And here is the point where Church authority and the individual’s right to give himself an account of the faith that is in him, may come into conflict. It is possible that the teaching authority of the Church, as in the case of Galileo, may in the name of the faith forbid a scientific opinion which is only in apparent contradiction with fixed dogmatic truth, and which becomes later on an irrefutable certainty. Of course the Catholic knows that the decisions of these Congregations, even though confirmed by the pope himself in the ordinary form (in forma communi), may be and have been erroneous. And he knows that the true inward assent which they require can therefore not be an unqualified assent, but only a qualified one. For although such decisions, as emanating from the Church’s teaching authority, claim an eminent degree of consideration, and although they are generally protected from error by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, yet they remain the decisions of a fallible authority. For this reason the faithful Catholic knows that he is by no means forbidden in special cases and for weighty reasons to reckon with the possibility of error in such decisions, and that he is permitted to prepare the way by more thorough study for a final solution of the question. He knows also that the Church, when such a a decisive solution has been reached, has withdrawn her veto, so that that veto did not tend to the suppression of truth, but rather to its thorough demonstration, and in any case safeguarded her theology from hasty and insufficiently- supported hypotheses. Theology is the science of life, and its propositions influence life directly. The teaching authority of the Church, as being appointed by God to guard the supernatural life of the faithful, cannot and may not stand quietly by and let the congregation of the faithful be disturbed by revolutionary assertions which are devoid of a sound scientific basis, and which for the most part bear within them the seeds of decay before they have rightly got into the world. All this the Catholic knows. In theory therefore there is a balance established between the official teaching authority and theological freedom of movement. But in the practical activity of research, where the questions dealt with are not such that an exact solution, an unobjectionable, exhaustive proof can be submitted to the Church’s teaching authority, but rather problems which of their nature do not lend themselves to solution by a severely exact method, but ultimately only by intuition and by a comprehensive grasp of all the data, then conflicts are possible. In such a case the scholar suffers from the conflict of his ideals, when the service of truth seems to be at variance with his loyalty to the Church. It is a sacred suffering, yet a very real one. He is nailed to the “cross of his ideals,” and no man can take him down from this cross.