St. John Henry Newman Dispels Mythology Surrounding Papal Infallibility and the Exoneration of Pope Vigilius (+554)

La masacre de San Bartolomé, by François Dubois (1584)

St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572) is one of the most terrible tragedies to befall the people of France during the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598). During this time, many Catholics and Protestants (called Huguenots) in France killed each other over both political and religious differences. The Massacre began with a long and violent battle that began on August 23rd, going into the 24th, the Eve of the Feast day for St. Bartholomew. Initially, measures were taken to prevent any violence; eventually, municipal authorities closed the city gates of Paris and armed the citizenry to prevent a Protestant uprising against Paris. A leading Huguenot leader, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, was eventually killed, and the tension continued to build until it was an all-out massacre, with the Huguenots being the side that lost extremely high numbers. Catholics overtook the Protestant side. The death toll varies according to source, but altogether we can estimate around 20 to 30 thousand.

Pope Gregory XIII

Now, word of this got to Rome, and it was received as an act of victorious deliverance from the heretical Huguenots by Pope Gregory XIII. To celebrate, the Pope had the Te Deum sung as a special thanksgiving and had a commemorative medal struck with the words "Ugonottorum Strages 1571," which translates to "Slaughter of the Huguenots." The medal features an image of an angel bearing the cross of Christ and a sword, with the fallen Protestants depicted beneath. It was seen as an act of divine retribution since Admiral Coligny was seen as a threat to Christendom. The Pope then designated September 11th of 1572 to be a joint commemoration of the Battle of Lepanto and the Massacre of the Huguenots.

Richard Francis Littledale (1833-1890), an Anglo-Catholic clergyman and contemporary of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, used Pope Gregory’s response to this Paris massacre as a piece of evidence against the truth of the Papal claims. He saw the Pope’s defense and celebration of the massacre of Protestants as a violation of Christian morals. How can the successor of St. Peter be found openly supporting such immorality? One of his letters to Newman took issue with Newman’s view of Pope Gregory XIII’s attitude toward the Massacre and went on to press the issue of Papal Infallibility. On September 15 of the same year, Newman responded by saying what we often find ourselves saying to our interlocutors:

“I will but say one thing – viz that to consider Gregory’s act or acts of which you speak as a dogmatic statement on morals, such as constitute a definitive ex cathedra, appears to me one of the least logical ideas, to use your words, that ever entered into the mind of a learned and able man. It shocks my common sense – and, speaking under correction, I think it would shock the common sense of most men, certainly of Catholic theologians. Allow me to say you really have not got hold of what we mean by the Pope’s Infallibility, and what we hold by the idea, not what you hold by it, must be the starting point of any fruitful controversy.”

This has become obvious to Catholics and Protestants today, but what Newman goes on to say is something most don’t carefully consider, namely, that the Pope’s infallibility is not a habit that inheres him:

“Infallibility is not a habit in the Pope, or a state of mind – but, as the decree says, that infallibility which the Church has. The Church when in Council and proceeding by the strictest forms enunciates a definition in faith and morals, which is certainly true. The Church is infallible then, when she speaks ex cathedra — but the Bishops out of Council are fallible men. So the Pope is infallible then, when he speaks ex cathedra — but he has no habit of infallibility in his intellect, such that his acts cannot but proceed from it, must be infallible because he is infallible, imply, involve, an infallible judgment. He is infallible pro re nata [for a particular affair], when he speaks ex cathedra — not except at particular times and on grave occasions. Nay further than this, even on those grave questions the gift is negative. It is not that he has an inspiration of truth, but he is simply guarded from error, circumscribed by a divine superintendence from transgressing, extravagating beyond, the line of truth. And his definitions do not come of a positive divine guidance, but of human means, research, consulting theologians, etc etc. It is an ‘adsistentia’ [assistance] not an ‘inspiratio’ [inspiration] — an aid eventual, i.e. in the event, and does not act till the event, not in the process — and an adsistentia, as I have said, pro re nata. His words would be infallible one moment, not the next.” (The Letters and Diaries, 26:169-70)

Pope Gregory XIII’s celebration of the Protestant massacre does not fall under the mode of the Pope’s infallible teaching authority. We all know this. However, Newman here gives a warning against taking the Pope’s infallibility to be a sort of habit that always abides with him in what he says and does. Rather, Papal infallibility is an event where God Himself protects a person under particular conditions, and on no other. I’ve come across Protestants who sort of take it for granted that Papal infallibility is at a threat for when the Pope says or does something wrong. Even with the conditions of ex cathedra being taken into account, there seems to be a lingering supposition that we can call infallibility into question whenever the Pope does something or says something that might genuinely contradict the Christian faith.

