THE DOCTRINAL AUTHORITY OF

PAPAL ENCYCLICALS

 Exact from the American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. CXXI, August, 1949, pp. 136-150

 

Since the year 1878, when Pope Leo XIII began to rule, as Christ’s vicar on earth, over the Church militant, over one hundred fifty encyclical letters have been issued by the Sovereign Pontiffs. These encyclical letters have exercised an incalculably powerful influence in the direction of Catholic teaching and of Catholic life. Appearing as they have, at an average rate of one in a little less than six months, these documents have come to be recognized as the most frequently used vehicles of the Holy Father’s ordinary teaching of the flock entrusted to his care.

Despite their manifest and unique importance, however, the papal encyclicals have never been given anything like a completely adequate treatment in the literature of sacred theology. Some of the text-books used in our seminaries today give no special consideration whatever to the doctrinal authority of these documents. Others content themselves with a sweeping over-simplification and blithely dismiss all the encyclicals as “non-infallible” pontifical statements. A third group of authors, more scientific in their approach to this problem, maintain that these documents contain some infallibly true teachings, doctrines presented as infallible on the authority of the encyclicals themselves. Even within this last-mentioned group, however, we find most frequently little detailed explanation of the various norms by which we can recognize infallibly authoritative statements of the Holy Father’s ordinary magisterium in his encyclical letters.

Despite the comparative inadequacy of the treatment they give to the papal encyclicals, however, all the theological works dealing with this subject make it perfectly clear that all Catholics are bound seriously in conscience to accept the teaching contained in these documents with a true internal religious assent. It is the common teaching of the theologians who have written on this subject that the internal assent due to a great number of the doctrines proposed in the papal encyclicals is something distinct from and inferior to both the act of divine Catholic faith and the act most frequently designated as fides ecclesiastica. Most theologians hold that, while there is nothing to prevent an infallible definition of truth contained in or connected with the deposit of revelation in papal encyclicals, and while de facto it is quite probable that at least some infallible pronouncements have been made in this way, the Holy Father has not chosen to use the complete plenitude of his apostolic doctrinal authority in presenting most of the truths contained in his encyclical letters. Nevertheless they all insist that even in this portion of his ordinary magisterium the Holy Father has the right to demand, and actually has demanded, a definite and unswerving internal assent to his teaching from all Catholics.

Unfortunately, in our day, we have encountered certain discussions of matters treated at some length in papal encyclicals by Catholic writers who have, for all practical purposes, disregarded and even opposed the pertinent statements in the pontifical documents. The men who have adopted this attitude seem to take cognizance of the common theological teaching that much of the material presented in the encyclicals does not come to us from the Holy Father with an absolute guarantee of infallibility. They seem, on the other hand to have forgotten the no-less-certain doctrine of the theologians that the internal and sincere assent due to teachings presented even in a non-infallible way by the supreme teacher and ruler of the Church militant is definitely and seriously obligatory. The obligation holds until the Church might come to modify its position on some particular portion of the teaching contained in the encyclicals, or at least until the time when very serious reasons for such modification might become apparent.

The attitude to which we have referred makes at least a summary examination of the theologians’ teachings about the doctrines contained in papal encyclicals imperative. In this examination we shall consider those writers who stress the non-infallible character of the teachings contained in these documents and then those who insist upon the fact that some of the statements propounded in the encyclicals can be or actually are infallible pronouncements. We shall begin, however, with a list of those authors who make no adequate mention of the encyclicals in their treatment of the Church’s magisterium.

VARIOUS ATTITUDES AMONG THE THEOLOGIANS

An astonishingly large number of prominent theologians can be found among those who take no adequate cognizance of the encyclical letters in their treatises on papal infallibility. These men content themselves with an examination of and a theological demonstration for the formula by which the Vatican Council defined the Holy Father’s infallibility. Bishop Joseph Fessler, [1] the Vatican Council’s secretary, used this approach in his reply to the “Old Catholic” Schultes. The famous and highly influential Cardinal Cammillus Mazzella [2] followed the same line, as did Archbishops Richard Downey, [3] Valentine Zubizarreta, [4] and Horace Mazzella, [5] Bishop Michael d’Herbigny, [6] Canon Auguste Leboucher, [7] and Fathers Sylvester Berry, [8] Hugo Hurter, [9] Sylvester Hunter, [10] Bernard Tepe, [11] Raphael Cercia, [12] Basil Prevel, [13] Gabriel Casanova, [14] and Gerard Paris. [15] As a group these writers frequently give the impression that they consider only those truths proposed by the Holy Father solemni iudicio as infallibly defined, to the exclusion of those truths which he sets forth ordinario et universali magisterio.

