I will do my best. The word "ecummenical" comes from the Greek word "oikoumene". The root word in Greek is "oikos" which means "household" "family" "race" "house". Oikoumene carries the meaning of "the inhabited world" (Kittle's Theological Dictionary of the N.T. -- Page 674)

In other words, for a council to be valid, it must include the bishops of the worldwide Church. This prohibits any one man from making decisions on Church doctrine or morals.

We first see this idea in the Jerusalem Council where the apostles met and after consideration of the issues at hand, said:

[color:"0000FF"]Acts 15:28 For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things;[/color]

The idea is that these men come together for discussion, prayer, and ultimately to discern the will of God on a certain issue. From what I have understood, the Council of Chalcedon, in which the existing epistles were scrutinized to determine which were of divine origin, lasted for over a year. Obviously this responsibility was taken very seriously by the men who attended such a council, and indeed, when you look at the history of the ecummenical councils, you will find that there were some weighty matters being discussed.

There are also local councils which are held, but they are not binding upon the whole Church and generally deal with issues of local administration and discipline.

As the Head over the Church on earth (yes, Jesus is the Head over all the Church, but how is He to speak to us unless He have mouthpiece on earth?) the responsibllity of the Holy Father is not to concoct new doctrines. It is to protect the Church from heresy and maintain the teachings of the apostles. At the same time, as refinements to these teachings come in (for instance, the formal definition of TRANSUBSTANTIATION) the Holy Father looks over the further developments in doctrine to be sure that what has been proposed is not contradictory to what has always been taught.

The ratification of the Holy Father protects the Church from error, since the office of St. Peter, the papacy, was promised the protection of the Holy Spirit against error, lest the Church be "overrun by the gates of hell" (Matthew 16: 18 - 19).

Two interesting stories relating to the protection of the Holy Spirit to the office of the Holy Father. The Nicean Council dealt with the Arian heresy and established canons regarding the deith of Christ Jesus. But that did not stop the Arian heresy in its tracks. For a long time after this council, this heresy flourish, [color:"FF0000"]especially in the Orthodox East![/color] There was, in fact, a period of time in which every single Eastern Orthodox bishop was an Arian heretic!!

Wow!

Only the current Holy Father and ST. ATHANASIUS ("Athanasius contra munda -- "Athanasius against the world") were defenders of the Faith orthodox which insisted that Jesus Christ was both truly God and man.

The second story is even more amazing, though forgive me for not remembering the exact names. Around the turn of the millenium, there was a bishop in Rome who was just a-lusting to be pope. He was also a defender of another particularly nasty heresy, that of Monothellitism He was very open about it.

The Holy Father at that time had cause to travel to Constantinope and depose a heretical bishop of the Eastern Church. On the way back from this trip, the pope died unexpectedly. Many thought that this bishop took advantage of the trip to poison him. Upon his return to Rome, the bishops met to elect a new pope. There was a lot of polical maneuvering, especially from the Emperess of Constantinople, who was also a Monothellite and wished to see that doctrine become officially part of the Church. She figured that if this bishop were elected to the Chair of St. Peter, he would obtain for her this desire.

Although the bishops stridently resisted this maneuvering for over a year, during which time the Chair of St. Peter remained empty, eventually they were cornered and forced to elect this bishop.

The Emperess was pleased. Her scheming had worked. The bishop, who had gone all over the parishes of Rome preaching the Monothellite heresy with great vigor, was seated in the Chair of St. Peter.

"I suppose you will continue to preach Monothellitism" asked a contemperary

"No. Now that I am pope, I can no longer do so. I am bound not to," replied the pope elect.

Well, the news of this got back to the Emperess and she sent a delegation of soldiers to Rome, snatched the pope off the Chair of St. Peter and had him tossed in jail in Constantinople, where it is said that he repented of his Monothellite heresy and then eventually after several years, died.

A fasciniating story, but one that proves to me that the Holy Spirit is quite capable of overriding the most stubborn person when it comes to the theological safety of the Church.

Here is Dave Armstrongs page on PAPAL INFALLIBILITY

several articles on the protection of the papacy by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this will be of further assistance in your questions.

Cordially in Christ,

Brother Ed