Dominicans and the Pope

Ulrich Horst, O.P., is emeritus senior professor and director of the Grabmann Institute at the University of Munich. He is the author of a number of books, including Papst, Konzil, Unfelhbarkeit and Unfehlbarkeit und Geschichte.

"Based on a lifetime of research and writing, these three lectures of Father Ulrich Horst, O.P., provide a masterful overview with copious references of the predominant, official, and evolving positions of the Dominicans on the teaching authority of the pope. While always supportive of the jurisdictional primacy of the papacy upon which their own faculties to preach, teach, and render pastoral care depended, Dominican theologians beginning with Tommaso d'Aquino initially held that the Roman Church, rather than the pope personally, was infallible. Only in the sixteenth century with the need for prompt and certain responses to the Protestant challenge did some members of the Dominican School of Salamanca (Melchor Cano, Juan de la Peña, Domingo Báñez, etc.) teach that the pope cannot err. The Jesuits (Gregorio de Valencia, Roberto Bellarmino, etc.) adopted and expanded on this teaching which triumphed at Vatican I despite the efforts of Dominican cardinal Filippo Maria Guidi to defend the earlier Dominican position that the pope must first properly consult before defining. Father Horst has thus demonstrated how nuanced, varied, and slowly evolving was the teaching of the Dominicans on papal authority." —Nelson H. Minnich, The Catholic University of America"There is deep learning and much to be learned from the master of this slim volume." —Speculum"For many years Ulrich Horst has published enlightening studies of historical ecclesiology. . . . In this case, Professor Horst has focused on Dominican viewpoints on papal teaching authority. . . . These lectures on the Dominican view of papal authority can be read with profit by anyone interested in historical ecclesiology." —The Catholic Historical Review"One of the best expositions of the history of the doctrine of infallibility to emerge in the last five years, ranking it with the works of Brian Tierney or Francis Oakley. . . . This is an example of a mature scholar in absolute command of his subject matter. It will be highly valuable for church historians, graduate, and seminary libraries." —Catholic Library World