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Hello, in 1870, the Vatican Council issued the dogmatic words Pasta Eternas, which among

other areas affirmed paper infallibility.

It meant effectively that the Pope could not err in his teachings.

It was an assertion with this route in the early church, as the Bishop of Brom and

Pants to being the first among Incals, and then becoming overall head of the Christian

Church in the West, the Vicar of Christ.

The idea that the Pope could not err has been a double-edged sword from the Middle Ages,

as while it apparently conveyed great power, it also meant that the Pope was constrained

by whatever a predecessor said.

If a later Pope was to contradict an earlier Pope, then one of them must be wrong, and how

could that be, if both were infallible?

Let me discuss the rise of the idea of paper infallibility, Tomal Ocklin, Professor of Historical

Theology at the University of Nottingham, Rebecca Rist, Professor in Medieval History at the

University of Reading, and Miles Pattenden, departmental lecturer in Early Modern History

at the University of Oxford.

Tomal Ocklin, how was the paper infallibility defined in the Vatican Council of 1870?

In 1870, the decree saw the Pope as the final judge, and he was able to make a definitive

...