"The episcopal college, the successor to the Apostolic College, is infallible in proposing revealed doctrine or things connected with revealed teachings, as we saw in the preceding thesis [on ecuмenical councils]. But this College is not less present in the ordinary and scattered teaching of the bishops, than in the extraordinary and conciliar. Therefore the bishops are no less infallible when they teach in unison by their ordinary magisterium, than when they exercise the solemn or extraordinary magisterium...

"3. The agreement of the scattered episcopate, since it is by no means as solemn as that of a council, is not so easily perceived; the same is true of the intention to teach from the fullness of the magisterial power. Hence, since in accordance with the norm of Canon Law, 'No matter is to be understood as dogmatically defined unless this fact is manifestly evident', this makes it difficult to discern with certainty in regard to a particular dogma from the Ordinary Magisterium alone. Nevertheless, suitable means are not lacking by which it can be known sufficiently: for example, from catechisms published for the use of the people and approved by the bishops, from encyclicals and pastoral letters, from the decrees of particular councils; or from the fact that the doctrine, everywhere in the world, in sermons to the people, is habitually preached as Catholic, or condemned as heretical ... [sic] Finally, even disciplinary laws and liturgical usages contribute in their manner in showing this agreement." Timotheus Zapalena, S.J. (De Ecclesia Christi, pars altera, Rome, 1940, p. 67. Translated by Mr. James Larrabee. Emphasis added.)

The Vatican Council has defined that "all those things are to be believed by divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by a solemn judgement or by her ordinary and universal teaching, proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed." [3. Loc.cit.] What is liable to be overlooked is the ordinary and universal teaching of the Church. It is by no means uncommon to find the option, if not expressed at least entertained, that no doctrine is to be regarded as a dogma of faith unless it has been solemnly defined by an oecuмenical Council or by the Sovereign Pontiff himself. This is by no means necessary. It is sufficient that the Church teaches it by her ordinary magisterium, exercised through the Pastors of the faithful, the Bishops whose unanimous teaching throughout the Catholic world, whether conveyed expressly through pastoral letters, catechisms issued by episcopal authority, provincial synods, or implicitly through prayers and religious practices allowed or encouraged, or through the teaching of approved theologians, is no less infallible than a solemn definition issued by a Pope or a general Council. If, then, a doctrine appears in these organs of divine Tradition as belonging directly or indirectly to the depositum fidei committed by Christ to His Church, it is to be believed by Catholics with divine-Catholic or ecclesiastical faith, even though it may never have formed the subject of a solemn definition in an oecuмenical Council or of an ex cathedra pronouncement by the Sovereign Pontiff.