In the document issued during Vatican I (1869-70), Pastor Aeternus, we read the following in paragraph 4 that defined, dogmatically, the nature and criteria of papal infallibility:
1838 [DS 3072] [Definition of infallibility]. But since in this very age, in which the salutary efficacy of the apostolic duty is especially required, not a few are found who disparage its authority, We deem it most necessary to assert solemnly the prerogative which the Only-begotten Son of God deigned to enjoin with the highest pastoral office.
1839 [DS 3073] And so We, adhering faithfully to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God, our Savior, the elevation of the Catholic religion and the salvation of Christian peoples, with the approbation of the sacred Council, teach and explain that the dogma has been divinely revealed: [DS 3074] that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when carrying out the duty of the pastor and teacher of all Christians by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority defines a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, through the divine assistance promised him in blessed Peter, possesses that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished that His church be endowed in defining doctrine on faith and morals; and so such definitions of the Roman Pontiff of themselves, but not from the consensus of the Church, are unalterable.
It is the portion I have put in red which I wish to discuss. According to the definition of the dogma by Pius IX (same pope who dogmatised the Immaculate Conception in 1854), when all the criteria of infallibility are met (the only undisputed instance, post-1870, of this occurring was on November 1, 1950, when Pius XII defined the Bodily Assumption of Mary), the dogmatic definitions of the Roman Pontiff are binding in and of themselves, not from the consensus of the Church. Furthermore, this document and council settled a dispute about which is superior: the pope or the councils? This dogmatic constitution and Vatican I clearly came down on the former; the problem, however, is that another ecumenical (ergo, infallible in its decrees) council stated the opposite. In the decree Haec sancta from the Council of Constance, dated April 6, 1415, we read the following:
This holy Synod of Constance, which forms an ecumenical council, legitimately assembled for the eradication of the present schism and for the unity and reform of the church of God, head and members, to the praise of almighty God in the Holy Spirit: in order to achieve the unity and reform of the church of God more easily, safely, richly and freely, ordains, defines, decrees, decides and declares the following:
First, this synod, legitimately assembled in the Holy Spirit, forms an ecumenical council and represents the Catholic Church in dispute, has its authority directly from Christ; everyone, of whatever estate or dignity, even if this be papal, is bound to be it in matters relating to the faith, the eradication of the said schism and the universal reformation of this church of God, head and members.
Similarly, anyone, of whatever condition, estate, and dignity, even if this be papal, who stubbornly refuses obedience to the commands, resolutions, ordinances, or precepts of this holy synod and any other general council legitimately assembled in respect of what is said above and all that has happened and is to happen in respect of this, shall, if he does not come to his right mind, be subject to the appropriate punishment and be duly punished, by other legal means should this be necessary. (Hans Küng, Christianity: Essence, History, and Future [trans. John Bowden; New York: Continuum, 1994], 466; emphasis added)
As Küng notes (ibid., 467) about the trouble Constance posed to the papacy (emphasis in original):
No wonder that advocates of a curial ecclesiology did not hesitate to claim that the decrees of Constance were not binding, with often very strange, pseudo-historical arguments. Constance, it was said, had not been ‘approved’ by the Pope, so its decrees are not formally in force. But I already demonstrated in Structures of the Church (written in 1962, already before the Second Vatican Council), how threadbare such an argument is. For in the real ecumenical councils of the real ecumenical councils of the first millennium, in any case the question of a formal papal approval was never raised; the approval of the emperor was decisive and people were content with the general consensus of the Bishop of Rome as patriarch of the West. Papal consent only arose at the medieval general synods, which were wholly dominated by the Popes. But at the Council of Constance, which again understood itself to represent the whole church, explicit papal approval was no longer thought necessary. Precisely because the council derived its authority directly from Christ, precisely because it stood above the Pope (or rather above the three Popes), the question of papal approval never arose from the start.
As with the Bodily Assumption (1950) and Immaculate Conception (1854), this dogma, which is said to be part of “Apostolic Tradition,” is ahistorical, as are Rome’s other dogmas.
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