One of the most common questions I get is: “Which Dogmas are Infallible in the Catholic Church?” In 2013, the website Tradicat was able to conglomerate from the late Dr. Ludwig Ott’s book, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma about 238 dogmas that are either De Fide (defined by the Catholic Church as infallible) or Sent. Certa (infallible by corollary.) I improved Tradicat’s numbering system a bit below, but Dr. Ott and Dr. Daniel Stramara did the hard work on this long ago.
More recently, Fr. Paul Kramer and Dr. Edmund Mazza have revealed that despite being a modernist, and despite hiding the Third Secret of Fatima, Pope Benedict XVI has denied none of the following 238 dogmas as Pope, at least not in any official promulgation like an encyclical. (Elsewhere, they disprove the notion that a Pope can execute a “semi-resignation,” as he has tried.) Notice the below list in contrast to this list.
The following 238 dogmas are clearly not exhaustive since the Catholic Church holds everything asserted in Scripture as articulated faith and morals to be infallible, as well as anytime the early Church Fathers speak unanimously on any such interpretation of Sacred Scripture. But the following list of 238 De Fide items are probably the most important ones. An asterix below indicates definitions found in the first Seven Ecumenical Councils.
238 Infallible dogmas of the Catholic Church:
1 God, our Creator and Lord, can be known with certainty, by the natural light of reason from created things.
2 God’s existence is not merely an object of natural rational knowledge, but also an object of supernatural faith.
3 God’s nature is incomprehensible to men.
4 The blessed in Heaven possess an immediate intuitive knowledge of the Divine Essence.
5 The Immediate Vision of God transcends the natural power of cognition of the human soul, and is therefore supernatural.
6 The soul, for the Immediate Vision of God, requires the light of glory.
7 God’s Essence is also incomprehensible to the blessed in Heaven.
8 The Divine Attributes are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence.
9 God is absolutely perfect.
10 God is absolutely simple.
11 There is only One God. *
12 The One God is, in the ontological sense, The True God.
13 God is absolute veracity.
14 God is absolutely faithful.
15 God is absolute ontological Goodness in Himself and in relation to others.
16 God is absolute Moral Goodness or Holiness.
17 God is absolute Benignity.
18 God is absolutely immutable.
19 God is eternal.
20 God is immense or absolutely immeasurable.
21 God is everywhere present in created space.
22 God’s knowledge is infinite.
23 God knows all real things in the past, the present and the future.
24 By the knowledge of vision God also foresees the future free acts of the rational creatures with infallible certainty.
25 God’s divine will is infinite.
26 God loves Himself of necessity, but loves and wills the creation of extra-Divine things, on the other hand, with freedom.
27 God is almighty. *
28 God is the Lord of the heavens and of the earth. *
29 God is infinitely just.
30 God is infinitely merciful.
31 In God there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each of these Three Persons possesses the one (numerical) Divine Essence. *
32 In God there are two Internal Divine Processions. *
33 The Divine Persons, not the Divine Nature, are the subject of the Internal Divine processions (in the active and in the passive sense).
34 The Second Divine Person proceeds from the First Divine Person by Generation, and therefore is related to Him as Son to a Father. *
35 The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son as from a Single Principle through a Single Spiration. [N.B. Orthodox Church rejects this.]
