As the People of God, the Church “cannot err in matters of faith,” Pope Leo XIV affirmed during the general audience on March 18, 2026. This “infallibility of the Church,” he emphasized, is a “responsibility,” because it makes “every baptized person an active agent of evangelization.”
Note: This article is based on a tentative working translation of the Pope's address.
Continuing his series of teachings on the legacy of the Second Vatican Council, the pontiff expanded on his reflection on the theme of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium (1964), which focuses on the identity of the Church. Before tens of thousands of faithful gathered this Wednesday in St. Peter’s Square, he once again commented on the second chapter, dedicated to the Church as the “People of God.”
Leo XIV recalled the “common priesthood” that unites, within the Church, the lay faithful and ordained ministers: that of Baptism, perfected by the sacrament of Confirmation. This “royal priesthood,” as the Second Vatican Council calls it, is realized through the sacraments and the virtues — “prayer, asceticism, and active charity” — and enables the People of God to participate in “Christ’s prophetic mission.”
This dimension, the Pope explained, is manifested in the “sensus fidei,” that “sense of faith” which the Council describes as a “faculty of the whole Church” as a whole to distinguish “the true from the false in matters of faith,” and which is expressed in the “consent of the faithful.” This “infallibility of the Church,” he noted, is linked to that of the pope and ensures that the Church, “as a communion of the faithful that obviously includes the pastors, cannot err in matters of faith.”
This unity, preserved by the Church’s Magisterium, means that “every baptized person is an active agent of evangelization,” Leo XIV emphasized. He emphasized how the Holy Spirit particularly inspires consecrated life, “which never ceases to sprout and blossom under the action of grace,” or other forms of ecclesial associations, another “shining example of the variety and fruitfulness of spiritual fruits for the edification of the People of God.”
The Pope concluded by emphasizing the “responsibility” that this belonging entails, and urged everyone to awaken within themselves “the awareness and gratitude for having received the gift of being part of the People of God.”
