Is the Pope Infallible? What Catholics Actually Mean

Is the Pope infallible? Learn the conditions for definitive teaching on faith and morals, why interviews can be wrong, and how infallibility differs from sinlessness.

Related: Is the Pope Infallible? What Catholics Actually Mean · papal infallibility · pope can be wrong · pope never wrong · ex cathedra

Giulio Traballesi's engraving depicting the canonization of Saint Catherine — Giulio Traballesi / The Metropolitan Museum of Art · CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

Frequently Asked Questions

Does infallibility mean the Pope never sins?

No. Infallibility concerns protection from error in specified definitive teaching. Impeccability means sinlessness, which Catholics do not attribute to the Pope.

Is every papal interview or homily infallible?

No. An interview, opinion, homily, or administrative decision is not automatically an ex cathedra definition. The role, subject, intention, and scope of a teaching matter.

What are the conditions of papal infallibility?

The Pope acts as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful, definitively proclaiming a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the whole Church; see Catechism 891.

Can non-infallible teaching be ignored?

No. Authentic non-definitive teaching can call for religious submission of mind and will. Not being infallible does not make a teaching merely optional or equal to a private opinion.