Another very imposing group of theologians explicitly list the papal encyclicals, at least in a general way, as non-infallible documents. Bishop Hilarinus Felder, [16] Msgr. Caesar Manzoni, [17] and Fathers Emil Dorsch, [18] Reginald Schultes, [19] Antonio Vellico, [20] Ludwig Koesters, [21] Ludwig Lercher, [22] and Aelred Graham [23] teach thus in their treatises. The same view is set forth by Fr. Mangenot in his excellent article on the encyclicals in the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, [24] by Fr. Lucien Choupin in his outstanding monograph, [25] by Fr. Thomas Pegues in his frequently quoted article in the Revue thomiste on the authority of the encyclicals, [26] and by Canon George Smith in his brilliant study on this subject in the Clergy Review. [27] Fr. Jean Vincent Bainvel, along with Choupin and Schultes, incidentally, refers explicitly to the encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII and classifies them as non-infallible, [28] while the article of Pegues was written as an answer to a question sent in to the Revue thomiste about the doctrinal authority of Pope Leo’s encyclicals. Fr. Herman Dieckmann [29] classifies the doctrine contained in papal encyclicals with that of the Roman Congregations.

The distinguished theologians who deny the papal encyclicals the status of infallible documents teach, none the less, that the faithful are bound in conscience to accord these letters not only the tribute of respectful silence, but also a definite and sincere internal religious assent. To this end many of them, like Fr. De Groot, [30] apply to the encyclicals a teaching with the eminent and brilliant Dominic Palmieri had developed about the Catholic attitude towards non-infallible teaching in the Church. [31] Pegues, in his Revue thomiste article, makes this application with his usual clarity.

‘Hence it follows that the authority of the encyclicals is not at all the same as that of the solemn definition, the one properly so-called. The definition demands an assent without reservation and makes a formal act of faith obligatory. The case of the encyclical’s authority is not the same.

This authority (of the papal encyclicals) is undoubtedly great. It is, in a sense, sovereign. It is the teaching of the supreme pastor and teacher of the Church. Hence the faithful have a strict obligation to receive this teaching with an infinite respect. A man must not be content simply not to contradict it openly and in a more or less scandalous fashion. An internal mental assent is demanded. It should be received as the teaching sovereignly authorized within the Church.

Ultimately, however, this assent is not the same as the one demanded in the formal act of faith. Strictly speaking, it is possible that this teaching (proposed in the encyclical letter) is subject to error. There are a thousand reasons to believe that it is not. It has probably never been (erroneous), and it is normally certain that it will never be. But, absolutely speaking, it could be, because God does not guarantee it as He guarantees the teaching formulated by way of definition’. [32]

Lercher teaches that the internal assent due to these pronouncements cannot be called certain according to the strictest philosophical meaning of the term. The assent given to such propositions is interpretative condicionatus, including the tacit condition that the teaching is accepted as true “unless the Church should at some time peremptorially define otherwise or unless the decision should be discovered to be erroneous.” [33] Lyons [34] and Phillips [35] use the same approach in describing the assent Catholics are in conscience bound to give to the Church’s non-infallible teachings. Fr. Yves de la Brière speaks of the “submission and hierarchical obedience” due to these pronouncements. [36]

Msgr. Manzoni lists the encyclicals among the documents in which non-infallible teaching is to be found. He holds that the definition of which the Vatican Council speaks in proposing the doctrine of papal infallibility is to be found only in the exercise of the solemn, as distinguished from the ordinary magisterium. In explaining the binding force of these non-infallible pronouncements, he, like Bishop Francis Egger, [37] and Fathers Mangenot, [38] MacGuinness, [39] and Dieckmann, [40] employs an explanation formulated by Cardinal Franzelin in his Tractatus de divina traditione et scriptura.

Franzelin holds that the Roman Pontiff can command all Catholics to assent to a given proposition (either directly or by condemning the contradictory statement), for either one of two different reasons. First the Holy Father can intend to define this proposition infallibly as true or as de fide. Again he can will merely to look after the security of Catholic doctrine. The magisterium of the Church has been equipped with help from God by reason of which the first sort of teaching gives infallible truth, while the second affords infallible security. Employing the plentitude of its power, the teaching Church operates as the auctoritas infallibilitatis. Working, not to define, but merely to take those steps it deems necessary to safeguard the faith, it is the auctoritas providentiae doctrinalis. To this auctoritas providentiae doctrinalis and to the teachings it sets forth, the faithful owe the obedience of respectful silence and of an internal mental assent according to which the proposition thus presented is accepted, not as infallibly true, but as safe, as guaranteed by that authority which is divinely commissioned to care for the Christian faith. [41]

The explanations developed by Franzelin and by Palmieri are adequate and exact. The first gives an excellent account of those teachings presented by the Holy See as propositions which can be taught safely. Palmieri, for his own part, offers a fine exposition of the status of propositions taught by competent authority, yet not presented as infallibly true. Both explanations can be employed profitably in dealing with some of the pronouncements of the various Roman congregations and with much of the teaching of the encyclicals. It would seem, however, that it would be a serious mistake to imagine that they can properly be applied to the entire body of doctrine set forth in these papal documents. It must be noted that neither Franzelin nor Palmieri made such an explicit application in the development of their own theories.

Several of the most influential modern theologians teach explicitly that some of the teaching in the papal encyclicals come to us as parts of the Church’s infallible doctrine. Thus Tanquerey [42] and De Guibert [43] hold that some of the propositions set forth in the papal encyclicals are infallibly true since they are presented by the Holy Father in his infallible ordinary magisterium. Cardinals Billot [44] and Lepicier [45] teach that many of the pronouncements contained in the encyclicals are to be accepted as infallibly true. The manuals of Hervé, [46] Yelle, [47] Blanch, [48] Herrmann, [49] Scheeben, [50] and Saiz Ruiz [51] show that their authors are convinced that the encyclicals cannot simply be dismissed as non-infallible documents. The manuals of Wilhelm-Scannell, [52] Michelitsch, [53] Van Noort, [54] Pesch, [55] and Calcagno [56] come to the same conclusion in another way, by warning their readers that not all of the teachings contained in the encyclicals are to be considered as infallible. Thurston also teaches that some of the teachings contained in the encyclicals are to be received as infallibly proposed. [57] Brunsmann contents himself with the observation that the doctrinal encyclicals impose an obligation upon the consciences of all the faithful. [58]

 

THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND THE HOLY FATHER’S
ORDINARY MAGISTERIUM

 

Despite the divergent views about the existence of the infallible pontifical teaching in the encyclical letters, there is one point on which all theologians are manifestly in agreement. They are all convinced that all Catholics are bound in conscience to give a definite internal religious assent to those doctrines which the Holy Father teaches when he speaks to the universal Church of God on earth without employing his God-given charism of infallibility. Thus, prescinding from the question as to whether any individual encyclical or group of encyclicals may be said to contain specifically infallible teaching, all theologians are in agreement that this religious assent must be accorded the teachings which the Sovereign Pontiff includes in these documents. This assent is due, as Lercher has noted, until the Church might choose to modify the teaching previously presented or until proportionately serious reasons for abandoning the non-infallible teaching contained in a pontifical document might appear. [59] It goes without saying that any reason which would justify the relinquishing of a position taken in a pontifical statement would have to be very serious indeed.

It might be definitely understood, however, that the Catholic’s duty to accept the teachings conveyed in the encyclicals even when the Holy Father does not propose such teachings as a part of his infallible magisterium is not based merely upon the dicta of the theologians. The authority which imposes this obligation is that of the Roman Pontiff himself. To the Holy Father’s responsibility of caring for the sheep of Christ’s fold, there corresponds, on the part of the Church’s membership, the basic obligation of following his directions, in doctrinal as well as disciplinary matters. In this field, God has given the Holy Father a kind of infallibility distinct from the charism of doctrinal infallibility in the strict sense. He has so constructed and ordered the Church that those who follow the directives given to the entire kingdom of God on earth will never be brought into the position of ruining themselves spiritually through this obedience. Our Lord dwells within His Church in such a way that those who obey disciplinary and doctrinal directives of this society can never find themselves displeasing God through their adherence to the teachings and the commands given to the universal Church militant. Hence there can be no valid reason to discountenance even the non-infallible teaching authority of Christ’s vicar on earth.

The Vatican Council, in its famous conclusion to the constitution Dei Filius, insisted very strongly upon the Catholic’s duty to accept that portion of papal teachings in which the encyclical letters are included. The Council appended the following two statements to its first dogmatic constitution.

