8.  To sum up:  Persons who refuse to assent to doctrines which they know to be directly revealed and defined, or which are universally held by the Church as of Catholic Faith, become by that very act guilty of heresy, and cut themselves adrift from the mystical Body of Christ, and are no longer His members.  If, on the other hand, their assent is refused only to doctrines closely connected with these dogmatic utterances, and which, as such, are proposed for their acceptance, they become guilty, if not of actual heresy, then of something perilously akin to it, and are, at all events, guilty of serious sin.

We may observe, in conclusion, that the Infallibility of Pontifical definitions, as Father Humphrey so pertinently reminds us, does not depend upon the reigning Pontiff’s possession of any real knowledge of ancient Church history or theology, or philosophy or science, but simply and solely upon the assistance of God the Holy Ghost, guaranteed to him in his exercise of his function of Chief Pastor, in feeding with divine doctrine the entire flock of God.  Our Anglican friends seem penetrated with the utterly false notion of justification by scholarship alone; which is as untrue as it is unscriptural.  Indeed, their justification by scholarship is likely to lead to very undesirable and deplorable results.

In the foregoing chapter we have considered especially the Pope’s Infallible authority, and the assent and obedience due to it.  In our next it remains for us to consider the proper attitude of a loyal Catholic towards the Sovereign Pontiff as the supreme ruler and governor of the Church of God, even when not speaking ex cathedra.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 7:  The word soma, observes Mgr.  Capel, is never used in Greek to express mere association or aggregation (Catholic, p. 13).]

[Footnote 8:  From a Pastoral of the Swiss Bishops, which received the Pope’s approbation.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE POPE’S ORDINARY AUTHORITY.

1.  When the Holy Father speaks ex cathedra, and defines any doctrine concerning Faith or Morals, we are bound to receive his teaching with the assent of divine faith:  and cannot refuse obedience, without being guilty of heresy.  By one such wilful act of disobedience we cease to be members of the Church of God, and must be classed with heathens and publicans:  “Who will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican” (Matt, xviii. 17).

But the Holy Father rarely exercises his prerogative of Infallibility, and therefore the occasions of these special professions of faith occur but seldom—­not once, perhaps, during the course of many years.

2.  What then, it may be asked, is the proper attitude of a Catholic towards the Pope, at ordinary times?