The attribute of infallibility belonging to the entire community of the Faithful manifests itself differently in its different parts. In the Teaching Body it is Active Infallibility, that is, inability to lead astray; in the Body Taught it is Passive Infallibility—that is, incapability of being led astray.
SECT. 14.—ORGANIZATION OF THE APOSTOLATE (CONCLUDED)—EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL INDEFECTIBILITY OF DOCTRINE AND FAITH IN THE CHURCH—RECAPITULATION
I. Intimately connected with the infallibility of the Church is her Indefectibility. There is, however, a difference between the two. Infallibility means merely that what the Church teaches cannot be false, whereas the notion of Indefectibility implies that the essentials of Revelation are at all times actually preached in the Church; that non-essentials are proposed, at least implicitly, and are held habitually; and that the inner, living Faith never fails. The Indefectibility of truth in the Church is less limited than the Infallibility. The perfection of the latter requires merely that no doctrine proposed for belief should be false, whereas the perfection of the former requires that all the parts of revealed doctrine should be actually, and at all times, expressed in the doctrine of the Church. Indefectibility admits of degrees, whereas a single failure, for a single day, on a single point of doctrine, on the part of the public teaching authority, would utterly destroy Infallibility.
II. The Indefectibility of the Teaching Body is at the same time a condition and a consequence of the Indefectibility of the Church. A distinction must, however, be drawn between the Indefectibility of the Head and the Indefectibility of the subordinate members. The individual who is the Head may die, but the authority of the Head does not die with him—it is transmitted to his successor. On the other hand, the Teaching Body as a whole could not die or fail without irreparably destroying the continuity of authentic testimony. Again, the Pope’s authority would not be injured if, when not exercising it (extra judicium), he professed a false doctrine, whereas the authenticity of