Itaque supremi pastoralis Nostri officii debitum exsequentes, omnes Christi fideles, maxime vero eos, qui praesunt vel docendi munere funguntur, per viscera Iesu Christi obtestamur, necnon eiusdem Dei et Salvatoris nostri auctoritate iubemus, ut ad hos errores a sancta Ecclesia arcendos et eliminandos, atque purissimae fidei lucem pandendam stadium et operam conferant.

Quoniam vero satis non est, haereticam pravitatem devitare, nisi ii quoque errores diligenter fugiantur, qui ad illam plus minusve accedunt, omnes officii monemus, servandi etiam Constitutiones et Decreta, quibus pravae eiusmodi opiniones, quae isthic diserte non enumerantur, ab hac Sancta Sede prosciptae et prohibitae sunt. [60]

The most prominent commentator on this passage, the French theologian Jean Vacant, calls attention to the fact that the Council deliberately worded its admonition in such a way as to make it clear that the duty, incumbent upon all the faithful, of accepting and observing the various pontifical constitutions and decrees is founded upon the prerogatives of the Holy See itself. [61] All the Council seeks to do is to warn the members of the Church of an already existent obligation. The people are admonished to receive and to keep the doctrines proposed by the Holy Father through the documents to which the Council alludes, not because the Council teaches that such teachings are to be accepted, but rather because the Holy See, which obviously has the right to do so, has demanded such assent for its own teachings.

The Vatican Council speaks of a duty, a moral obligation binding in conscience. All of the faithful are bound in conscience to keep, i.e., to give a continuing assent, to these pontifical documents which proscribe and forbid those errors which are more or less closely related to “heretical wickedness.” The Council specifically mentions the fact that it refers to errors not condemned explicitly in its own constitution.

It is important to note that the Vatican Council speaks of this obligation as something belonging to the integrity of the duty of faith itself. It warns the faithful that they must persevere in their assent to the teachings of the pontifical constitutions and decrees precisely because “it is not enough to keep away from heretical wickedness unless those errors which more or less closely approach it are also diligently avoided.” The Council looks upon those errors castigated in the various documents emanating from the Holy See as factors which would ruin the purity of the faith in the man unfortunate enough to accept them.

Vacant and Scheeben make it clear that in speaking of the Decreta (as distinct from the Constitutiones), the Vatican Council definitely included the pronouncements of the various Roman Congregations among those teachings which Catholics are bound in conscience to accept perseveringly. [62] These pronouncements are unquestionably non-infallible statements. They have obviously less authority than those documents which emanate directly from the Holy Father, even when the Vicar of Christ does not intend to use the fullness of his apostolic teaching power. If these decrees of the Roman Congregations are mentioned as doctrinal pronouncements “to be observed” by all of the faithful, then it is perfectly clear that the Vatican Council, speaking as the voice of the entire ecclesia docens, insists that the teachings set forth in papal encyclicals must be accepted sincerely.

The Vatican Council’s exhortation has reference, immediately and directly, to those Constitutiones et Decreta which appeared prior to the promulgation of the Dei Filius and which dealt with doctrine closely connected with the teachings set forth in the Dei Filius. Indirectly however, by reason of the Council’s mode of procedure, it most certainly affirmed the obligation incumbent upon all Catholics of accepting and assenting to the teachings presented to the City of God on earth, even in a non-infallible manner, by the Roman Pontiff. It must be remembered that the Council did not intend to oblige the faithful to accept these pontifical statements by reason of any command contained in the Dei Filius. It simply warned them to be faithful to the obligation already incumbent upon them by reason of the pontifical authority itself. The encyclicals which have appeared since the year 1870 have manifestly just as much claim to be accepted and believed by all the faithful as had the pontifical documents issued prior to that date.

The internal acceptance which Catholics are bound to give to that portion of the Church’s teaching not presented absolutely as infallible is described as a “religious assent.” It is truly religious by reason of its object and of its motives. The Vatican Councl’s conclusion to its Constitution Dei Filius stresses the religious object of this assent. The faithful are reminded of their obligation to believe the doctrinal pronouncements of the Roman Congregations because these statements denounce and forbid definite errors which are closely connected with “heretical wickedness” and which thus are opposed to the purity of the faith. Teachings that contradict errors of this sort are obviously religious in character since they deal more or less directly with the content of divine revelation, the body of truth which guides and directs the Church of God in its worship.

