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THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 IN 
 
 THEIR BEAEMG ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE; 
 
 C2V |)oUtical ajjtpostitlatton. 
 
 BY THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 
 
 TO WHICH ARE ADDED : 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL; 
 
 TOGETHER WITH THE LATIN AND ENGLISH TEXT OF 
 
 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS and THE VATICAN DECREES. 
 
 BY THE REV. PHILIP SCIIAFF, D.D. 
 
 FROM HIS FORTHCOMING ' HISTORY OF THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
 
 18 7 5. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 24^^ .^T^"f' 
 
 C 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Pagk 
 
 THE VATICAN DECREES IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL 
 ALLEGIANCE. By the Right Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone, 
 M.P 9 
 
 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. By the Rev. Philip 
 
 SCHAFF, D.D 51 
 
 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. (Latin and English 
 
 Text.) 109 
 
 THE VATICAN DECREES. (Latin and English Text.) 131 
 
 86609 
 
THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 IN 
 
 THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.R 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Occasion and Scope of this Tkact. Four Propositions. 
 
 Are they True ? 9 
 
 II. The First and Fourth Propositions. (1) ' That Rome has 
 substituted for the proud boast of semper eadem a policy of 
 violence and change in faith.' (4) ' That she has equally 
 repudiated modern thought and ancient history' 13 
 
 III. The Second Proposition — 'That she has refurbished and pa- 
 raded anew every rusty tool she was thought to have dis- 
 used'. 15 
 
 lY. The Third Proposition — 'That Rome requires a convert who 
 now joins her to forfeit his moral and mental freedom, and to 
 place his loyalty and civil duty at the mercy of another' ... 18 
 
 V. Being True, are the Propositions Material? 33 
 
 VI. Being True and Material, were the Propositions Proper 
 
 TO BE set forth BY THE PRESENT WrITER ? 39 
 
 VII. On THE Home Policy of the Future 42 
 
 Appendices 47 
 
THE YATICAN DECREES 
 
 IN 
 
 THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 
 
 I. The Occasion and Scope of this Tract. 
 
 In the prosecution of a purpose not polemicalj but pacific, I liave 
 been led to employ words whicli belong, more or less, to the region of 
 religious controversy ; and which, though they were themselves few, 
 seem to require, from the various feelings they have aroused, that I 
 should carefully define, elucidate, and defend them. The task is not 
 of a kind agreeable to me ; but I proceed to perform it. 
 
 Among the causes which have tended to disturb and perplex the 
 public mind in the consideration of our own religious diflficulties, one 
 lias been a certain alarm at the aggressive activity and imagined 
 growth of the Roman Church in this country. All are aware of our 
 susceptibility on this side ; and it w^as not, I think, improper for one 
 who desires to remove every thing that can interfere with a calm and 
 judicial temper, and who believes the alarm to be groundless, to state, 
 pointedly though briefly, some reasons for that belief. 
 
 Accordingly I did not scruple to use the following language in a 
 paper inserted in the number of the Contemporary Reviexo for the 
 pionth of October [1874]. I was speaking of ^ the question ^vhether a 
 handful of the clergy are or are not engaged in an utterly hopeless and 
 visionary effort to Romanize the Church and people of England;' 
 
 'At no time since the bloody reign of Mary has such a scheme been possible. But if it 
 had been possible in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, it would still have become im- 
 possible in the nineteenth : when Rome has substituted for the proud boast of semper eadem 
 a policy of violence and change in faith ; when she has refurbished and paraded anew every 
 rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused ; when no one can become her convert 
 without renouncing his moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil loyalty and duty at 
 
10 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 the mercy of another ; and when she has equally repudiated modern thought and ancient 
 history.'^ 
 
 Had I been, when I wrote this passage, as I now am, addressing 
 myself in considerable measure to my lloman Catholic fellow-coun- 
 trymen, I should have striven to avoid the seeming roughness of some 
 of these expressions ; but as the question is now about their substance, 
 from w^hich I am not in any particular disposed to recede, any attempt 
 to recast their general form would probably mislead. I proceed, then, 
 to deal w^ith them on their merits. 
 
