SESSION 4: 18 July 1870
First dogmatic constitution on the church of Christ
Pius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, with the approval of the sacred council, for an everlasting record.
The eternal shepherd and guardian of our souls [37],
in order to render permanent the saving work of redemption,
determined to build a church
in which,
as in the house of the living God,
all the faithful should be linked by the bond of one
faith and
charity.
Therefore, before he was glorified,
he besought his Father,
not for the apostles only,
but also for those who were to believe in him through their word,
that they all might be one as the Son himself and the Father are one [38].
So then,
just as he sent apostles, whom he chose out of the world [39],
even as he had been sent by the Father [40],
in like manner it was his will that in his church there should be shepherds and teachers until the end of time.
In order, then, that
the episcopal office should be one and undivided and that,
by the union of the clergy,
the whole multitude of believers should be held together in the unity of
faith and
communion,
he set blessed Peter over the rest of the apostles and
instituted in him the permanent principle of both unities and
their visible foundation.
Upon the strength of this foundation was to be built the eternal temple, and the church whose topmost part reaches heaven was to rise upon the firmness of this foundation [41].
And since the gates of hell trying, if they can, to overthrow the church, make their assault with a hatred that increases day by day against its divinely laid foundation,
we judge it necessary,
with the approbation of the sacred council, and
for the protection, defence and growth of the catholic flock,
to propound the doctrine concerning the
institution,
permanence and
nature
of the sacred and apostolic primacy,
upon which the strength and coherence of the whole church depends.
This doctrine is to be believed and held by all the faithful in accordance with the ancient and unchanging faith of the whole church.
Furthermore, we shall proscribe and condemn the contrary errors which are so harmful to the Lord’s flock.
Chapter 1 On the institution of the apostolic primacy in blessed Peter
We teach and declare that,
according to the gospel evidence,
a primacy of jurisdiction over the whole church of God
was immediately and directly
promised to the blessed apostle Peter and
conferred on him by Christ the lord.
[Promised]
It was to Simon alone,
to whom he had already said
You shall be called Cephas [42],
that the Lord,
after his confession, You are the Christ, the son of the living God,
spoke these words:
Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the underworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven [43].
[Conferred]
And it was to Peter alone that Jesus,
after his resurrection,
confided the jurisdiction of supreme pastor and ruler of his whole fold, saying:
Feed my lambs, feed my sheep [44].
To this absolutely manifest teaching of the sacred scriptures, as it has always been understood by the catholic church, are clearly opposed the distorted opinions of those who misrepresent the form of government which Christ the lord established in his church and deny that Peter, in preference to the rest of the apostles, taken singly or collectively, was endowed by Christ with a true and proper primacy of jurisdiction.
The same may be said of those who assert that this primacy was not conferred immediately and directly on blessed Peter himself, but rather on the church, and that it was through the church that it was transmitted to him in his capacity as her minister.
Therefore,
if anyone says that
blessed Peter the apostle was not appointed by Christ the lord as prince of all the apostles and visible head of the whole church militant; or that
it was a primacy of honour only and not one of true and proper jurisdiction that he directly and immediately received from our lord Jesus Christ himself:
let him be anathema.