“The special prerogative which Catholics now universally believe to have been conferred on the Pope by the Divine Founder of Christianity has a very special and limited range, although certainly quite complete within its proper domain. It consists in the Pope’s ability to decide questions concerning religion about which there may be room for doubt in the minds of Christians, on account either of the large number of adherents or of the apparently plausible arguments on both sides of the question.... It should be clearly understood that it is not the office of the Pope to act as one inspired or to receive or give to the world any new revelation. It is merely to decide what the original deposit (as we call it) of faith was, as committed by Christ to his Apostles; or in other words to repeat the decision which the Apostles themselves would have made in regard to the doctrines of Christianity. Still less is it the office of the Pope to settle matters of science or ordinary questions of fact. Not but what the domains claimed by science and the domains claimed by faith may sometimes overlap; this may be the case for instance to some extent in the matter of evolution, especially if evolution is supposed to apply to the human soul, or it may apply in the cases in which science asserts that matter existed from all eternity.... And even questions of historical fact may belong to faith by being necessarily connected with some of its dogmas, or by forming part of the inspired record of Holy Scripture. There would, for instance, be a conflict of history or of geology with the Church, if it should be asserted in the name of either of these branches of learning that the account of the Deluge was simply a myth. But conflicts of this sort are rare. Practically no Catholic is impeded in any kind of study or investigation by any fear of papal condemnation.... The impression of Protestants that we Catholics believe the Pope to be incapable of error, no matter what he is speaking about or under what circumstances he expresses his thought, is of course without foundation.... The Catholics do, however, believe that the Pope is able to make infallible decisions with regard to morals as well as to faith.... But it by no means follows that because the Pope can solemnly instruct the faithful infallibly, he always or on all occasions holds or gives utterance to correct views with regard to right or wrong.... We hold simply that God assists the Pope in a special way to prevent him from making a decision at all if the way is not reasonably clear to it; or if God allows the decision to be made, to insure that this decision shall contain nothing contrary to the truth.”[164]