 More than one friend of mine among those who have been led to 
 join the Roman Catholic communion has made this passage the sub- 
 ject, more or less, of expostulation. Now, in my opinion, the asser- 
 tions which it makes are, as coming from a layman who has spent most 
 and the best years of his life in the observation and practice of poli- 
 tics, not aggressi^^, but defensive. 
 
 It is neither the abettors of the Papal Chair, nor any one who, how- 
 ever far from being an abettor of the Papal Chair, actually writes 
 from a Papal point of view, that has a right to remonstrate with the 
 world at large ; but it is the world at large, on the contiary, that lias 
 the fullest right to remonstrate, first, with his Holiness; secondly, with 
 those who share his proceedings ; thirdly, even with such as passively 
 allow and accept them. 
 
 I, therefore, as one of the world at large, propose to expostulate in 
 my turn. I shall strive to show to such of my Poman Catholic fellow- 
 subjects as may kindly give me a hearing that, after the singular steps 
 which the authorities of their Church have in these last years thought 
 fit to take, the people of this country, who fully believe in their loyal- 
 ty, are entitled, on purely civil grounds, to expect from them some dec- 
 laration or manifestation of opinion in reply to that ecclesiastical party 
 in their Church who have laid down, in their name, principles adverse* 
 to the purity and integrity of civil allegiance. 
 
 Undoubtedly my allegations are of great breadth. Such broad alle- 
 gations require a broad and a deep foundation. The first question 
 which they raise is, Are tliey, as to the material part of them, true ? 
 But even their truth might not suffice to show that their publication 
 
 ' Contemporary Review, October, 1874, p. G74. 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. H 
 
 was opportune. The second question, then, which they raise is. Are 
 they, for any practical purpose, material ? And there is yet a third, 
 though a minor question, wliich arises out of the propositions in con- 
 nection with their authorship, Were they suitable to be set forth by 
 the present writer ? 
 
 To these three questions I will now set myself to reply. And the 
 matter of my reply will, as I conceive, constitute and convey an appeal 
 to tlie understandings of my Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen which 
 1 trust that, at the least, some among them may deem not altogether 
 unworthy of their consideration. 
 
 From the language used by some of the organs of Roman Catholic 
 opinion, it is, I am afraid, plain that in some quarters they have given 
 deep offense. Displeasure, indignation, even fury, might be said to 
 mark the language which in the heat of the moment has been expressed 
 here and there. They have been hastily treated as an attack made 
 upon Roman Catholics generally — nay, as an insult offered them. It 
 is obvious to reply that of Roman Catholics generally they state noth^ 
 ing. Together with a reference to 'converts,' of which I shall say 
 more, they constitute generally a free and strong animadversion on the 
 conduct of the Papal Chair, and of its advisers and abettors. If I am 
 told that he who animadverts upon these assails thereby, or insults, Ro- 
 man Catholics at large, who do not choose their ecclesiastical rulers, 
 and are not recognized as having any voice in the government of their 
 Church, I can not be bound by or accept a proposition w^hicli seems to 
 me to be so little in accordance with reason. 
 
 Before all things, however, I should desire it to be understood that, 
 in the remarks now offered, I desire to eschew not only religious big- 
 otry, but likewise theological controversy. Indeed, with theology, ex- 
 cept in its civil bearing — with theology as such — I have here nothing 
 whatever to do. But it is the peculiarity of Roman theology that, by 
 thrusting itself into the temporal domain, it naturally, and even neces- 
 sarily, comes to be a frequent theme of political discussion. To quiet- ^ 
 minded Roman Catholics it must be a subject of infinite annoyance 
 that their religion is, on this ground more than any other, the subject 
 of criticism; more than any other the occasion of conflicts with the 
 State and of civil disquietude. I feel sincerely how much hardship 
 their case entails. But this hardship is brought upon them altogether 
 