As I have argued elsewhere, the Pope might be a theological dunce and may not even know the answer to the theological questions that confront him. This does not negate the doctrine of Papal infallibility. The charism of the Pope is not a guarantee that he will know how to resolve a particular theological question. An example of this would be Pope Paul V’s decision to postpone an official declaration vindicating the Thomistic doctrine of predestination contra Luis De Molina, which had met in the De Auxiliis congregation, ending in 1607 with the decision that all sides can promote their beliefs until the Church sees fit to make a final decision. The Catholic Church, to this day, has not given an authoritative decision on Thomistic predestination versus the Molinist predestination. Now, surely, the fact that this congregation was even created to examine the question would disprove the idea of a Papal automation or Papal omniscience, (i.e., that the Pope automatically knows all things by his authority in blessed Peter). Now, to be fair, perhaps Pope Paul V did understand very well the theological solution, but did not see the wisdom in coming down on one side in a dogmatic fashion. Because of this, perhaps De Auxiliis is not the best example. There are better ones.

The case of Pope Vigilius (+555) and the Three Chapters controversy illustrates the usefulness of Newman’s point most vividly. I say this because even with the conditions of ex cathedra in mind, both Protestants and Orthodox continue to appeal to the contradictory constitutions (constituta) of Vigilius as a falsification of the doctrine of Papal infallibility. How? It is often claimed that in his first constitution (contitutum), Vigilius authoritatively (in the name of St. Peter’s authority) defended the Nestorianism found in the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of Edessa, all compiled in a collection of documents entitled Three Chapters, and then 6 months later, he repented of being a Nestorian and finally submits to the Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople under Emperor Justinian and condemns the Three Chapters in his 2nd constitution. Therefore, it is claimed, you have a Pope who issued a document ex cathedra that was Christologically heretical, and then came out afterwards and condemned his previous decree with another decree.

However, the facts tell a different story. Firstly, Pope Vigilius never subscribed to Nestorian Christology. From the beginning to the end of his Papal career, Vigilius was adamantly against Nestorius and affirmed his anathematization in no uncertain terms. Those terms were his vigorous affirmation of the dogmatic status of the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451).

“But Erick, all the historians who comment on this have recognized that Vigilius shilly-shallied on the matter of the Three Chapters. He initially condemned them in his Judicatum (548), then annulled it shortly thereafter. Then, he condemned it again partially in his Constitutum (553), only to afterwards fully condemn them in his 2nd Constitutum (554).”

Yes, those are the historical facts. However, in neither of those decrees did he ever decide to subscribe to Nestorian Christology, nor did he ever recant of having done so. On the contrary, even at the very end, when Vigilius came out with his final Constitutum (#2) condemning the Three Chapters, he prefaced this by saying his Christology had always been Ephesine (431) and Chalcedonian (451). The confusion of the Three Chapters was whether the authors in the text, particularly Theodoret and Ibas, were truly asserting Nestorian propositions. All throughout the controversy, Vigilius either thought they were expressing orthodox propositions that could be interpreted in a Chalcedonian-Cyrillian manner or that they failed to do so. His rule was always Chalcedonian-Cyrillian Christology. Not once in that process did he identify a truly Nestorian proposition, interpreted as Nestorian, and embrace it as correct.

The Three Chapters controversy was not a doctrinal investigation. Rather, it was an investigation as to whether certain documents were affirming Nestorian Christology or Cyrillian Christology. How one answers that question depends on how they are interpreting the assertions by each particular author. If you read the author as intending to conform to Cyril’s Christology, then you would not have noticed any errors in them. In the circumstance that one read the authors as intending to conform to Nestorius’s Christology, then you would have noticed clear errors. These two divergent readings formed two camps, and both camps were dogmatically sworn to Cyril’s Christology and the Christology of Chalcedon (451).

