The following is problematic for many pop-level Catholic apologists who argue that the understanding of a de fide dogma can “develop” in light of history, science, and other areas of research. It is from chapter 4, "Faith and reason" of the Dogmatic Constitution concerning the Catholic Faith (Session III, April 24, 1870, Vatican Council 1):
1800 [DS 3020] [The true
progress of knowledge, both natural and revealed]. For, the doctrine of
faith which God revealed has not been handed down as a philosophic invention to
the human mind to be perfected, but has been entrusted as a divine deposit to
the Spouse of Christ, to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted.
Hence, also, that understanding of its sacred dogmas must be perpetually
retained, which Holy Mother Church has once declared; and there must never be
recession from that meaning under the specious name of a deeper understanding
[can. 3]. “Therefore … let the understanding, the knowledge, and wisdom of
individuals as of all, of one man as of the whole Church, grow and progress
strongly with the passage of the ages and the centuries; but let it be solely
in its own genus, namely in the same dogma, with the same sense and the same
understanding.”
