Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

THE BASIC GOODS THEORY AND REVISIONISM 187
infallibility of the ordinary universal magisterium:
Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative
of infallibility, they can nevertheless proclaim Christ’s doctrine infallibly.
This is so, even when they are dispersed around the world,
provided that while maintaining the bond of unity among themselves
and with Peter’s successor, and while teaching authentically
on a matter of faith or morals, they concur in a single viewpoint as
the one which must be held conclusively. 52
GERMAIN GRISEZ and FRANCIS A. SULLIVAN have extensively debated
the numerous conditions laid out for declaring a teaching
of the ordinary universal magisterium infallible, especially with
regard to the magisterium’s teaching on artificial birth control. 53
A particularly contentious point of debate between these two
scholars on this paragraph from Lumen Gentium concerns the
criteria for determining whether or not a judgment has been
proposed conclusively or definitively and is thus infallible. One
way of determining whether or not this is the case is explained
in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, namely, that such a teaching has
been infallibly defined must be “clearly established.” There must
be “universal consensus” on this teaching. 54 What are the episte-
52 Lumen Gentium par. 25.
53 The following literature traces the genesis and development of this debate.
It begins with a paper published by GRISEZ and JOHN C. FORD, S.J., on
the infallibility of the Church’s teaching on artificial birth control: “Contraception
and the Infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium,” TS 39 (1978) 258-
312, and continues with the following works: FRANCIS A. SULLIVAN, Magisterium;
GRISEZ, “Infallibility and Specific Moral Norms: A Review Discussion,”
Thomist 49 (1985) 248-87; SULLIVAN, “The ‘Secondary Object’ of Infallibility,”
TS 54 (1993) 536-50; GRISEZ, “Quaestio Disputata: The Ordinary Magisterium’s
Infallibility: A Reply to Some New Arguments,” TS 55 (1994) 720-32,
737-38; SULLIVAN, “Reply to Germain Grisez,” TS 55 (1994) 732-37; and SUL-
LIVAN, Creative Fidelity 105-06.
54 Both GRISEZ and SULLIVAN recognize that canon 749.3 applies to “defined
doctrines.” However, based on theological reasons, Sullivan would expand
the requirement of “clearly established” to doctrines “infallibly taught
by the ordinary universal magisterium” (“‘Secondary Object’” 549; and
GRISEZ, “The Ordinary Magisterium’s Infallibility” 730-31).