Cardinal Franzelin: Popes Can Give Formal Replies That Are Not Infallible

Cardinal Franzelin, Tractatus de divina traditione et scriptura, Thesis 12, edition 1875, p. 119: “Likewise, there can be and are documents not only private but put forward entirely from the Pastoral Office concerning a doctrine of faith or morals by which it is determined to some extent to warn, persuade, command, reprehend, or prohibit the propagation of some opinion or error, without intending to proclaim a definitive sentence by which the whole Church would be bound. And that itself is not an ex cathedra statement. ‘For often the popes respond to private questions of this or that bishop, by explicating their opinion concerning the things proposed, not by passing a sentence by which they will that the faithful would be obligated to believe’ (Melchior Canus, Canus 1. VI. c. 8. ad 7). In this sense the two letters of Honorius to Sergius of Constantinople are rightly recalled.”