Part Four: Of the Ecclesiastical Magisterium

§ 1. Christ the Lord entrusted the deposit of faith to the Church, so that she, with the Holy Spirit continually assisting, might guard revealed doctrine holily and expound it faithfully.

§ 2. The Church, independently of any civil power, has the right and office of teaching evangelical doctrine to all nations; moreover all are held by divine law to learn this doctrine duly and to embrace the true Church of God.

§ 1. Those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith, all of which are contained in the written or handed-down word of God and are proposed by the Church, whether by solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal magisterium, as to be believed as divinely revealed.

§ 2. To pronounce a solemn judgment of this kind is proper both to an Ecumenical Council and to the Roman Pontiff speaking ex cathedra.

§ 3. No matter is understood to have been declared or dogmatically defined unless this has been manifestly established.

It is not enough to avoid heretical depravity, but one must also diligently flee those errors which more or less approach it; wherefore all must also observe the constitutions and decrees by which perverse opinions of this kind have been proscribed and prohibited by the Holy See.

§ 1. The faithful of Christ are held to profess the faith openly as often as their silence, evasion, or manner of acting would carry with it an implicit denial of faith, contempt of religion, injury to God, or scandal of neighbor.

§ 2. After baptism has been received, if someone, retaining the Christian name, pertinaciously denies or doubts some truth from among those to be believed by divine and Catholic faith, he is a heretic; if he totally withdraws from the Christian faith, an apostate; if finally he refuses to be subject to the Supreme Pontiff or refuses to communicate with the members of the Church subject to him, he is a schismatic.

§ 3. Let Catholics beware lest they have disputations or conferences, especially public ones, with non-Catholics, without permission of the Holy See or, if the case is urgent, of the local Ordinary.

Bishops also, although individually or even gathered in particular Councils they do not possess infallibility of teaching, nevertheless, under the authority of the Roman Pontiff, are true doctors or teachers of the faithful committed to their care.