Therefore, the issue was a matter of fact, not on the definition of faith. Thankfully, we don’t need anyone to take my word for its own value. We have the studious conclusion of Pope St. Gregory II on the Three Chapters. He had studied the matter quite well since he and his predecessors had to wrestle with the Western bishops who themselves were in schism (not heresy) for interpreting the Council of Constantinople (553) as anathematizing the Council of Chalcedon. Popes Pelagius I and Pelagius II were prolific in defending Rome and the 5th Council. By the time Gregory entered office, he had long been familiar with the nature of the defense of the Council. In his famous letter addressed to all the Western bishops who were still objecting, he wrote the following:

“For in the synod which dealt with the three chapters it is distinctly evident that nothing pertaining to faith was subverted, or in the least degree changed; but, as you know, the proceedings had reference only to certain individuals; one of whom, whose writings evidently deviated from the rectitude of the Catholic Faith, was not unjustly condemned.” (Registrum Epistolarum, 2.51)

Here Gregory makes it abundantly clear that the Synod of 553 was not to tackle any new doctrinal claims but simply to determine whether “certain individuals” had subscribed to a certain error (i.e., of Nestorius). He then says “one of them” (i.e., Theodoret of Mopsuestia) was condemned for a clear deviation from the Catholic faith. This is because the Council specifically singled out the Mopsuestian apart from Theodore of Cyrus and Ibas of Edessa. The latter two simply had certain pre-Chalcedonian writings of theirs condemned.

Pope Vigilius, therefore, cannot be said to have been issuing an ex cathedra decree against or in support of the Three Chapters since in all of his decrees he was making decrees that were either disciplinary (i.e., the Three Chapters must not be condemned, in full, at least) or factual (i.e., the three authors intended to convey orthodoxy or heterodoxy). Not one of them was related to the definition of orthodox Christology. Nor do his constitutions arise to the matter of dogmatic facts because in either constitution, the authoritative material was always, strictly speaking, an order to prohibit or enforce the anathematization of the Three Chapters. And such material doesn’t get to the question of a definition of faith.

“But Erick, wouldn’t prohibiting or enforcing the anathematization of someone’s doctrinal writing be related to the rightness or wrongness of the doctrine in said writing?”

Not necessarily. And the proof for that is the development of Rome’s treatment of the controversy over the doctrine of our Lady’s immaculate conception. For centuries prior to Pope Pius IX’s Ineffabilis Deus (1854), Western theologians debated over whether our Lady was immaculately conceived or not. The Thomists were against it, and the Scotists were in favor of it. Oftentimes, members of either camp would launch the accusation of heresy to the other side.

In A.D. 1483, Pope Sixtus IV had to intervene with his Grave Nimis constitution which said:

“Although the holy Roman Church publicly and solemnly celebrates the feast of the Conception of the inviolate and ever Virgin Mary, and has arranged a special and proper Office for the feast, we have learned that some preachers from different Orders, in their sermons to the people throughout various cities and districts, have up to the present unblemishly asserted in public and are daily continuing to preach that all sin mortally or are heretics who hold or assert that the same glorious and immaculate Mother of God was conceived without the stain of original sin; and that those sin mortally who celebrate the Office of this same Immaculate Conception or listen to the sermons of those who affirm that she was conceived without stain of this kind… By the tenor of these presents, we reprove and condemn with apostolic authority assertions of this kind as false and erroneous and as wholly foreign to the truth… [We reprehend as well those] who shall dare to assert that those who hold the contrary view— namely, that the glorious Virgin Mary was conceived with original sin— are guilty of the crime of heresy or of moral sin, since the matter has not been decided as yet by the Roman Church and Apostolic See.”

DB, 737; Eng. Trans. Paul F. Palmer, Mary in the Documents of the Church (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1952), 75

One can see in this how Pope Sixtus IV allowed members of the Church to hold either that Mary was conceived with or without the stain of original sin, and he prohibited the anathematization of the immaculate conception as well as prohibited the anathematization of those who held to the view that she was conceived in original sin. Was Sixtus IV a heretic? No, he states in the end, “since the matter has not yet been decided as yet by the Roman Church.” And so, Pope Vigilius’s 1st constitution banning anyone from anathematizing the Three Chapters can’t be a doctrinal definition nor a matter of dogmatic facts since it is, simply put, a prohibition to anyone to make an official judgment upon the Three Chapters. That’s it. The material is no less disciplinary than Sixtus IV’s prohibition of anyone officially anathematizing either view on Mary’s conception. In conclusion, Newman’s point on the unhabitual nature of Papal infallibility is exemplified perfectly in that Vigilius made some big mistakes and errors, but this is because the gift of infallibility is not habitual; it is eventual under certain conditions.