europe.

In fact the Bull seems to fulfill all the requirements of an infallible papal statement as laid down in 1871 at the First Vatican Council. The final line " we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff" is in the form used for the declarations on the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, for instance. As it stands, this doctrine has been repudiated by the modern Catholic Church. Even in the 19th century, Pius IX was clear that innocent people of goodwill could be saved. The Second Vatican Council specifically asserts that people in all religions can be saved. Although some later commentators have tried to salvage the position - usually by asserting that only the Church has the right to interpret its own documents, there is little doubt that there has been a def fact reversal in Church teachings around this "definitive" papal teaching.