A Warning from Rome

No one is infallible except God.

-- Hans Kueng, in Infallible?

An Inquiry

One of the important obstacles to the ecumenical movement is the Roman Catholic dogma that the Pope, when speaking ex cathedra ("from the chair" of St. Peter) on matters of faith and morals, is infallible. Actually, the doctrine has only been invoked once since it was officially defined in 1870. That was when Pius XII declared in 1950 that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven. Last week, however, the Vatican issued a sharp warning that the doctrine stands as proclaimed. It came in a 19-page document on "certain errors of the present day," ratified by Pope Paul VI and promulgated by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Though no individual target was named in the document itself, the Vatican's spokesman, Archbishop Joseph Schroffer, did single out Swiss-born Theologian Hans Kueing of the University of Tuebingen as the principal challenger of infallibility. Kueng has steadfastly refused to come to Rome for examination by the doctrinal congregation, and the document is apparently a belated reply not only to his book on infallibility but also to his earlier, even more widely influential book called The Church, which proffered a broadly democratic concept of church authority residing in the "people of God." The declaration was said also to be aimed at other theologians who share Kueng's method of appraising dogma in the light of church history. When Father Umberto Betti, a consultant to the congregation, was asked if the document was "a turn of the screw," he replied bluntly, "Yes, because there has been some unscrewing among theologians." In itself, the document is neither new nor persuasive. On infallibility, the statement says little more than the councils have: that the "whole people of God" are infallible when they universally hold a point of doctrine; that the bishops are infallible, even when scattered, when they formulate a doctrine together with the Pope, or together in an ecumenical council; and that the Pope is infallible when speaking ex cathedra. New Testament theologians, both Protestant and Catholic, may argue, however, with the document's assertion that Jesus himself "wished to endow [the Apostles' successors with] infallibility."

But the initial reaction of church men was one of indifference more than alarm. Protestant Theologian Martin Marty called the declaration "a symbol of what isn't going to work." Or as Priest-Sociologist Andrew Greeley put it more tartly, "That and 45-c- will get you a ride on the Chicago subway."

So far as Kiing is concerned, he simply dismissed the whole document. The doctrinal congregation is "incapable of adding a valid contribution" to the theological discussion, he said. If the congregation does indeed reflect the full views of the Pope, however, its pronouncement does not encourage the prospects of ecumenism.

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