The infallibility of the Pope was proclaimed as a dogma 150 years ago in Vatican Council I. We know well problems and difficulties that it has generated within the Church and the Christian world and the political crises in relations with States, threatened in sovereignty; but little thought has been given, even in theology, to the innovative scope.
Beyond that historical moment, from an anthropological point of view, the real novelty of this dogma was universality. The real awareness of being able to challenge the totality of humanity today is called “globalization”. Something unthinkable until then, that the Catholic Church first had the courage to propose around the figure of the Pope. We are faced with a prophecy of what will be an irreversible journey of humanity: a global world where everything is connected. The great powers of the world will try to imitate this path, in the political, military, economic, financial, cultural field, also living the same limits and the same difficulties experienced in the Church.
At that time the two great limits of the interpretation of infallibility and universality were: the claim of the dominion of all minds with the submission of all men; and the attainment of the univocity of the expressions of faith. Universality as uniformity, demanding the renunciation of freedom and cultural diversity. The Pope was seen as an absolute monarch.
The other powers of the world have moved and still move along the same line: to achieve universal domination and to standardize the life and mentality of all men, making us believe that universality is not possible without imposing these two limits. Such premises have been made to pass as the only condition for world development. Today, we all experience it in the digital world, which asks us to abdicate our privacy, to allow ourselves to be tracked everywhere, and to be influenced in the choices of almost all aspects of our lives.
A second providential moment of experience of universality was the Second Vatican Council, which perhaps could never have been realized without the beautiful awareness of John XXIII, who willingly called himself “the pope of all”: “The whole world is my family. This sense of universal belonging must give tone and vivacity to my mind, to my heart, to my actions” (Il Giornale dell’Anima 29 November - 5 December 1959).
The presence in Rome of the bishops of all the peoples of the world, of the delegated observers of the Orthodox Churches and of the other Christian confessions, the guests of the secretariat of Christian unity, the contribution of the experts, especially the laity, the auditors and the parish priests, have illuminated even more the path of universality and consequently of infallibility. In that interweaving of relationships and knowledge it was immediately evident to everyone that infallibility and universality could not mean renunciation of freedom and elimination of diversity for uniformity. On the contrary, the Council was lived as collegiality, freedom, and appreciation of the many Christian traditions in the various cultures, also inevitably creating frictions and difficult moments. An experience of the Church that has radiated so many hopes to all humanity.
The Council in fact largely modified the guidelines of the previous papal magisterium. The events channeled the exercise of infallibility into collegiality. The Pope gave his support to the change, and his figure was further valued, not mortified, as many feared. Collegiality is not understood only as the feeling of living bishops, but also as a patrimony left by all those who preceded them.
The epochal change that we live today, accentuated by the pandemic, where everything is connected, refines even more like gold the service of infallibility as a journey in the truth: the infallibility of the people of God, the sensus fidei, shines out, to which recourse has already been made in the proclamation of the two Marian dogmas (Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary into Heaven). Pope Francis identifies in the sense of the faith of the people of God the element of balance and discernment between the controversies of pastors. He is insisting precisely on this point: it is time to learn to walk by referring to the people of God. It is a matter of teaching having listened and learned from the people that is the source, especially in difficulties: it is capable of “rising up” together also in faith. It is the path of synodality, which accompanies collegiality and the Petrine ministry. Many people find it impossible to take this route from a practical point of view and prefer paths already known.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit, but success is not taken for granted. History has already experienced it. Some prelates, from what can be seen in the media, try to bring the Church back to the post-Tridentine climate, creating tensions in view of the upcoming papal election. It was at the time of the Council of Trent that the succession to the papal throne was decided by casting suspicion on the candidate.
For the first time in a conclave (1549-1550) the charge of heresy was launched against the English cardinal Reginald Pole, which reflected the divisions in the Church in the face of Protestantism. He was a great defender of the papacy, moderate and mediator, and personally paid for the commitment to the unity of the Church in England. In his book De Summo Pontifice, written a few years before, he presented the role of the successor of Peter as an imitator of Christ, and formulated “infallibility” as a guarantee of freedom before the power of States. Probably with his election the face and history of the Church would have had a turning point.
Precisely on the infallibility maneuver those who oppose Pope Francis. But now it is no longer synonymous with power, but of service in love to all humanity for a truly universal Church of Christ.
* Fr. Paolo Scarafoni and Filomena Rizzo teach theology together in Italy and Africa, in Addis Ababa. They are authors of books and articles of theology.
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