Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/2383b

2383b Infallibility of the head of church....

June 25, 1942: Book 32

People’s obligation to believe the teaching of infallibility of the head of church means that every additional teaching or rule set up by the head of church has to be approved or accepted without criticism, and thus the human being’s thought and choice are eliminated, even though they are indispensable if the human being is to give account of his relationship to God one day. Every person has to answer for himself, consequently he has to make his own decision with complete freedom of will.... However, in order to make a decision he has to be able to examine and consider what he should decide on.... It should not be the case that an individual person decides and this person then demands of thousands and thousands of people to follow his decision, subsequently expressing this demand in the form of a commandment.... (a doctrine).... which is undeniably the case if every church commandment were to be acknowledged as in accordance with God’s will, because its foundation is the (alleged) infallibility of the head of church. These teachings are now unreservedly accepted without the human being clarifying their meaning and purpose, resulting in routine actions which are unrelated to free decision, profound faith and deeply felt closeness to God....

A church service evolved which, in reality, is not a service to God. Customs were introduced which are more or less formalities.... The adversary’s actions succeeded in alienating people from the truth under the guise of piety, to stop them from using their own thoughts and thus their free decision too, since all this is suppressed by God’s adversary due to the dogma of infallibility. Because once this teaching has been made plausible to a person he will no longer need to have an opinion about it. Thus he accepts without scrutiny, he need not make a decision because someone else has already made a decision on his behalf and free will is not utilized. Instead, the person has to believe what is given to him as religious dogma if he does not want to come into conflict with the particular religious dogma, which the church makes out to be so very important, that the head of church can never err or take wrong measures when he makes a decision concerning the church.

God only values free decision-making, but this has to be made by the person himself and thus the pros and cons of religious dogma have to be considered by him. Only what he can affirm in his heart can be called faith, and not what he finds himself compelled to affirm.... Because religious dogma intended by God will bear up to every scrutiny and will be even more convincingly accepted the more the human being delves into it.... However, anything that is not of God does not stand up to scrutiny and will be rejected by every person who seriously struggles for knowledge....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna