Question put to Pence about how to view the Church

You argue that it's time for a neo-orthodox understanding of "infallibility" -- the progressives having done their best to toss the notion out the window, while traditionalists seem convinced that each papal press release should come with its own reliquary.

Pence:

Let us be obedient sons of the Church. The gospel is the first truth which the Church declares infallibly to us. The Bible is not alone in its guaranteed inerrancy. So many of the words and prayers of the liturgy and the sacramental order are similarly without error, that is, infallible.

'This is my Body'... 'Go in peace, your sins are forgiven you' -- to name my own favorites.

Reciting the Nicene Creed is a time when the whole congregation declares truths infallibly. We share in those assertions made infallibly certain by their historical role in the shared prayer life of the Church. The best way for laymen to join the priesthood at the mass is to offer oneself to the Lord in the canon. The best way for the congregation to join in the authority of the hierarchy is to say the prayers properly and infallibly as they are written.

In an age so uncertain, to men so skeptical, isn’t it exactly these authoritative statements which we must emphasize in an ever more convincing and communal manner? Let us re-present Infallibility at the service of both the basic kerygma and the efficacious words of the sacraments.

It impoverishes this guaranteed ecclesial authority to limit infallibility as a “deciding vote by the Pope on a controversial issue.” It can be that, but it is so much more—and it is exercised so much more often about truths not controversial among us but inflammatory to the world.