Chapter XI. Infallibility Of The Popes. 135 Pope St. Innocent I., in the fifth century, condemns the Pelagian heresy, in reference to which St. Augustine wrote this memorable sentence: "The acts of two councils were sent to the Apostolic See, whence an answer was returned. The question is ended. Would to God that the error also had ceased." In the fourteenth century Gregory XI. condemns the heresy of Wycliffe. Pope Leo X., in the sixteenth, anathematizes Luther. Innocent X., in the seventeenth, at the solicitation of the French Episcopate, condemns the subtle errors of the Jansenists, and in the nineteenth century Pius IX. promulgates the doctrine [132] of the Immaculate Conception. Here we find the Popes in various ages condemning heresies and proclaiming doctrines of faith; and they could not in a stronger manner assert their infallibility than by so defining doctrines of faith and condemning errors. We also behold the Church of Christendom ever saying Amen to the decisions of the Bishops of Rome. Hence it is evident that, in every age, the Church recognized the Popes as infallible teachers. Every independent government must have a supreme tribunal regularly sitting to interpret its laws, and to decide cases of controversy likely to arise. Thus we have in Washington the Supreme Court of the United States. Now the Catholic Church is a complete and independent organization, as complete in its spiritual sphere as the United States Government is in the temporal order. The Church has its own laws, its own autonomy and government. The Church, therefore, like civil powers, must have a permanent and stationary supreme tribunal to interpret its laws and to determine cases of religious controversy. What constitutes this permanent supreme court of the Church? Does it consist of the Bishops assembled in General Council? No; because this is not an ordinary but an extraordinary tribunal which meets, on an average, only once in a hundred years.