[Talisker]

An ex cathedra statement is not "divinely inspired," nor (depending on exactly what you mean) is it "always correct". The only claim is that is preserved free from error. (False teaching, in other words, heresy.) That doesn't make it prudent, nor does it make it the best possible way to teach "X" for any value of "X", etc.

I don't know what kind of world you live in, but in mine, something that is "always correct" IS divinely inspired. Unless you believe that human beings are capable of perfection, which I don't (at least not while remaining human beings, by definition).

As for something free from error being not prudent or the best possible teaching, that concept is clearly Jesuitical. So who watches the watchers? Who determines how much deviation from correctness is correctly allowable for a given situation? Is such a thing the proper role of religion, or is it political expediency hiding as religion? Jesus said "let your yes be yes and your no be no." I guess He, and the great many who died obeying that teaching, just weren't hip to modern needs. Bummer, dude.

[piusv]

Thanks. I was scratching my head trying to figure out how something in matters of faith and morals is preserved free from error and not always correct.

[Campion]

"Divinely inspired" means it says exactly what God wishes to be said, neither more nor less.

"Infallible" tells you only what something doesn't say; it doesn't attempt to definitively teach heresy. The charism doesn't claim to provide anything more than that.

You used the term "always correct," not me. I would not say that infallibility guarantees that something is "always correct".