Infallibility
a quality or state of freedom or exemption from error.
Papal infallibility, a claim defined on July 18, 1870, in the CEcumenical Coun- 18, 1870, in the Ecumenical Council, held in cil, held in the Vatican under the presi- Pope Pius IX. "We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of of his supreme apostolic authority he defaith or morals to be held by the Universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that inwith which the divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are irreformable."
Till the decision of the Vatican Council in favor of the Pope's infallibility this opinion, though for centuries it had had numerous advocates, especially in Italy, had never been authoritatively de- When it ceased to be an open question, some German scholars, of whom Professor Döllinger, of Munich, was the most noted, seceded from the machinery, which brought about our modern factory system of industry, with numbers of poor people in populous cenits consequent congregation of great ters, infant mortality tended to increase hundred years ago, sociologists turned at a prodigious rate . Then, about a their attention to this phenomenon, and began to investigate into causes. fact that it was not by any means only Careful study then brought out the the unfit who died, or the better individuals, physically or morally, that survived. On the contrary, it was found ter people who died, because they were that often it was the children of the betthat often it was the children of the bettions attending the poverty and congesleast least adaptable to the deplorable condicareful investigation proved that the tion of the big cities. As an instance, poorer class people of London were gradually becoming stunted of stature, as compared to the same class of people in the rural districts. close study of causes and effects, it is As a result of these many years of known that ignorance most of all is the cause of the heavy death rate of infants, especially ignorance of hygiene and proper diet. The country mother seldom fails to be able to nurse her children till they are past the period of the most danger, danger, but the mother who lives in the an industrial center, and on account of poor food and having to work in a factory, is seldom able to do so. proper substitutes for mother's milk is, Imtherefore , one of the chief causes of inlonger ago than in 1919, when, through fant mortality. This was proven no an investigation in Saginaw, Mich., it was discovered that of every thousand mothers who worked for a living, 132 lost a child, whereas of an equal number of mothers who did not work, but stayed at home to care for their children, only 78 had lost a child. Another important cause of infant mortality is the impurity INFANTA of the milk distributed in many large cities, a fact which has caused a great deal of emphasis to be placed on a pure milk supply by municipalities.
Another fact proven by the collection of statistics is that one-fifth of all deaths are those of children less than one year of age, while one-fourth of all deaths are those of children under two years of age. Also, it is shown that male children are the most delicate, the death rate among them being from 16 to 30 per cent. higher than among female children.