12 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 by the conduct of the authorities of their own Churcli. Why did the- 
 ology enter so largely into the debates of Parliament on Koman Cath- 
 olic Emancipation ? Certainly not because our statesmen and debaters 
 of fifty years ago had an abstract love of such controversies, but be- 
 cause it was extensively believed that tlie Pope of Pome had been and 
 was a trespasser upon ground which belonged to the civil authority, 
 and that he affected to determine by spiritual prerogative questions of 
 tlie civil sphere. This fact, if fact it be, and not the truth or falsehood, 
 the reasonableness or unreasonableness, of any article of purely re- 
 ligious belief, is tlie w^iole and sole cause of the mischief. To this 
 fact, and to this fact alone, my language is referable ; but for this fact 
 it would have been neither my duty nor my desire to use it. All other 
 Christian bodies are content w^ith freedom in their own religious do- 
 main. Orientals, Lutherans, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, 
 Nonconformists, one and all, in the present day, contentedly and thank- 
 fully accept the benefits of civil order ; never pretend that the State is 
 not its own master ; make no religious claims to temporal possessions 
 or advantages ; and, consequently, never are in perilous collision with 
 the State. Nay more, even so I believe it is with the mass of Roman 
 Catholics individually. But not so with the leaders of their Church, 
 or with those who take pride in following the leaders. Indeed, this 
 has been made matter of boast : 
 
 ' There is not another Church so called [than the Roman], nor any community professing 
 to be a Church, which does not submit, or obey, or hold its peace when the civil governors 
 of the world command.' — The Present Crisis of the Holy See, by H. E. Manning, D.D. 
 London, 1861, p. 75. 
 
 The Pome of the Middle Ages claimed universal monarchy. The 
 modern Church of Pome has abandoned nothing, retracted notliing. 
 Is that all ? Far from it. By condemning (as will be seen) those who, 
 like Bishop Doyle in 1826,^ charge the mediaeval Popes with aggression, 
 she unconditionally, even if covertly, maintains w^iat the mediaeval 
 Popes maintained. But even this is not the worst. The worst by far is 
 tliat whereas in the national Churches and communities of the Middle 
 Ages there was a brisk, vigorous, and constant opposition to these out- 
 rageous claims — an opposition ^vhicli stoutly asserted its own orthodoxy, 
 
 * Lords' Committee, March 18, 1820. Report, p. 190. 
 
IN THEIR BEAEING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 13 
 
 which always caused itself to be respected, and which even sometimes 
 gained the npper hand, now, in this nineteenth century of ours, and 
 while it is growing old, this same opposition has been put out of court, 
 and judicially extinguished within the Papal Church, by the recent de- 
 crees of the Vatican. And it is impossible for persons accepting those 
 decrees justly to complain when such documents are subjected in good 
 faith to a strict examination as respects their compatibility with civil 
 right and the obedience of subjects. 
 
 In defending my language, I shall carefully mark its limits. But 
 all defense is reassertion, which properly requires a deliberate recon- 
 sideration ; and no man who thus reconsiders should scruple, if he find 
 so much as a word tliat may convey a false impression, to amend it. 
 Exactness in stating truth according to the measure of our intelligence 
 is an indispensable condition of justice and of a title to be heard. 
 
 My propositions, then, as they stood, are these : 
 
 1. That 'Eome has substituted for the proud boast of senvper eadem 
 a policy of violence and change in faith.' 
 
 2. That she has refurbished and paraded anew every rusty tool she 
 was fondly thought to have disused. 
 
 3. That no one can now become her convert without renouncing his 
 moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil loyalty and duty at 
 the mercy of another. 
 
 4. That she ('Eome') has equally repudiated modern thought and 
 ancient history. 
 
 II. The Fiest and the Fourth Propositions. 
 
 Of the first and fourth of these propositions I shall dispose rather 
 summarily, as they appear to belong to the theological domain. They 
 refer to a fact, and they record an opinion. One fact to which they 
 refer is this: that, in days within my memory, the constant, favorite, 
 and imposing argument of Eoman controversialists was the unbroken 
 and absolute identity in belief of the Poman Church from the days 
 of our Saviour until now. No one who has at all followed the course 
 of this literature during the last forty years can fail to be sensible of 
 the change in its present tenor. More and more have the assertions 
 of continuous uniformity of doctrine receded into scarcely penetrable 
 shadow. More and more have another series of assertions, of a liv' 
 
14: THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 ing authority, ever ready to open, adopt, and shape Christian doctrine 
 according to the times, taken their place. Without discussing the 
 abstract compatibility of these lines of argument, I note two of the 
 immense practical differences between them. In the first, the office 
 claimed by the Church is principally that of a w^itness to facts ; in the 
 second, principally that of a judge, if not a revealer, of doctrine. In 
 the first, the processes which the Church undertakes are subject to a 
 constant challenge and appeal to history ; in the second, no amount of 
 historical testimony can avail against the unmeasured power of the 
 theory of development. Most important, most pregnant considerations, 
 these, at least for two classes of persons : for those who think that ex- 
 aggerated doctrines of Church power are among the real and sei-ions 
 dangers of the age ; and for those who think that against all forms, 
 both of superstition and of unbelief, one main preservative is to be 
 found in maintaining tlie truth and authority of history, and the ines- 
 timable value of the historic spirit. 
 