The letter Tuas libentur, sent on Dec. 21, 1863 by Pope Pius IX to the Archbishop of Munich, stresses in a singularly effective way the religious motivation of the assent Catholics are bound to give to those teachings presented in a non-infallible manner in the Church’s ordinary magisterium. After reminding his readers that the dogma itself can be set forth by the Church’s ordinary magisterium as well as in its solemn judgments, the great Pontiff made the following statement.

Sed cum agatur de illa subiectione, qua ex conscientia ii omnes catholici obstringuntur, qui in contemplatrices scientias incumbunt, ut novas suis scriptis Ecclesiae afferant utilitates, idcirco eiusdem conventus viri recognoscere debent, sapientibus catholicis haud satis esse, ut praefata Ecclesiae dogmata recipiant ac venerentur, verum etiam opus esse, ut se subiciant decisionibus, quae ad doctrinam pertinentes a Pontificiis Congregationibus proferuntur, tum iis doctrinae capitibus, quae communi et constanti Catholicorum consensu retinentur ut theologicae veritates et conclusiones ita certae, ut opiniones eisdem doctrinae capitibus adversae quamquam haereticae dici nequant, tamen aliam theologicam mereantur censuram. [63]

In this letter Pope Pius IX insists that the men in the assembly to which he refers (the men who took part in the a Catholic theological meeting in Germany), must not lose sight of the fact that Catholic savants must submit themselves to the doctrinal pronouncements of the Roman Congregations “in order tha thtey may bring new advantages to the Church by their writings.” The Sovereign Pontiff shows himself keenly aware of the essential functional nature of theological investigation. God calls men to work in the sacred sciences, not to form themselves into a more or less edifying debating club, but to labor effectively for His Church on earth. That labor is something which can be accomplished only under the direction of the Church and ultimately under the direction of the supreme teaching authority within the Church.

The motive for this theological inquiry is thus something essentially religious, and the inquiry itself is definitely a corporate function, meant by its very nature to be carried on for the Church and under the Church’s guidance. The man who refuses to place this thought and his teaching wholly under the Church’s direction and who chooses to ignore or to oppose sections of the Church’s authoritative teaching on the ground that these sections are not absolutely guaranteed by the Church’s charism of infallibility has definitely frustrated in advance any advantage which might have accrued to the Church through his efforts in the field of sacred theology. By his own decision he is out of harmony with the corporate labor and the direction of theological inquiry.

The “religious assent” of which the theologians speak is due to the individual doctrinal pronouncements of the various Roman Congregations. It is due on manifestly stronger grounds to the individual doctrinal pronouncements not presented as infallible teachings but set forth in papal encyclicals. Again, the obligation is even more powerful in the case of a body of teaching presented in a series of encyclicals.

It would manifestly be a very serious fault on the part of a Catholic writer or teacher in this field, acting on his own authority, to set aside or to ignore any of the outstanding doctrinal pronouncements of the Rerum novarum or the Quadragesimo anno, regardless of how unfashionable these documents be in a particular locality or at a particular time. It would, however, be a much graver sin on the part of such a teacher to pass over or to discountenance a considerable section of the teachings contained in these labor encyclicals. In exactly the same way and for precisely the same reason it would be seriously wrong to contravene any outstanding individual pronouncement in the encyclicals dealing with the relations between Church and State, and much worse to ignore or disregard all of the teachings or a great portion of the teachings on this topic contained in the letters of Pius IX and Leo XIII.

It is, of course, possible that the Church might come to modify its stand on some detail of teaching presented as non-infallible matter in a papal encyclical. The nature of the auctoritas providentiae doctrinalis within the Church is such, however, that this fallibility extends to questions of relatively minute detail or of particular application. The body of doctrine on the rights and duties of labor, on the Church and State, or on any other subject treated extensively in a series of papal letters directed to and normative for the entire Church militant could not be radically or completely erroneous. The infallible security Christ wills that His disciples should enjoy within His Church is utterly incompatible with such a possibility.

In the matter of individual pronouncements, it is interesting to observe the teaching of one of the most competent and respected scholars in the Church on the doctrinal effect produced by a statement in a papal encyclical. The encyclical Mystici Corporis speaks of the bishops’ ordinary power of jurisdiction as something “communicated to them immediately by the Sovereign Pontiff.” Msgr. Alfredo Ottaviani, in the latest edition of his Institutiones iuris publici ecclesiastici, speaks of this doctrine as “sententia, hucusque considerata probabilior, immo communis, nunc autem ut omnino certa habenda ex verbis Summi Pontificis Pii XII.” [64]

Joseph Clifford Fenton

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.

