ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

New Zealand Tablet, 3 December 1908, Page 21

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

INQUIRER. — Previous answers to inquiries were perfectly clear and definite to any person who, like your friend, employs (and inferentially claims to know the meaning of) Catholic terms in common use. We may, however, restate them in other terms. (1) No Papal Bulls are issued by the Pope in Council ex-cathedra. Your friend is confounding Papal Bulls with dogmatic decrees issued by a General Council presided over by the Pope. The term ex-cathedra is a technical term of Catho-ic theology. It means, literally, ' from the chair.' It is. used of the Pope when speaking (as it were) ' from the chair ' — he is said to speak ex-cathedra ' when, in the exercise of his office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, he, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, defines that a doctrine on faith and morals is to be held by the whole Church.' Su« h definitions are held by the Church to be, in accordance with the

' assistance ' promised to him, in the person of his predecessor St. Peter, infallible. These definitions are, however, not given, as your friend imagines, in the form of Bulls, but of dogmatic decrees. (2) It is not true that Papal Bulls are all, in the eyes of Catholics, infallible" utterances. The overwhelmingly greater part of such documents deal exclusively with personal matters (such as the appointment of bishops, etc.), or disciplinary matters. These do not fall within the Catholic doctrine of the Papal Infallibility. Papal Bu»*s sometimes deal with ' dogmatic facts,' and these, according to the general agreement of Catholic theologians, fall (so far as such facts are concerned) within the category of infallible utterances. (3) No Papal Bull — and no dogmatic decree, and no such document signed by any Pope — was ever issued asserting either .that the sun moves around the earth, or the earth around the sun. (4) Always pleased to be of service to you or to your friend, or to any other non-Catholic inquirers.