 So much for the fact; as for the opinion that the recent Papal de- 
 crees are at war witli modern thought, and that, purporting to enlarge 
 the necessary creed of Christendom, they involve a violent breach with 
 history, this is a matter unfit for me to discuss, as it is a question of 
 Divinity, but not unfit for me to have mentioned in my article, since 
 the opinion given there is the opinion of those with whom I was 
 endeavoring to reason, namely, the great majority of the British 
 public. 
 
 If it is thought that the word violence was open to exception, I re- 
 gret I can not give it up. The justification of the ancient definitions 
 of the Church, which have endured the storms of 1500 years, was to 
 be found in this, that they were not arbitrary or willful, but that they 
 wholly sprang from and related to theories rampant at the time, and 
 regarded as menacing to Christian belief. Even the Canons of the 
 Council of Trent have in the main this amount, apart from their mat- 
 ter, of presumptive w^arrant. But the decrees of the present perilous 
 Pontificate have been passed to favor and precipitate prevailing cur- 
 rents of opinion in the ecclesiastical world of Rome. The growth of 
 what is often termed among Protestants Mariolatry, and of belief in 
 Papal Infallibility, was notoriously advancing, but it seems -not fast 
 enough to satisfy the dominant party. To aim the deadly blows of 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 15 
 
 18,54:^ and 18T0 at the old historic, scientific, and moderate school, was 
 surely an act of violence ; and with this censure the proceeding of 1870 
 has actually been visited by the first living theologian now within the 
 Roman communion — I mean Dr. John Henry Xewman, who has used 
 these significant words, among others : ' Why should an aggressive and 
 insolent faction be allowed to make the heart of tlie just sad, whom 
 the Lord hath not made sorrowful V ^ 
 
 III. The Second Peoposition. 
 
 I take next my second proposition : that Rome has refurbished and 
 paraded anew every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused. 
 
 Is this, tlien, a fact, or is it not ? 
 
 I must assume that it is denied ; and therefore I can not wholly ptiss 
 by the work of proof. But I will state, in the fewest possible words 
 and with references, a few propositions, all the holders of which have 
 been condemned by the See of Rome during my own generation, and 
 especially within the last twelve or fifteen years. And, in order that I 
 may do nothing towar(Js importing passion into what is matter of pure 
 argument, I will avoid citing any of the fearfully energetic epithets in 
 which the condemnations are sometimes clothed. 
 
 1. Those who maintain the liberty of the Press. Encyclical Letter 
 of Pope Gregory XVI., in 1831 ; and of Pope Pius IX., in 1864. 
 
 2. Or the liberty of conscience and of worship. Encyclical of Pius 
 IX., December 8, 1864. 
 
 3. Or the liberty of speech. ' Syllabus ' of March 18, 1861. Prop. 
 Ixxix. Encyclical of Pope Pius IX., December 8, 1864. 
 
 4. Or who contend that Papal judgments and decrees may, without 
 sin, be disobeyed or differed from, unless they treat of the rules {dog- 
 mata) of faith or morals. Ibid. 
 
 6. Or who assign to the State the power of defining the civil rights 
 {jura) and province of the Church. ' Syllabus ' of Pope Pius IX., 
 March 8, 1861. Ibid. Prop. xix. 
 
 6. Or who hold that Roman Pontiffs and CEcumenical Councils have 
 
 ' Decree of the Immaculate Conception. 
 
 ^ See the remarkable letter of Dr. Newman to Bishop Ullathorne, in The Guardian of 
 April 6, 1870. 
 
16 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 transgressed tlie limits of their power, and usurped the rights of princes. 
 Ibid. Prop, xxiii. 
 
