Chapter IX — On Councils

I. The common description of Councils is this: An assembly of the Prelates of the Church, convoked by a legitimate Superior for the settling of controversies of faith and morals. One kind of Council is general, to which come the Bishops of the whole catholic world, the Roman Pontiff presiding either in person or through his Legates; another is national, in which the Bishops of a kingdom or nation assemble under the direction of a Patriarch or Primate. A provincial Council is composed of the Bishops over whom an Archbishop or Metropolitan presides. A diocesan Synod consists of the Priests, or Parish priests, of a single diocese, the Bishop presiding, who alone has the right of suffrage; wherefore it is not a Council properly so called.

II. The origin of Councils flows from divine law: for in the old Testament itself God ordained Councils, as is found in Numbers, chapter 11: Gather unto me seventy men of the ancients of Israel, etc.; and again Deuteronomy, chapter 17: If thou perceive that there be among you a hard and doubtful matter in judgment... thou shalt come to the Priests, etc. And Matthew, chapter 18: Where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

III. General Councils which have been neither convoked nor confirmed by the Roman Pontiff are endowed with no firm authority, as is evident in the Council of Rimini in the cause of Arius, and in the Conciliabulum of Ephesus in the cause of Dioscorus. But those which have been confirmed by the authority of the Roman Pontiff, and received with the accession of the Church's consent, are, according to all Catholics, of infallible authority in controversies of faith and morals. This infallibility of Councils flows not from the multitude of the Bishops, but from the protection of the Holy Spirit; which protection and inspiration Christ himself lucidly pledges in the holy Scriptures. These Councils do not constitute new articles of faith or new truths of morals; but they declare the articles and truths revealed by God, and lest they err in such definitions, the Holy Spirit assists them.

IV. National, provincial, and diocesan Councils, although they are not endowed with the privilege of infallibility, are nevertheless of such authority that they would be guilty of the gravest temerity who should not acquiesce in their canons. For although Councils of this kind can absolutely be deceived, yet in very fact they are most rarely deceived. Scarcely one or another occurs — besides the Councils of Carthage under St. Cyprian concerning the rebaptizing of Heretics — which has erred in articles of faith and morals. Wherefore the Seventh general Synod established the following concerning diocesan Synods, in Action 3, in the synodal letters of Theodore, Patriarch of Jerusalem: Local Synods, moreover, we do not turn away from, but rather we love, embrace, and receive them; and their divinely inspired canonical constitutions, their corrections, and their useful legislations we honor with the highest observance.

V. Hence it follows that Theologians ought to consult these sacred Synods, and to receive their decrees with great deference in those things which regard the rules of faith and morals. Those things which pertain to the peculiar discipline and ceremonies of the nations, let them be observed according to the approved customs of the regions and nations. Wherefore who can sufficiently deplore the not few Moralists who, when they hear the decrees of the Synods objected against them, immediately rejoin that the Synods are either national, or provincial, or diocesan, destitute of the privilege of infallibility? What of the fact that the decrees of the whole Gallican Church assembled in her general Assemblies are derided and lashed with insults by the new Casuists, or by certain partisans of the Casuists? Nor do we maintain that those Synods are immune from the danger of erring — as neither were Augustine, nor Chrysostom, nor Thomas, nor any of the Doctors of the Church. Are the Fathers on that account to be held cheap? Moreover, are Caramuel, Bonacina, Machado, Escobar, Castropalao, Tamburini, Gobat, La Croix, and the other Casuists endowed with the gift of infallibility? The assertors of the new benignity make more of a certain roll — and that not very numerous — of Casuists, whose volumes swarm both with proscribed and with lax opinions, than of the decrees of a diocesan, or provincial, or even national Synod. These men ought to reflect that the Holy Spirit has appointed Bishops, not Casuists, to rule his Church. Bishops and Parish priests are the pastors of the Christian people, not the Casuists. The sheep must hear the voices of the Pastors. The Holy Spirit assists Synods in a peculiar manner, inasmuch as they are assembled for the profit and instruction of the Faithful. Let all the Synods held during the last two centuries be read: scarcely one will occur which contains any lax opinion; all display most wholesome decrees and the best rules of Christian discipline. Whence it is evident how gravely those Confessors hallucinate who make nothing of reading Genet, Pontas, Natalis Alexander, Merbes, and other similar authors who resolve moral controversies by the decrees of the Synods, saying: What are the Gallican, Spanish, Italian Synods to us? They do not decide practical cases; they do not bring forward weighty reasons; they do not distinguish materially and formally, as our Moralists do. By these illusions not a few are bewitched. So far has the custom prevailed of quarreling, caviling, wrangling, distinguishing, and subdistinguishing in the handing down of the most simple and most holy evangelical Morals, that they who are prepossessed by this inveterate custom can scarcely be recalled to a better way. We nevertheless do not omit to beg these men, and earnestly to adjure them, to read the holy word of God at its divine fountain; and if doubts occur, to go to the sacred Councils and the holy Fathers for the legitimate interpretation.