A miracle of never being right
An historic institution, which never went right, is really quite as much of a miracle as an institution that cannot go wrong.
The joke makes systematic error an inverted supernatural gift. If Christianity uniquely managed to combine every contrary vice, ordinary human muddle would no longer explain it. This is a provisional consequence drawn from the accusations, preparing the next paragraph's alternative explanation; it is not yet a proof that Christianity is true.
The doctrinal comparison is deliberately broader than the Catholic definition. Vatican I's Pastor aeternus (promulgated 18 July 1870), chapter 4, §9, attaches papal infallibility to a pope's definitive teaching on faith or morals for the whole Church in his office as universal shepherd and teacher. It does not make every institutional action or personal judgment incapable of error. Section 6 describes the promised assistance as preserving and expounding the apostolic deposit, rather than producing new revelation. Chesterton's universal ‘cannot go wrong’ therefore belongs to the rhetorical symmetry of the sentence, not to an exact statement of the dogma. The inspected English witness is EWTN's reproduction of the translation credited there to Norman Tanner's Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. Council text, chapter 4, §§6–9.
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