 (It inust he home in mind that ^(Ecumenical Councils'^ here mean 
 Roman Councils not recognized hy the rest of the Church. The 
 Councils of the early Church did not interfere with the jurisdiction 
 of the civil 2^ower,) 
 
 7. Or that the Church may not employ force. {Ecclesia vis inferen- 
 d(E potestatem non hahet^ ^Syllabus.' Prop. xxiv. 
 
 8. Or that power, not inherent in the office of the Episcopate, bnt 
 granted to it by the civil authority, may be withdrawn from it at the 
 discretion of that autliority. Ibid. Prop. xxv. 
 
 9. Or that the {immimitas) civil immunity of the Church and its 
 ministers depends upon civil right. Ibid. Prop. xxx. 
 
 10. Or that in the conflict of laws, civil and ecclesiastical, the civil 
 law should prevail. Ibid. Prop. xlii. 
 
 11. Or that any method of instruction of youth, solely secular, may 
 be approved. Ibid. Prop, xlviii. 
 
 12. Or that knowledge of things philosophical and civil may and 
 should decline to be guided by divine and ecclesiastical authority. 
 Ibid. Prop. Ivii. 
 
 13. Or that marriage is not in its essence a sacrament. Ibid. Prop. Ixvi. 
 
 14. Or that marriage not sacramentally contracted {si sacrament um 
 excludatur) has a binding force. Ibid. Prop. Ixxiii. 
 
 15. Or that the abolition of the temporal power of the Popedom 
 would be highly advantageous to the Church. Ibid. Prop. Ixxvi. Also 
 Prop. Ixx. 
 
 16. Or that any other religion than the Eoman religion may be es- 
 tablished by a State. Ibid. Prop. Ixxvii. 
 
 17. Or that in ' countries called Catholic' the free exercise of other 
 religions may laudably be allowed. ' Syllabus.' Prop. Ixxviii. 
 
 18. Or that the Roman Pontiff ought to come to terms with progress, 
 liberalism, and modern civilization. Ibid. Prop. Ixxx.^ 
 
 This list is now, perhaps, sufficiently extended, although I have as 
 yet not touched the decrees of 1870. But, before quitting it, I must 
 ofPej three observations on what it contains. 
 
 * For the original passages from the Encyclical and Syllabus of Pius IX., see Appendix A. 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. I7 
 
 Firstly. I do not place all the propositions in one and the same 
 category; for there are a portion of them which, as far as I can judge, 
 might, by the combined aid of favorable construction and vigorous ex- 
 planation, be brought within bounds. And I hold that favorable con- 
 struction of the terms used in controversies is the riglit general rule. 
 But this can only be so when construction is an open question. Wiien 
 the author of certain propositions claims, as .in the case before us, a 
 sole and unlimited power to interpret them in such manner and by 
 such rules as he may from time to time think lit, the only defense 
 for all others concerned is at once to judge for tliemselves how 
 much of unreason or of mischief the words, naturally understood, 
 may contain. 
 
 Secondly. It may appear, upon a hasty perusal, that, neither the in- 
 fliction of penalty in life, limb, liberty, or goods, on disobedient mem- 
 bers of the Christian Church, nor the title to depose sovereigns and re- 
 lease subjects from their allegiance, with all its revolting consequences, 
 has been here reaffirmed. In terms, there is no mention of them; 
 but in the substance of the propositions, I grie\-e to say, they are be- 
 yond doubt included. For it is notorious that they have been declared 
 and decreed by ' Eome' — that is to say, by Popes and Papal Councils ; 
 and the stringent condemnations of the Syllabus include all those who 
 hold that Popes and Papal Councils (declared oecumenical) have trans- 
 gressed the just limits of their power, or usurped the rights of princes. 
 What have been their opinions and decrees about persecution I need 
 hardly say, and indeed the right to employ physical force is even here 
 undisguisedly claimed (No. 7). 
 
 Even while I am writing, I am reminded, from an unquestionable 
 source, of the words of Pope Pius IX. himself on the deposing power. 
 I add only a few italics; the w^ords appear as given in a translation, 
 without the original : 
 
 'The present Pontiff used these words in replying to the address from the " Academia of 
 the Catholic Religion" (July 21, 1873) : 
 
 ' " There are many errors regarding the Infallibility ; but the most malicious of all is that 
 which includes, in that dogma, the right of deposing sovereigns, and declaring the people no 
 longer bound by the obligation of fidelity. This right has now and again, in critical circum- 
 stances, been exercised by the Pontiffs ; but it has nothing to do with Papal Infallibility. 
 Its origin was not the infallibility, but the authority of the Pope. This authority, in accord- 
 ance with public right, which was then vigorous, and with the acquiescence of all Christian 
 nations, who reverenced in the Pope the supreme Judge of the Christian Commonwealth, 
 
 B 
 
^\5 «Anp 
 ( J ^rIVERSITY 
 
 CALiFOn! >^ THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 extended so far as. io pass judgment j even in civil affairs, on the acts of Princes and of Na- 
 tions." ' 1 . 
 
