Pastor Aeternus

Pastor Aeternus is a dogmatic constitution of the first Vatican Council, which was adopted on 18 July 1870 by the Council Fathers. It is proclaimed as dogma that the Pope is the owner of the top command ( power of jurisdiction ) in the Catholic Church and associated with final decisions in matters of faith and morals infallibly.

The Constitution

Chapter 1

The first chapter emphasizes that Christ had directly and immediately to the apostle Peter promised and given the primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church. This emphasis on the direct establishment had been hit especially against the opinion of the Gallican and Febronianer.

Chapter 2

In the second chapter, it is determined that this endowed by Christ primacy in the bishops of Rome should to all eternity endure.

Chapter 3

From the ordinary, immediate and true episcopal jurisdiction of the Pope in matters of faith, morals, but also in matters of ecclesiastical discipline is mentioned in the third chapter. At the same time, however, also emphasized that the bishops the individual, their care flock entrusted to as " true shepherds " guide and direct.

At the end of the third chapter it is stated that the judgment of the pope by no other authority except by his own canceled or amendable was, not even by an ecumenical council. This definition also marks the final stroke of the centuries- old debate over the right of appeal against the pope to an ecumenical council.

Chapter 4

The fourth chapter has at the outset point out that the supreme magisterium is included in the primacy and that the popes have this teaching function always exercised in close connection with the bishops throughout history. The teaching function was furthermore always equipped with the special prerogative of infallibility. For this infallibility the terms and conditions are in the concluding paragraph stated: The pope must speak ex cathedra, that is, not as a statement of his personal opinion, but in fulfillment of its role as teacher and shepherd of all Christians. He must " define virtue of his apostolic authority " by which he clearly and definitively decides in a discussion, " a doctrine that in matters of faith or morals to be held by the whole Church. "

" In such a case, he enjoys by divine assistance, which is the promised Peter and his successors in him, " that infallibility, according to the will of the divine Redeemer, the Church should be equipped with the definition of a doctrine with the ". It follows that such definitions, since they are come with godly counsel about, off are immutable, without ratification by the episcopate would be necessary that: ex sese, non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae ".

With this formulation, we wanted the last Gallican tendencies that for an infallible papal judgment confirming the Gesamtepiskopates was necessary to create a once and for all from the world. One might think that the Pope is in this formulation completely isolated from the church, but this just seems that way.

Existence and effect

While the first Vatican Council has the consensus Ecclesiae as constitutive of an infallible papal decision back, but stresses that " the Pope as the organ of tradition for the practical exercise of his infallible magisterium in constant, close contact with the sensus Ecclesiae - and the believing mind must remain " - feeling of the church.