development of science carried the risk of denigrating the teaching authority
of the church as the guardian of revelation. He therefore warned against
scholars‘unhappily deceived’ and‘trusting too much in the powers of
human ability’, who withhold‘due obedience to the teaching power of the
church, divinely appointed to preserve the integrity of all revealed truth’.^21
Second, Pius expressed concern that some German scholarship—and he
seemed to have Döllinger’s address in mind—had become too enamoured
with modern forms of learning at the expense of the tried-and-true doctors of
the church, in particular scholastic theologians.‘We are not ignorant that in
Germany’, the letter reads,‘there prevails a false opinion against the old school
(falsam invaluisse opinionem adversus veterem scholam), and against the
teaching of those supreme doctors, whom the universal church venerates
because of their admirable wisdom and sanctity of lives.’^22 Finally,Tuas
libenterbroached the topic of the church’s infallibility, making a noteworthy
distinction that not only dogmas of faith are to be adhered to by faithful
Catholics; obedience should‘also extend to those matters which are handed
down as divinely revealed by the ordinary teaching (magisterium ordinarium)
of the church spread throughout the world’ and held by‘universal and
common consent’. In the development of Catholic teaching authority, this
statement broke new ground, making a distinction between the‘infallible
magisterium’and the‘ordinary magisterium’.
While some subsequent scholars have argued for a gulf between the two,
that was not Pius’s intent. Worried that the seeds of liberalism were taking
root among German scholars, the Pope and the Roman Curia sought to extend
the reach of the church’s teaching authority. Indeed, the letter appeals to the
‘conscience’of Catholic scholars: they were duty-bound not only to obey the
most deeply sanctioned doctrines of the church;‘[I]t is also necessary [that
they] subject themselves to the decisions pertaining to doctrine which are
issued by the Pontifical Congregations, and also to those forms of doctrine
which are held by common and constant consent of Catholics as theological
truths and conclusions.’Failure to adhere to this‘second-tier’order of teach-
ings risked embracing ideas and principles that‘although they cannot be called
heretical, nevertheless deserve some theological censure’.^23
Tuas libenterdid not constitute thefinal word on theological matters in
Germany. It was followed by a papal edict of 5 July that regulated the nature of
theological congresses and conferences, mandating stricter supervision by the
(^21) Heinrich Denzing (ed.),Kompendium der Glaubensbekenntnisse und kirchlichen Leh-
rentscheidungen, 4th edn (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2005), 790–1.
(^22) Denzing (ed.),Kompendium der Glaubensbekenntnisse, 791.
(^23) Denzing (ed.),Kompendium der Glaubensbekenntnisse, 793. For further reflection on the
‘ordinary magisterium’, see John P. Boyle,Church Teaching Authority: Historical and Theological
Studies(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 10–29.
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