According to chapter 4 of “Pastor Aetemus” (the text on papal infallibility promulgated by Vatican I on July 18th, 1870), it is “that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals” that may, in certain circumstances, enable the bishop of Rome, in his capacity as successor of St Peter, to define a doctrine as to be held by the universal Church. What the Church has as a permanent endowment, built in structurally so to speak (instructam in the original Latin), the successor of St Peter may on occasion have available to him, enabling or “powering” him (pollere). The problem of interpretation here lies not only in discerning in what sort of circumstances the bishop of Rome may thus be “enabled”, but in discovering the sense in which the Church herself is endowed with infallibility at all. Problematic as discerning a papal decision that enjoys infallibility may be, it is nothing to exploring the mystery of the Church’s infallibility.

It is a negative term, like so many others in theology. To be infallible is to be undeceiving and undeceivable, to possess immunity from either leading or being led into error. Christ and the Holy Spirit can neither deceive nor be deceived, and since the Church is, mystically and sacramentally, the body of Christ and the continuation of Pentecost, the Church is infallible. This is the faith shared by all Christians, Catholic and Orthodox.

Recent discussions of religion have, as we have seen, made much use of the idea of “ineffable experiences”. It is suggested that there is, beyond reach of conceptual language and the discursive intellect, a primary experience which grounds religion. It is also suggested, at least sometimes, that this experience is common to all religions, in spite of their considerable doctrinal and philosophical differences.

In my last article I expressed some doubts about this suggestion. And it is, in fact, very difficult even to see what it is actually meant to be suggesting. Quite apart from the extreme vagueness of the word “experience”, it is not at all clear what sense can be given to “ineffable” simply on the basis of experience. Presumably experiential ineffabilists, if I may so designate them, would not wish to deny that there might be all kinds of experience which make us talk in terms of ineffability or inexpressibility. “It was inexpressibly beautiful”. “It was unspeakably horrible”. “It was more terrifying than you can conceive of’. And so on. But if it is possible to pick out in some way (as, for instance, Otto tries to do) just what kind of inexpressible experience is intended, then it is not clear in what sense it is said to be inexpressible, unless, indeed, nothing more is meant than that the experience is “too wonderful for words”.

Recently attention was focussed on the Church in Latin America by the Puebla conference of bishops, but we must not forget that last year, 1978, was not only the year of the World Cup but also that of Jim Jones and the mass suicides. Those events in Guyana were as photogenic as any papal visit or assembly of bishops and perhaps even more difficult for a secular world to comprehend. Such mass religious hysteria is unusual in any continent but the fundamentalist religious beliefs that seem to have accompanied it have been increasing recently and the activities of groups like the Mormons have become a feature of life in the shanty towns. For some, these happenings are an anglo-saxon excrescence on the fair face of South America. True enough, flight from the world usually takes a different form in Latin countries. The situation does not lead men to indulge in fantasies about a new Jerusalem or Jonesville here on earth. The most they can hope for is to take time off and spend it in the company of fellow sufferers who may teach them how to transmute their present cares and troubles into something of mystical value. There is a down-to-earth realism in the suffering Christ and the Mater Dolorosa in a world where incarceration, flaying, and swords of sorrow are no idle metaphors. But we must not forget that these religious forms have their secular counterpart. In the dark days of the late nineteen twenties after the fall of Hipolito Yrigoyen the unevangelised masses of Buenos Aires found a liturgical release from their cares in the tango.