Infallibility of Level Three Teachings

INFALLIBILITY OF LEVEL THREE TEACHINGS

In "Humani generis" (DS 3885), 1950, Pius XII said that if the Popes in their acta deliberately take a position on an item currently being debated in theology, it is removed from debate, and falls under Lk 10:16: "He who hears you hears me". That is infallible.

But LG paragraph 25 seeming to speak of the same thing specifies only "religious submission", which is less than the infallible level.

We comment: If a Pope intends to make anything definitive, that is infallible. No special form of words is needed. Thus in the "si quis dixerit..."AS form, sometimes we find only disciplinary matters. While in Vatican I, DS 3006, we read that the books of Scripture have God as their author. But this was in a capitulum, not in a canon. Yet Pius XII in "Divino afflante Spiritu" EB 538, said that text of Vatican I was a "solemn definition".

We conclude that all that is required is the intent to make an item definitive, plus writing in such a way as to make that intent clear. The conditions given by Pius XII do make that clear, namely removing a thing from debate, and bringing it under Lk 10:16. Hence such things really are infallible.