"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;

And whatever you loose on earth

shall be loosed in heaven."
(Mt 16:19)

The power of "binding and loosing" is not derived from the Apostles but given directly by Christ to Peter. This means that God in Heaven will confirm the Pope's judgment and this presupposes that the Pope as the Supreme Teacher of the Faith will be preserved from error. Further, the unity of the Church in truth for which Christ prayed, "That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you send me" (Jn 17:21) cannot be maintained without the power to teach infallibly. Scripture alone cannot achieve this unity due to man's fallen nature as can be seen by so many Christian denominations based on Scripture alone.

The Fathers of the Church did not speak of the infallibility of the Pope but they attest to the decisive teaching authority of the Roman Church. From the earliest times the Popes exercised their supreme authority by condemning the heretical opinions which arose. Pope Pius IX called the First Vatican Council in 1869. The Pope's primary purpose in convincing the council was to obtain confirmation of the position he had taken in his Syllabus of Errors (1864). However, from the beginning, papal infallibility dominated the agenda.

Papal Infallibility was defined by the First Vatican Council on July 18, 1870 thus: "We teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by consent of the Church, irreformable"

David B. Currie has observed that --

"Rome emerges as the only bishopric
of the ancient sees
that never taught heresy."

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