1. Cf. La vraie et la fausse infaillibilité des papes (Paris: E. Plon, 1873).
2. Cf. De religione et ecclesia praelectiones scholastico-dogmaticae, 6th ed. (Prato: Giachetti, 1905)
3. Cf. The article “The Vatican Council and Papal Infallibility,” in the symposium The Papacy, edited by Fr. Lattey (Cambridge, England: W. Heffer and Sons, Ltd., 1924), pp. 181 ff.
4. Cf. Theologia dogmatico-scholastica ad mentem S. Thomae Aquinatis, 3rd ed. (Bilbao: Eléxpuru Hnos., 1937), I, 396 ff.
5. Cf. Praelectiones scholastico-dogmaticae breviori cursui accommodatae, 6th ed. (Torino: Società editrice internazionale, 1915), I, 545 ff.
6. Cf. Theologica de ecclesia, 3rd ed. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1928), II, 349 ff.
7. Cf. Tractatus de ecclesia Christi speciali cura exactus ad normam recentium declarationum S. Sedis et Conc. Vaticani (Paris: Berche et Tralin, 1877), pp. 255 ff.
8. Cf. The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise, 2nd ed. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1927), pp. 472 ff.
9. Cf. Theologiae dogmaticae compendium in usum studiosorum theologiae, 2nd ed. (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1878), I, 345 ff.
10. Cf. Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, 3rd ed. (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1894), I, 441 ff.
11. Cf. Institutiones theologiae in usum scholarum (Paris: Lethielleux, 1894), I, 383, ff.
12. Cf. Demonstratio catholica sive tractatus de ecclesia vera Christi et de Romano Pontifice, 5th ed., (Paris: Lethielleux, 1878), II, 279 ff.
13. Cf. Theologiae dogmaticae elementa, 3rd ed. (Paris: Lethielleux, 1912), I, 254 ff.
14. Cf. Theologia fundamentalis (Rome: Typographia Sallustiana, 1899), pp. 328 ff.
15. Cf. Tractatus de ecclesia Christi (Turin: Marietti, 1929), pp. 229 ff.
16. Cf. Apologetica sive theologia fundamentalis, 2nd ed. (Paderborn: Schoeningh, 1923), II, 266.
17. Cf. Compendium theologiae dogmaticae, 4th ed. (Turin: Berruti, 1928), I, 225.
18. Cf. Institutiones theologiae fundamentalis, 2nd ed. (Innsbruck: Rauch, 1928), II, 405.
19. Schultes lists as infallible doctrinal decisions the pronouncements of Leo XIII on Anglican orders in his letter Apostolicae curae, and on Americanism in his letter Testem benevolentiae, and the teachings of Pius X in the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, in his confirmation of the Holy Office decree Lamentabili, and in his Motu proprio, Sacrorum antistitum, in which the formula of the anti-modernist oath is contained. He teaches that Pius IX made two dogmatic definitions, in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus and in his confirmation of the Vatican Council’s decrees. All the other doctrinal acts during the recent pontificates up to 1930 are inferentially classified as non-infallible. Cf. De ecclesia catholica praelectiones apologeticae, 2nd edition prepared by Fr. Edmund Prantner (Paris: Lethielleux, 1931), pp. 643 ff.
20. Cf. De ecclesia Christi tractatus apologetico – dogmaticus (Rome: Arnodo, 1940), p. 576,
21. Cf. The Church: Its Divine Authority, translated by Dr. Edwin Kaiser (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1938), I, 519.
22. Cf. Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae in usum scholarum, 2nd ed. (Innsbruck: Rauch, 1934), I, 519.
23. Cf. “The Church on Earth,” in The Teaching of the Catholic Church: A Summary of Catholic Doctrine arranged and edited by Canon George D. Smith (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1949), II, 719.
24. Mangenot teaches that “up to the present the encyclicals of the Popes do not constitute ex cathedra definitions of infallible authority,” but he also teaches that the Holy Father can, if he wishes, issue infallible definitions in these letters. Cf. DTC, V, 15.
