Jump To:

• papal infallibility
  papal infallibility

  noun

  the dogma that the pope cannot err in a solemn teaching addressed to the whole church on a matter of faith or morals.
• infallibility, papal
  infallibility, papal

  The belief of the Roman Catholic Church that the pope is kept by God from making a mistake when he speaks on a question of faith or morals.

papal infallibility

American  

noun

Roman Catholic Church.

1. the dogma that the pope cannot err in a solemn teaching addressed to the whole church on a matter of faith or morals.

---

infallibility, papal Cultural  

1. The belief of the Roman Catholic Church that the pope is kept by God from making a mistake when he speaks on a question of faith or morals.

---

Etymology

Origin of papal infallibility

First recorded in 1865–70

Example Sentences

Later, recounting his fruitless sessions with his hopeless catechumen, Father Mowbray tells the matriarch how he tried to explain to Mottram the concept of papal infallibility:

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 22, 2026

Küng, who brought Ratzinger to Tübingen, would later be barred from teaching by his former colleague, after he rejected papal infallibility.

From BBC • Dec. 31, 2022

Most famously, Ratzinger helped censure his friend Hans Kung, a Swiss theologian skeptical of the concept of papal infallibility.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 31, 2022

The Catholic Church believes in papal infallibility on the very few and rare instances in which he speaks ex cathedra.

From New York Times • Apr. 9, 2018

Martin then referred to Döllinger, and reproached him with having in his earlier works—which were not named—taught papal infallibility, whereas he now assailed it.

From Letters From Rome on the Council by D?llinger, Johann Joseph Ignaz von