Does the Catholic Church assert they are the only ones who should/can/is preferable (whatever) issue a translation of the Sacred Scriptures? The last post deals with authority. I want to know OFFICIALLY what is the Catholic stance on this.
Good Morning, Brian,
The following is a redacted portion of an extended article on Infallibity taken from the Encyclopedia tab on the main home page of
www.catholic.com The bold and underline is my effort to emphasize key points. I hope you, and others will take the time to read the extended article.
In essence, in my opinion, authority comes DOWN from Christ. Authority does not generate UP from man, no matter how sincere he is in seeking a relationship with God. Christ gave Peter and The Apostles the authority. I do not personally know if ‘ex cathedra infallibility on Faith and morals’ (a conditioned limited divine power) extends to each translation of Holy Scripture, but it is reasonable to want to stay as close those who have Christ’s authority.
TRUE MEANING OF INFALLIBILITY
It is well to begin by stating the ecclesiological truths that are assumed to be established before the question of infallibility arises. It is assumed
(a) that Christ founded His Church as a visible and perfect society;
(b) that He intended it to be absolutely universal and imposed upon all men a solemn obligation actually to belong to it, unless inculpable ignorance should excuse them;
(c) that He wished this Church to be one, with a visible corporate unity of faith, government, and worship;
(d) and that in order to secure this threefold unity, He bestowed on the Apostles and their legitimate successors in the hierarchy—and on them exclusively—the plenitude of teaching, governing, and liturgical powers with which He wished this Church to be endowed.
And this being assumed, the question that concerns us is whether, and in what way, and to what extent, Christ has made His Church to be infallible in the exercise of her doctrinal authority.
We mean in other words that the Church is infallible in her objective definitive teaching regarding faith and morals,
not that believers are infallible in their subjective interpretation of her teaching.
This is obvious in the case of individuals, any one of whom may err in his understanding of the Church’s teaching; nor is the general or even unanimous consent of the faithful in believing a distinct and independent organ of infallibility. Such consent, indeed, when it can be verified as apart, is of the highest value as a proof of what has been, or may be, defined by the teaching authority, but, except in so far as it is thus the subjective counterpart and complement of objective authoritative teaching, it cannot be said to possess an absolutely decisive dogmatic value.
Taking the evidence both scriptural and traditional as it actually stands, one may fairly maintain that it proves papal infallibility in a simpler, more direct, and more cogent way than it proves the general doctrine independently; and there can be no doubt but that this is so if we accept as the alternative to papal infallibility the vague and unworkable theory of ecumenical infallibility which most High-Church Anglicans would substitute for Catholic teaching.
That the Church is infallible in her definitions on faith and morals is itself a Catholic dogma, which, although it was formulated ecumenically for the first time in the Vatican Council, had been explicitly taught long before and had been assumed from the very beginning without question down to the time of the Protestant reformation.
the Roman pontiff when he teaches ex cathedra "enjoys, by reason of the Divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer wished His Church to be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith and morals".
it will suffice to consider the classical texts usually employed in the general proof of the Church’s infallibility; and of these the principal are:
Matt., xxviii, 18-20, and xvi, 18;
John, xiv, xv, and xvi;
I Tim., iii, 14-15; and
Acts, xv, 28 sq.
