# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1916_S12
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

12 Proceedings of the twenty-sixth convention

Pope, on his position toward the Church and toward the faithful. To be sure, this Council too recognized implicitly the Pope's rule over the Church and over the Council. In the closing session the 255 Fathers still assembled declared that for all the decrees of the Council the confirmation of the Pope must be obtained in order to make them valid (ut et omnium et singulorum, quae in ea decreta et definita sunt, confirmatio a beatissimo Romano pontifice petatur [that confirmation of all and each of the decrees and definitions made in it be sought from the most blessed Roman pontiff]). Pope Pius IV did then confirm the decrees on 26 January 1564 and reserved to himself and his successors alone the right to interpret the decrees authentically. But what did not happen expressly at that time has long since happened. "From the Synod of Trent to the Vatican Council in the year 1870 there runs a straight-line development; what at Trent was cautiously circumvented, but yet was already in fact accepted through the obtaining of the papal 'confirmation' of the decrees, the Pope's rule over the Church, was added at Rome in 1870 in consistent further development of Tridentinism. At Trent in 1545 began the Jesuitization of the Roman Church; at Rome in 1870 it was completed, the concentration of the entire Catholic world under the autonomous will of the Pope of the day as the bearer of the Church's unity." (Pastor Tschackert, loc. cit.) In the Vatican Council the Roman See laid down its power and authority over the whole Church, and thereby in fact over the whole world, as an article of faith for everyone who wants to be a Christian and be saved, as divine doctrine. In this Council it is no longer the synod that declares and decrees something, but the Pope himself "ex cathedra Petri" [from the chair of Peter], with the consent of the bishops assembled in council. And what he decrees with regard to his plenary authority is this: that Christ gave Peter the primacy (primatus jurisdictionis [primacy of jurisdiction]) in the whole Church; that it rests on divine right that Christ so established it; that Peter is always to have successors in his primacy over the whole Church, and that the bishop of Rome of the day is this successor; that it rests on divine right that the bishop of Rome, as Peter's lawful successor, has not only the office of inspection and direction but also the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church (plenam et supremam potestatem jurisdictionis in universam ecclesiam, non solum in rebus, quae ad fidem et mores, sed etiam in iis, quae ad disciplinam et regimen Ecclesiae in totum orbem diffusae pertinent [full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in matters of faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church spread over the whole world]); and finally follows the well-known sentence in which the Pope declares it a divinely revealed dogma: "that the Roman bishop, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when he exercises his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians and, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, defines the doctrine of faith and morals to be held by the whole Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, possesses that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer