Pontiff likewise when acting alone and unsupported.  This is so well known, that even the late Mr. Gladstone, speaking as an outside observer, and as a mere student of history, positively brings it as a charge against the Catholic Church that “the Popes, for well-nigh a thousand years, have kept up, with comparatively little intermission, their claim to dogmatic infallibility” (Vat. p. 28).  Still, the point remained unsettled by any dogmatic definition, so that, as late as in 1793, Archbishop Troy of Dublin did but express the true Catholic view of his own day when he wrote:  “Many Catholics contend that the Pope, when teaching the Universal Church, as their supreme visible head and pastor, as successor to St. Peter, and heir to the promises of special assistance made to him by Jesus Christ, is infallible; and that his decrees and decisions in that capacity are to be respected as rules of faith, when they are dogmatical, or confined to doctrinal points of faith and morals.  Others,” the Archbishop goes on to explain, “deny this, and require the expressed or tacit acquiescence of the Church assembled or dispersed, to stamp infallibility on his dogmatic decrees.”  Then he concludes:—­“Until the Church shall decide upon this question of the Schools, either opinion may be adopted by individual Catholics, without any breach of Catholic communion or peace.”

This was how the question stood until 1870.  But it stands in that position no longer; for the Church has now spoken—­Roma locuta est, causa finita.  Hence, no Catholic can now deny or call into question the great prerogative of the Vicar of Christ, without suffering shipwreck of the faith.  At the Vatican Council, Pope Pius IX. and the Archbishops and Bishops of the entire Catholic world were gathered together in Rome, and after earnest prayer and prolonged discussion, they declared that the prerogative of infallibility, which is the very source of Catholic unity, and the very secret of Catholic strength, resides in the individual Pope who happens, at the time, to occupy the Papal chair, and that when he speaks ex cathedra, his definitions are infallibly true, and consonant with Catholic revelation, even before they have been accepted by the hierarchy throughout the world.  But here it must be borne in mind that the Pope speaks ex cathedra, that is to say, infallibly, only when he speaks:—­

     1.  As the Universal Teacher.

     2.  In the name and with the authority of the Apostles.

     3.  On a point of Faith or Morals.

     4.  With the purpose of binding every member of the Church to
        accept and believe his decision.

Thus it is clearly seen that from the year 1870 the dogma of Papal, in contra-distinction to ecclesiastical infallibility, has been defined and raised to an article of faith, the denial of which is heresy.