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Dear Fr Angelo,

my name is Fabio. I would like to ask you whether the professions of faith that the Holy See requires (for example the one expressed at the beginning of the First Vatican Council) enjoy the charism of infallibility and therefore also of irreformability. If the answer is affirmative, I would like to ask you why there are points of the aforementioned professions of faith that as a normal Catholic I am no longer able to profess.
I’ll give just one example: canon 9 of the Council of Trent: “If any one shall say, that the rite of the Roman Church, whereby a part of the canon and the words of consecration are pronounced in a softened tone, is to be condemned […] let him be anathema”.
I thank you in advance,

Priest’s answer

Dear Fabio,
1. certainly the professions of faith that the Holy See requires enjoy the charism of infallibility and irreformability.

In fact, they concern some fundamental truths of our faith.

2. Here, for example, is a profession of faith requested by the Holy See:
“(recitation of the Creed), followed by:
“I also believe with firm faith everything that is contained in the written or transmitted Word of God and that the Church, either with solemn judgment or with ordinary and universal Magisterium, proposes to be believed as divinely revealed.

I firmly accept and also retain all the individual truths regarding the doctrine concerning faith or customs definitively proposed by the Church.

I also adhere with religious obedience of will and intellect to the teachings that the Roman Pontiff or the Episcopal College propose when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, although they do not intend to proclaim them with a definitive act.’’

3. Whilst here is an example of a profession of faith that must be recited when taking on a role on behalf of the Church, such as the office of parish priest:
“I N.N…, in assuming the office of…, promise to always maintain communion with the Catholic Church, both in my words and in my way of acting.

I will fulfill with great diligence and fidelity the duties to which I am bound towards the Church, both universal and particular, in which, according to the norms of law, I have been called to exercise my service.

In exercising the office entrusted to me in the name of the Church, I will preserve intact and faithfully transmit and illustrate the deposit of faith, thus rejecting any doctrine contrary to it.

I will follow and support the discipline common to the whole Church and will ensure the observance of all ecclesiastical laws, in particular those contained in the Code of Canon Law.

I will observe with Christian obedience what the sacred Pastors declare as authentic doctors and masters of the faith or establish as heads of the Church, and I will faithfully lend aid to the diocesan Bishops, so that the apostolic action, to be exercised in the name and by mandate of the Church, is carried out in communion with the Church itself.

So help me God and these holy Gospels I touch with my hands”. 

4. Instead, the canon of the Council of Trent that you cited is not of a dogmatic, but disciplinary nature.

As the Church has established it, so it can change it.

5. This, therefore, is the difference: while the truths of faith have been given to us by God and are untouchable, the prescription of the rites is instead of ecclesiastical disposition.

Just as they have been established by decision of the Church, so with the same disposition of the Church they can be changed.

I bless you and remember you in my prayers.

Fr Angelo