This is so well known, that even the late Mr.
Gladstone, speaking as an outside observer, and as a mere student of
history, positively brings it as a charge against the Catholic Church
that "the Popes, for well-nigh a thousand years, have kept up, with
comparatively little intermission, their claim to dogmatic
infallibility" (_Vat._ p. 28). Still, the point remained unsettled by
any dogmatic definition, so that, as late as in 1793, Archbishop Troy
of Dublin did but express the true Catholic view of his own day when
he wrote: "Many Catholics contend that the Pope, when teaching the
Universal Church, as their supreme visible head and pastor, as
successor to St. Peter, and heir to the promises of special assistance
made to him by Jesus Christ, is infallible; and that his decrees and
decisions in that capacity are to be respected as rules of faith, when
they are dogmatical, or confined to doctrinal points of faith and
morals. Others," the Archbishop goes on to explain, "deny this, and
require the expressed or tacit acquiescence of the Church assembled or
dispersed, to stamp infallibility on his dogmatic decrees.
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