Mission to preserve the Catholic Faith stainless
[Our] first safety is to guard the rule of the right faith and to deviate in no wise from the ordinances of the Fathers; because we cannot pass over the statement of our Lord Jesus Christ who said: “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church”… [Mt 16:18]. These [words] which were spoken, are proved by the effects of the deeds, because in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been preserved without stain.
ST. HORMISDAS.
Libellus fidei, 11/8/515: DH 363
A commitment that would be treason to violate
We can therefore understand why the Catholic Church, yesterday and today, attaches such importance to the rigorous preservation of authentic Revelation, considering it an inviolable treasure, and has such a severe awareness of its fundamental duty to defend and transmit the doctrine of the Faith in unequivocal terms. […] The command of the Apostle Paul – depositum custodi (1 Tm 6:20; 2 Tm 1:14) – constitutes for her such a commitment that it would be treason to violate it.
The teaching Church does not invent her doctrine; she is a witness, guardian, interpreter, and intermediary; and, with regard to the truths proper to the Christian message, she can be said to be conservative and uncompromising. And to those who urge her to make her faith easier, more relative to the tastes of the changing mentality of the times, she responds with the Apostles: “Non possumus – We cannot” (Acts 4:20).
ST. PAUL VI.
General Audience, 19/1/1972
Guard and faithfully expound the deposit of Faith
For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of Faith transmitted by the Apostles.
BLESSED PIUS IX.
Pastor Æternus, First Vatican Council,
18/7/1870: DH 3070
Magisterium in conformity with Revelation
When either the Roman Pontiff or the Body of Bishops together with him defines a judgement, they pronounce it in accordance with Revelation itself, which all are obliged to abide by and be in conformity with, that is, the Revelation which as written or orally handed down is transmitted in its entirety through the legitimate succession of bishops and especially in care of the Roman Pontiff himself.
ST. PAUL VI.
Lumen gentium, Second Vatican Council,
21/11/1964
The service of the Word of God
The task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed.
ST. PAUL VI.
Dei Verbum, Second Vatican Council,
18/11/1965
Power subject to divine and positive law
The Roman Pontiff in fact has the sacra potestas to teach the truth of the Gospel, administer the sacraments and pastorally govern the Church in the name and with the authority of Christ, but this power does not include per se any power over the divine law, natural or positive.
ST. JOHN PAUL II.
Speech, 21/1/2000
Guarantee of obedience to God’s Word
The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose thoughts and desires are law. On the contrary: the Pope’s ministry is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and to His Word. He must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.
BENEDICT XVI.
Homily, 7/5/2005
Bound by the provisions Christ established for His Church
The qualification of absolute monarch also does not apply to the Pope in ecclesiastical matters, since he is subject to divine law and bound by the provisions established by Christ for His Church. He cannot modify the constitution given to the Church by its Divine Founder in the same way that a temporal legislator can modify the constitution of the State. The constitution of the Church is founded, in all its essential points, on a divine disposition beyond the reach of human arbitrariness. […]
As the Vatican Council stated in clear and distinct terms, and as follows from the very nature of the thing, it [papal infallibility] refers only to a quality of the supreme magisterium of the Pope: this extends exactly over the same scope as the infallible magisterium of the Church and is linked to the content of Sacred Scripture and Tradition, as well as to the doctrinal decisions previously issued by the Ecclesiastical Magisterium. In the exercise of the Pope’s power, nothing is therefore modified.
BLESSED PIUS IX.
Replies to the circular of Chancellor Bismarck,
Jan.- Feb./1875: DH 3114; 3116
Means to conserve the faith of the Christian people and Church unity
By His [Jesus Christ] own laws and institutions He founded and re-enforced this holy city which is His Church. To it He entrusted, as it were, the deposit of faith in Him to be preserved piously and without contamination. He wished it to be the bulwark of His teaching and truth against which the gates of hell would never prevail. We, therefore, the overseers and guardians of this holy city, must preserve the magnificent heritage of Our laws and faith which has been passed down intact to Us; We must transmit it pure and sound to our successors.
If We direct all our actions to this norm found in sacred scripture and moreover cling to the footsteps of our ancestors, We will be best equipped to avoid whatever could weaken and destroy the faith of the Christian people and loosen in any way the unity of the Church.
CLEMENT XIV.
Cum summi apostolatus,
12/12/1769
Same dogma, same meaning, same judgement
The doctrine of faith, which God revealed, was not proposed as a philosophical discovery to be perfected by human minds, but was entrusted to the Bride of Christ as a divine deposit, to be faithfully guarded and infallibly declared by her. Hence, one must always maintain that meaning of the sacred dogmas which Holy Mother Church once declared, and never, not even under the guise of a higher intelligence, is it permitted to depart from this meaning.
“Let intelligence, science, and wisdom grow and multiply abundantly, both in each one and in all, both in the individual and in the whole Church, according to the progress of ages and centuries, but only in its proper kind, that is, in the same dogma, in the same meaning, and in the same judgement” (St. Vincent of Lérins. Commonitorium primum, c.XXIII, n.3).
BLESSED PIUS IX.
Dei Filius, First Vatican Council,
20/10/1870: DH 3020
Docile listeners and faithful ministers
Beginning with Saint Peter and up to myself, his unworthy Successor, the Pope has been a humble servant of God and of his brothers and sisters […]. It is the Risen Lord, present among us, who protects and guides the Church, and continues to fill her with hope through the love “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). It is up to us to be docile listeners to His voice and faithful ministers of His plan of salvation.
LEO XIV.
Speech, 10/5/2025
