How can the Catholic Church, and especially one human being, the Pope, be infallible?
God “desires that all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). Jesus established the Catholic Church so that His saving truth could be brought to the world to every generation until He returns again. This is why St. Paul calls the Church “the pillar and bulwark of truth” (1 Tim 3:15). Jesus ensured that the Church would be a living, infallible witness of the truth in promising the Apostles that He would be with them always until the end of time (Matt 28:20) and by giving them the Holy Spirit as the One Who would come and “guide them into all truth” (John 16:13). As the successor of Peter, the Pope is infallible, both alone and in council with all the bishops, only when he speaks as pastor of the universal Church to formally define doctrine with respect to faith or morals. (In practice, some definitions of doctrine have come from universal councils whose pronouncements have then received approval from the Pope. This does not negate the principle.) The spec