36 The Holy Spirit does not proceed through generation but through spiration. *
37 The Three Divine Persons are in One Another.
38 All the ad extra Activities of God are common to the Three Persons.
39 All that exists outside of God was, in its whole substance, produced out of nothing by God.
40 God was moved by His Goodness to create the world.
41 The world was created for the Glorification of God.
42 The Three Divine Persons are one single, common Principle of Creation. *
43 God created the world free from exterior compulsion and inner necessity.
44 God has created a good world.
45 The world had a beginning in time.
46 God alone created the world.
47 God keeps all created things in existence.
48 God, through His Providence, protects and guides all that He has created.
49 The First Man was created by God.
50 Man consists of two essential parts-a material body and a spiritual soul.
51 The rational soul is per se the essential form of the body.
52 Every human being possesses an individual soul.
53 God has conferred on man a supernatural destiny.
54 Our first parents, before the Fall, were endowed with sanctifying grace.
55 Our First Parents in Paradise sinned grievously through transgression of the Divine probationary commandment.
56 Through sin our First Parents lost sanctifying grace and provoked the anger and the indignation of God.
57 Our First Parents became subject to death and to the dominion of the Devil.
58 Adam’s sin is transmitted to his posterity, not by imitation, but by descent.
59 Original sin is transmitted by natural generation.
60 Souls who depart life in the state of original sin are excluded from the Beatific Vision.
61 In the beginning of time God created spiritual essences (angels) out of nothing.
62 The nature of angels is spiritual.
63 The Devil possesses a certain dominion over mankind by reason of Adam’s sin.
64 Jesus Christ is True God and True Son of God. *
65 Christ assumed a real body, not an apparent body. *
66 Christ assumed not only a body but also a rational soul. *
67 Christ was truly generated and born of a daughter of Adam, the Virgin Mary. *
68 The Divine and human natures are united hypostatically in Christ, that is, joined to each other in one Person. *
69 In the Hypostatic Union each of the two natures of Christ continues unimpaired, untransformed and unmixed with the other. *
70 Each of the two natures in Christ possesses its own natural will and its own natural mode of operation. *
71 The Hypostatic Union of Christ’s human nature with the Divine Logos took place at the moment of conception. *
72 The Hypostatic Union will never cease. *
73 The Hypostatic Union was effected by the Three Divine Persons acting in common.
74 Only the Second Divine Person became Man.
75 Not only as God but as man Jesus Christ is the natural Son of God.
76 The God-Man Jesus Christ is to be venerated with one single mode of Worship, the absolute Worship of Latria which is due to God alone. *
77 Christ’s Divine and Human characteristics and activities are to be predicated of the one Word Incarnate. *
78 Christ was free from all sin, from original sin as well as from all personal sin.
79 Christ’s human nature was passible.
80 The Son of God became man in order to redeem men.
81 Fallen man cannot redeem himself.
82 The God-Man Jesus Christ is a High Priest. *
83 Christ offered Himself on the Cross as a true and proper sacrifice. *
84 Christ by His Sacrifice on the Cross has ransomed us and reconciled us with God.
85 Christ did not die for the predestined only.
86 Christ, through His Passion and Death, merited reward from God.
87 After His Death, Christ’s soul, which was separated from His body, descended into the underworld. *
88 On the third day after His Death Christ rose gloriously from the dead. *
89 Christ ascended body and soul into Heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. *
90 Mary is truly the Mother of God. *
91 Mary was conceived without stain of original sin.
92 Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit without the co-operation of man. *
93 Also after the Birth of Jesus Mary remained a virgin. *
94 Mary was assumed body and soul into Heaven.
95 There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will.
96 There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul which coincides in time with man’s free act of will.
97 For every salutary act internal supernatural grace of God is absolutely necessary.
98 Internal supernatural grace is absolutely necessary for the beginning of faith and of salvation.
99 Without the special help of God the justified cannot persevere to the end in justification.
100 The justified person is not able for his whole life long to avoid all sins, even venial sins, without the special privilege of the grace of God.
101 Even in the fallen state, man can, by his natural intellectual power, know religious and moral truths.
102 For the performance of a morally good action Sanctifying Grace is not required.
103 In the state of fallen nature it is morally impossible for man without Supernatural Revelation, to know easily, with absolute certainty and without admixture of error, all religious and moral truths of the natural order.
104 Grace cannot be merited by natural works either de condigno or de congruo.
105 God gives all the just sufficient grace for the observation of the Divine Commandments.
106 God, by His Eternal Resolve of Will, has predetermined certain men to eternal blessedness.
107 God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, predestines certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection.
108 The Human Will remains free under the influence of efficacious gracious, which is not irresistible.
109 There is a grace which is truly sufficient and yet remains inefficacious.
110 The sinner can and must prepare himself by the help of actual grace for the reception of the grace by which he is justified.
111 The justification of an adult is not possible without Faith.
112 Besides, faith, further acts of disposition must be present.
113 Sanctifying grace sanctifies the soul.
114 Sanctifying grace makes the just man a friend of God.
115 Sanctifying grace makes the just man a child of God and gives him a claim to the inheritance of Heaven.
116 The three Divine or theological virtues of faith, hope and love are infused with sanctifying grace.
117 Without special Divine Revelation no one can know with the certainty of faith, if he be in the state of grace.
118 The degree of justifying grace is not identical in all the just.
119 Grace can be increased by good works.
120 The grace by which we are justified may be lost, and is lost by every grievous sin.
121 By his good works the justified man really acquires a claim to supernatural reward from God.
122 A just man merits for himself through each good work an increase of sanctifying grace, eternal life (if he dies in a state of grace) and an increase of heavenly glory.