25. Cf. Valeur des decisions doctrinales et disciplinaires du Saint-Siège, 2nd ed. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1913), pp. 52 ff.
26. “L’autorité des encycliques pontificales d’apres Saint Thomas,” in Revue thomiste XII (1904), 512-32.
27. “Must I Believe It?” in The Clergy Review, IX, 4 (April, 1935), 296-309.
28. Cf. Bainvel, De ecclesia Christi (Paris: Beauchesne, 1925), p. 216; Choupin, op. cit., pp. 52 f.; Schultes, loc. cit.
29. Cf. De ecclesia tractatus historico-dogmatici (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1925), II, 113.
30. Cf. Summa apologetica de ecclesia catholica ad mentem S. Thomae Aquinatis, 3rd ed. (Regensburg: Manz, 1906), pp. 622 f.
31. Cf. Tractatus de Romano Pontifice cum prolegomeno de ecclesia, 2nd ed. (Prato: Giachetti, 1891), pp. 718 ff.
32. Pegues, op. cit., pp. 531 f.
33. Lercher, op. cit., p. 250.
34. Cf. Christianity and Infallibility – Both or Neither, 3rd impression (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1916), pp. 283 f.
35. Cf. La saint église catholique (Tournai and Paris: Casterman, 1947), pp. 306 ff.
36. Cf. L’église et son gouvernement (Paris: Grasset, 1935), p. 32.
37. Cf. Enchiridion theologiae dogmaticae generalis, 6th ed. (Brescia: Weger, 1932), p. 722.
38. Cf. Mangenot, loc. cit.
39. Cf. Commentarii theologici, 3rd ed. (Paris: Lethielleux, 1930), I, 441
40. Cf. Dieckmann, op. cit., pp. 121 f.
41. Cf. Franzelin, De divina traditione et scriptura, 3rd ed. (Rome: Cong. de Propaganda Fide, 1882), pp. 127 ff.
42. Cf. Synopsis theologiae dogmaticae fundamentalis, 24th edition, prepared by Fr. Bord (Paris: Desclée, 1937), pp. 633 f.
43. Cf. De Christi ecclesia, 2nd ed. (Rome: Gregorian University, 1928), pp. 260 ff.
44. Cf. Tractatus de ecclesia Christi sive continuation theologiae de Verbo Incarnato, 5th ed. (Rome: Gregorian University, 1927), p. 656.
45. Cf. Tractatus de ecclesia Christi (Rome: Buona Stampa, 1935), p. 243.
46. Cf. Manuale theologiae dogmatiae, 18th ed. (Paris: Berche et Pagis, 1934), I, 563.
47. Cf. De ecclesia et de locis theologicis (Montreal : Grand Seminary, 1945), p. 35.
48. Cf. Theologia generalis seu tractatus de sacrae theologiae principiis (Barcelona: Typographia de Montserrat, 1901), p. 584.
49. Cf. Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae, 7th edition, revised by Fathers Stebler and Raus (Lyons and Paris: Vitte, 1937), I, 473 f.
50. Cf. Handbuch der katholischen Dogmatic (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1873), I, 228 f.
51. Cf. Sythesis sive notae theologiae fundamentalis (Burgos: Lib. del Centro Católico, 1906), p. 443.
52. Cf. A Manual of Catholic Theology, 4th ed. (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1909), I, 96 f.
53. Cf. Elementa apologeticae sive theologiae fundamentalis, 3rd ed. Graz and Vienna: Styria, 1925), p. 400.
54. Cf. Tractatus de ecclesia Christi, 5th edition prepared by Dr. Verhaar (Hilversum, Holland: Brand, 1932), p. 202.
55. Cf. Institutiones propaedeuticae ad sacram theologiam, 6th ed. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1924), p. 357.
56. Cf. Theologia fundamentalis (Naples: D’Auria, 1948), p. 270. Calcagno teaches that generally speaking, the encyclicals do not contain infallible teaching.
57. Cf. the article “Encyclical” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, V, 413 f.
58. Cf. A Handbook of Fundamental Theology, adapted into English by Arthur Preuss (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1932), IV, 50.
59. Cf. Lercher, op. cit., p. 520.
60. DB, 1819-20.
61. Cf. Études théologiques sur les constitutiones du Concile du Vatican; La Constitution Dei Filius (Paris and Lyons: Delhomme et Briguet, 1895), II, 332 f.
62. Cf. Vacant, loc. cit.; Sheeben, op. cit., I, 250.
63. DB, 1684.
64. Institutiones iuris publici ecclesiastici, 3rd. ed. (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1947), I, 413.