Quotes about Infallibility

At length it became high time to remember the first clause of that great discovery made by the ancient philosopher, for securing health, riches, and wisdom; the infallibility of which has been for generations verified by the enormous fortunes constantly amassed by chimney-sweepers and other persons who get up early and go to bed betimes.

THE most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling is the more he is convinced of his own infallibility.

Adult infallibility, which seems to me to be an oxymoron, is a regrettable condition, a type of regression, a hardening of the arteries around the heart of ignorance. It frequently manifests itself in an irrational irascibility that is directed at an unspecified "they," who upon examination turn out to be politicians, professionals, or scientists who have challenged our comfortable assumptions about the world.

It is not the sanctuary that is in danger; it is civilization. It is not infallibility that may go down; it is personal rights. It is not the Eucharist that may pass away; it is freedom of conscience. It is not divine justice that may evaporate; it is the courts of human justice. It is not that God may be driven from His throne; it is that men may lose the meaning of home; For peace on earth will come only to those who give glory to God! It is not the Church that is in danger, it is the world!

Love is a mode of knowledge, and when the love is sufficiently disinterested and sufficiently intense, the knowledge becomes unitive knowledge and so takes on the quality of infallibility.

The Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when . . . he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal church is, by the divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer [Jesus] wills that His church should be endowed.

In regard to infallibility, I never claimed it; God alone is infallible. His word is true, and in Him is no variableness, or shadow of turning.