123 The Church was founded by the God-Man Jesus Christ.
124 Christ founded the Church in order to continue His work of redemption for all time.
125 Christ gave his Church and hierarchical constitution.
126 The powers bestowed on the Apostles have descended to the bishops.
127 Christ appointed the Apostle Peter to be the first of all the Apostles and to be the visible Head of the whole Church, by appointing him immediately and personally to the primacy of jurisdiction.
128 According to Christ’s ordinance, Peter is to have successors in his Primacy over the whole Church and for all time.
129 The successors of Peter in the Primacy are the bishops of Rome.
130 The Pope possesses full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, not merely in matters of faith and morals, but also in Church discipline and in the government of the Church.
131 By virtue of Divine right the bishops possess and ordinary power of government over their dioceses.
132 Christ is the Head of the Church.
133 In the final decision on doctrines concerning faith and morals the Church is infallible.
134 The primary object of infallibility is the formally revealed truths of Christian Doctrine concerning faith and morals.
135 The Pope is infallible when he speaks ex cathedra.
136 The totality of the Bishops in infallible, when they, either assembled in general council or scattered over the earth, propose a teaching of faith and morals as one to be held by all the faithful.
137 The Church founded by Christ is unique and one. *
138 The Church founded by Christ is holy. *
139 The Church founded by Christ is catholic. *
140 The Church founded by Christ is apostolic. *
141 Membership of the Church is necessary for all men for salvation.
142 It is permissible and profitable to venerate the Saints in Heaven, and to invoke their intercession.
143 It is permissible and profitable to venerate the relics of the Saints.
144 It is permissible and profitable to venerate the images of the Saints. *
145 The living Faithful can come to the assistance of the souls in purgatory by their intercessions.
146 The Sacraments of the New Covenant contain the grace which they signify, and bestow it on those who do not hinder it.
147 The Sacraments work ex opere operato (operate by the completed sacramental action).
148 All the Sacraments of the New Covenant confer sanctifying grace on the receivers.
149 Three Sacraments, Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders, imprint a character, that is, an indelible spiritual mark, and for this reason, cannot be repeated.
150 The Sacramental Character is a spiritual mark imprinted on the soul.
151 The Sacramental Character continues at least until the death of its bearer.
152 All Sacraments of the New Covenant were instituted by Jesus Christ.
153 There are Seven Sacraments of the New Law.
154 The Sacraments of the new Covenant are necessary for the salvation of mankind.
155 For the valid dispensing of the Sacraments it is necessary that the minister accomplish the Sacramental Sign in the proper manner.
156 The minister must further have the intention at least doing what the Church does.
157 In the case of adult recipients moral worthiness is necessary for the worthy or fruitful reception of the Sacraments.
158 Baptism is a true Sacrament instituted by Jesus Christ.
159 The material remota of the Sacrament of Baptism is true and natural water.
160 Baptism confers the grace of justification.
161 Baptism effects the remission of all punishments of sin, both the eternal and the temporal.
162 Even if it be unworthily received, valid Baptism imprints on the soul of the recipient an indelible spiritual mark, the Baptismal Character, and for this reason, the Sacrament cannot be repeated.
163 Baptism by water is, since the promulgation of the Gospel, necessary for all men without exception, for salvation.
164 Baptism can be validly administered by anyone.
165 Baptism can be received by any person in the wayfaring state who is not already baptized.
166 The Baptism of young children is valid and licit.
167 Confirmation is a true Sacrament properly so-called.
168 Confirmation imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual mark, and for this reason, cannot be repeated.
169 The ordinary minister of the Confirmation is the Bishop.
170 The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are truly, really and substantially present in the Eucharist.
171 Christ becomes present in the Sacrament of the Altar by the transformation of the whole substance of the bread into His Body and of the whole substance of the wine into His Blood.
172 The Accidents of bread and wine continue after the change of the substance.
173 The Body and Blood of Christ together with His Soul and His Divinity and therefore the Whole Christ are truly present in the Eucharist.
174 The Whole Christ is present under each of the two species.
175 When either consecrated species is divided the Whole Christ is present in each part of the species.
176 After the Consecration has been completed the Body and Blood are permanently present in the Eucharist.
177 The Worship of Adoration must be given to Christ present in the Eucharist.
178 The Eucharist is a true Sacrament instituted by Christ.
179 The matter for the consummation of the Eucharist is bread and wine.
180 For children before the age of reason the reception of the Eucharist is not necessary for salvation.
181 Communion under two forms is not necessary for any individual member of the Faithful, either by reason of Divine precept or as a means of salvation.
