The sense of ‘infallibility’ essentially is a pointer toward the way through which a key aspect of Catholic faith is believed to have been identified, offered and taught. Ultimately, it refers to a confidence in God’s promise to the collective Church. The Church as a whole has been given the gift of infallibility, according to the Church’s own authoritative teachings on the topic. It concerns how the Church, as a whole, responds to the gracious self-communication of the God of love.
So one could rather say that infallibility refers to a partial articulation of that wider belief that the Holy Spirit ‘maintains’ (or ‘assists’) the Church in its quest to understand, bear witness to, and put into practice the fundamental truths of the gospel and the wider revealed truths of the faith. Catholicism teaches that the Spirit is present in and with the Church in that quest.
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