May 7, 2008
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Question 65 – Pope Sixtus V, the Latin Vulgate, and Papal Infallibility
Question 65 – Pope Sixtus V, the Latin Vulgate, and Papal Infallibility
Dr. Sungenis,
I wanted to ask you a question about something I read in Madrid's Pope Fiction. In his section on Pope Sixtus VI who redid the Vulgate he says that this was the one situation where papal infallibility was nearly done away with if he had promulgated his Vulgate but only by the grace of the Holy Spirit was he prevented from doing so by dying before it could happen. My question is, is he right? My own view is that this was never an issue a dogma being proclaimed as infallible so this was never a close call. Am I right or wrong? Are translations protected under infallibility? Madrid correctly points out all that is needed for infallibility to be invoked and says the Vulgate would have come under the area of faith/morals. Is he right? There was an accompanying encyclical that I believe made a pronouncement on the Vulgate but still even if he had issued it for the whole church would it have still been considered infallible. I just don't share his fright that this was a close call, but I'm just an layman amateur wannabe theologian. I respect your insights on this and help in clarifying where I'm right or wrong.
Javier
R. Sungenis: Javier, I don’t share Mr. Madrid’s take on Pope Sixtus. First, there was no “doctrine of papal infallibility” in the 16th century. That didn’t come until 1870, and when it did come, it had very narrow strictures as to what qualified as an infallible papal statement. Suffice it to say, a translation of the Scriptures, even if it was accompanied by a papal bull, did not fulfill the 1870 criteria, even in retrospect. In fact, the tight strictures of papal infallibility adopted in 1870 were made precisely so that events such as Sixtus’ revision of the Vulgate would not fall under the category of papal infallibility. This is one reason why the doctrine of papal infallibility came so late in the Church’s history – for the Church needed to inspect each instance of papal statements on every level of authority in order to determine how to define and apply papal infallibility. In the final analysis, a papal statement is not infallible unless the Church clearly says it is. In this sense it is often wise to take the minimalist approach to the instances of papal infallibility, and this would exclude Sixtus V's Vulgate as a candidate.
Unfortunately, the question concerning the infallibility of a given doctrine of the Catholic Church has always been a minefield of debate and dissent. Debates over everything from whether the decree was disseminated to the universal church or if an Index qualifies as universal, to whether it was said in forma specifica, to whether the decree was directly as opposed to indirectly pronounced, to altering the definitions of “declare and define,” to whether the pope can use any medium he wishes as long as he makes clear his intentions, continue to rage today. As good as the doctrine of infallibility is, nevertheless, because of its self-imposed restricted domain as to when it is applicable, it invariably creates a whole new set of problems, one chief problem being how we determine whether a specific Church teaching is infallible. Often the Church does not explicitly and unequivocally state that a given doctrine is infallible. Odd as it may seem, the words “infallible” or “irreformable” are not used in dogmatic proclamations. Even the four criteria for papal infallibility established in the decree of Pius IX in 1870 do not make it foolproof for the cleric or the layman to determine when, precisely, a given papal teaching is infallible, since the doctrine in question, ironically, is never preceded by the explicit words: “This teaching is an infallible and irreformable declaration of the Catholic Church for it fulfills all four criteria of the doctrine of papal infallibility.” Adding to the debate, the 1983 Code of Canon Law states that if the Church does not explicitly declare a doctrine infallible, then it is not to be considered infallible. The whole process can easily become a quagmire of distinctions and counter-distinctions that turn that which was at first intended to be a simple help to the difficulties of life into tedious, hair-splitting legalese that often confuses more than it clarifies.
The four criteria for papal infallibility are delineated in prose form in the following paragraph of Vatican I (numerals in brackets are added): “…the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, [1] when carrying out the duty of the pastor and teacher of all Christians [2] in accord with his supreme apostolic authority [3] he explains a doctrine of faith or morals [4] to be held by the universal Church…”. As noted, questions of when and where these four criteria are applicable continue to raise problems. For example, the recent teaching against artificial contraception given by Pope Paul VI in 1969 in the encyclical Humanae Vitae, and the teaching against women’s ordination given by John Paul II in 1994 in the letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, have raised continued questions whether those two teachings are formally infallible. If they are infallible, the documents themselves do not explicitly say so. Although at least the latter uses language that some may interpret as the formula of words often associated with an infallible declaration, still, there remain doubts due to the fact that the pope who issued them never declared them explicitly infallible (see Code of Canon Law, ¶ 749.3). If they are not formally infallible, then they are technically “reformable.” It behooves the Church, via the pope, to make it crystal clear that a given teaching is infallible.
Webmaster adds this reference regarding Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.