182 The power of consecration resides in a validly consecrated priest only.
183 The Sacrament of the Eucharist can be validly received by every baptized person in the wayfaring state, including young children.
184 For the worthy reception of the Eucharist the state of grace as well as the proper and pious disposition are necessary.
185 The Holy mass is a true and proper Sacrifice.
186 In the Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross is made present, its memory is celebrated, and its saving power is applied.
187 In the Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Sacrifice of the Cross the Sacrificial Gift and the Primary Sacrificing Priest are identical; only the nature and the mode of the offering are different.
188 The Church has received from Christ the power of remitting sins committed after Baptism.
189 By the Church’s Absolution sins are truly and immediately remitted.
190 The Church’s power to forgive sins extends to all sin without exception.
191 The exercise of the Church’s power to forgive sins is a judicial act.
192 The forgiveness of sins which takes place in the Tribunal of Penance is a true and proper Sacrament, which is distinct from the Sacrament of Baptism.
193 Contrition springs from the motive of fear is a morally good and supernatural act.
194 The Sacramental confession of sins is ordained by God and is necessary for salvation.
195 By virtue of Divine ordinance all grievous sins according to kind and number, as well as those circumstances which alter their nature, are subject to the obligation of confession.
196 The confession of venial sins is not necessary but is permitted and is useful.
197 All temporal punishments for sins are not always remitted by God with the guilt of sin and the eternal punishment.
198 The priest has the right and the duty, according to the nature of the sins and the ability of the penitent, to impose salutary and appropriate works of satisfaction.
199 Extra-sacramental penitential works, such as the performance of voluntary penitential practices and the patient bearing of trials sent by God, possess satisfactory value.
200 The form of the Sacrament of Penance consists in the words of Absolution.
201 Absolution, in association with the acts of the penitent, effects the forgiveness of sins.
202 The principal effect of the Sacrament of Penance is the reconciliation of the sinner with God.
203 The Sacrament of Penance is necessary for salvation to those who, after Baptism, fall into grievous sin.
204 The sole possessors of the Church’s Power of Absolution are the bishops and priests.
205 Absolution given by deacons, clerics of lower rank, and laymen is not Sacramental Absolution.
206 The Sacrament of Penance can be received by any baptized person, who, after Baptism, has committed a grievous or a venial sin.
207 The Church possesses the power to grant Indulgences.
208 The use of Indulgences is useful and salutary to the Faithful.
209 Extreme Unction is a true and proper Sacrament instituted by Christ.
210 The remote matter of Extreme Unction is oil.
211 The form consists in the prayer of the priest for the sick person which accompanies the anointing.
212 Extreme Unction gives the sick person sanctifying grace in order to arouse and strengthen him.
213 Extreme Unction effects the remission of grievous sins still remaining and of venial sins.
214 Extreme Unction sometimes effects the restoration of bodily health, if this be of spiritual advantage.
215 Only bishops and priests can validly administer Extreme Unction.
216 Extreme Unction can be received only by the Faithful who are seriously ill.
217 Holy Order is a true and proper Sacrament which was instituted by Christ.
218 The consecration of priests is a Sacrament.
219 Bishops are superior to priests.
220 The Sacrament of Order confers sanctifying grace on the recipient.
221 The Sacrament of Order imprints a character on the recipient.
222 The Sacrament of Order confers a permanent spiritual power on the recipient.
223 The ordinary dispenser of all grades of Order, both the sacramental and the non-sacramental, is the validly consecrated bishop alone.
224 Marriage is a true and proper Sacrament instituted by God.
225 From the sacramental contract of marriage emerges the Bond of Marriage, which binds both marriage partners to a lifelong indivisible community of life.
226 The Sacrament of Matrimony bestows Sanctifying Grace on the contracting parties.
227 In the present order of salvation death is a punishment for sin.
228 All human beings subject to original sin are subject to the law of death.
229 The souls of the just which in the moment of death are free from all guilt of sin and punishment for sin, enter into Heaven.
230 The bliss of Heaven last for all eternity. *
231 The degree of perfection of the beatific vision granted to the just is proportioned to each one’s merits.
232 The souls of those who die in the condition of personal grievous sin enter Hell.
233 The punishment of Hell lasts for all eternity.
234 The souls of the just which, in the moment of death, are burdened with venial sins or temporal punishment due to sins, enter Purgatory.
235 At the end of the world Christ will come again in glory to pronounce judgment. *
236 All the dead will rise again on the last day with their bodies. *
237 The dead will rise again with the same bodies as they had on earth.
238 Christ, on his second coming, will judge all men. *
p/c viator.