The Pope doesn't hang "infallibility" seals on his declarations. We're supposed to be able to figure it out from how things are stated and were supposed to obey even the non-infallible teachings. If people persist in refusing to see the definitive language of a document, the only thing the pope does is to issue another, more definitive statement--as in Evangelium Vitae. But the language simply can't get any more definitive than that used in EV.
That he understood himself to be teaching infallibly in EV, I don't think any can really deny--the language there is as definitive as it gets, so it's a good way to learn how to recognize such language, keeping in mind that it can be stated more subtly as in OS.
Thanks for your reply. But the doctrine of Papal Infallibility wasn't formalised until Vatican I, obviously it needed to be formalised or else nothing prior to that would necessarily be considered infallible. The fact that we are meant to rely on the clarity of the statements rather than formal pronouncements seems to leave the door wide open for misinterpretation. This forum has incuded Catholics who disagree on just what exactly constitutes an infallible pronouncement. Perhaps the Vatican can continue to deal with things on a case-by-case basis, but it seems to me that eventually they are going to have to come up with a process or code of what has been declared infallibly Ex Cathedra.
Well, yes and no. The doctrine of infallibility was formulated long before Vatican I, it just wasn't as definitively formulated!
Look, the Orthodox are already mad at us for having an itchy trigger finger regarding defining stuff, pinning stuff down. They get along with even less defining (because, I've argued, they've had fewere unity-threatening divisions since they handled the big ones in the first six or eight centuries). Your uneasiness is understandable, but if the popes had tried to tie everything off absolutely neatly they would only have succeeded in further angering the Orthodox and die-hard dissenters would still find something to pick nits over.
The solution cannot simply lie in the pope doing all the heavy lifting. A chief can't be an effective chief if his brave followers won't follow. That's why some of the weight rests on our shoulders--to be willing to recognize definitiveness when it's there and to heartily accept even the stuff not so definitively stated. With a bit more obsequium from the heart of the Catholic faithful, there'd be no problem. Troublemakers and contrarians and dissenters will always arise. The more and more precise definitions are for them.
Yes, I know that Protestants taunt us because we have no infallible list of infallibly taught dogma. We have unofficial lists compiled by scholars like Ludwig Ott, we have official assemblages of official teaching like the Catechism but without specifying which lines are de fide and infallible and which are merely "normal" Catholic doctrine.
But see, this is what distinguishes a Catholic from a pseudo-Catholic. A Catholic accepts the entire Catechism. He reads and follows as best he can, the entire text of Evangelium Vitae, not merely three passages. There's really good stuff in the rest of the encyclical--about how to live out the gospel of life, how to employ it's principles in democratic societies, how to read the Bible properly etc. A true Catholic accepts it all and strives to live according to it. A fake Catholic nitpicks over just how much of it he can ignore and how much he can't ignore. Such a Catholic is one step away from the maw of Hell.
From time to time the pope does respond to queries where previous definitive teaching has not yet managed to penetrate the thick skulls of the cafeteria Catholic pro-aborts or feminists. But if he did this everytime some moonbat dissenter asks, "did you really mean that," he'd never get anything else done.
Parents recognize this attitude in children: did you really mean that, Mommy? Are you sure? Pretty please, Mama, just this one time, please, whine, whine, whine, whine. We tolerate it in children because they are immature and we try to teach them to outgrow it and grow up.
The pope treats Catholic faithful like adults, not like children. That alone ought to be sufficient answer to your whiny fake Catholic moonbat friends.
Nuff said?