 Lastly. I must observe tliat these are not mere opinions of the Popo 
 himself, nor even are they opinions which he might paternally recom- 
 mend to the pious consideration of the faithful. With the promulga- 
 tion of his opinions is unhappily combined, in the Encyclical Letter, 
 which virtually, though not expressly, includes the whole, a command 
 to all his spiritual children (from which command we the disobedient 
 children are in no way excluded) to hold them.- 
 
 * Itaque omnes et singulas pravas opiniones et doctrinas singillatim hisce literis commemo- 
 ratas auctoritate nostra Apostolica reprobamus, proscribimus, atque, damnamus ; easque ab 
 omnibus Catholicai Ecclesia; filiis veluti reprobatas, proscriptas, atque damnatas omnino ha- 
 beri volumus et mandamus.' — Encycl., Dec. 8, 1864. 
 
 And the decrees of 1870 will presently show us what they establish 
 as the binding force of the mandate thus conveyed to the Christian 
 world. 
 
 ly. The Third Peoposition. 
 
 I now pass to the operation of these extraordinary declarations on 
 personal or private duty. 
 
 When the cup of endurance, which had so long been filling, began, with 
 the Council of the Vatican in 1870, to overflow, the most famous and 
 learned living theologian of the Eoman communion, Dr. von Dcillinger, 
 long the foremost champion of his Church, refused compliance, and sub- 
 mitted, with his tamper undisturbed and his freedom unimpaired, to the 
 extreme and most painful penalty of excommunication. With him many 
 of the most learned and respected theologians of the Eoman commun- 
 ion in Germany underwent the same sentence. The very few who 
 elsewhere (I do not speak of Switzerland) suffered in like manner de- 
 serve an admiration rising in proportion to their fewness. It seems as 
 though Germany, from which Luther blew the mighty trumpet that 
 even now echoes through the land, still retained her primacy in the do- 
 main of conscience, still supplied the centitria prcerogativa of the great . 
 comitia of the world. 
 
 ^ Civilization and the See of Rome. By Lord Robert Montagu. Dublin, 1874. A lecture 
 delivered under the auspices of the Catholic Union of Ireland. I have a little misgiving abcut 
 the version, but not of a nature to affect the substance. 
 
IN THEIR BEAEING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 19 
 
 But let no man wonder or complain. Without imputi-ng to any one 
 the moral murder — for such it is — of stifling conscience and conviction, 
 I for one can not be surprised that the fermentation which is working 
 through the mind of the Latin Church has as vet (elsewhere than in 
 Germany) but in few instances come to the surface. By the mass of 
 mankind it is morally impossible that questions such as these can be 
 adequately examined ; so it ever has been, and so in the main it will 
 continue, until the principles of manufacturing machinery shall have 
 been applied, and with analogous results, to intellectual and moral proc- 
 esses. Followers they are and must be, and in a certain sense .ought 
 to be. But what as to the leaders of society, the men of education and 
 of leisure ? I w^ill try to suggest some answer in few words. A change 
 of religious profession is under all circumstances a great and awful 
 tiling.^ Much more is the question, however, between conflicting or ap- 
 parently conflicting duties arduous when the religion of a man has 
 been changed for him, over his head, and w^ithout the very least of his 
 participation. Far be it, then, from me to make any Roman Catholic, 
 except the great hierarchic Power, and those who have egged it on, re- 
 sponsible for the portentous proceedings which we have witnessed. My 
 conviction is that, even of those who may not shake off the yoke, mul- 
 titudes will vindicate at any rate their loyalty at the expense of the con- 
 sistency, which perhaps in diflScult matters of religion few among us 
 perfectly maintain. But this belongs to the future ; for tlie present, 
 nothing could in my opinion be more unjust than to hold the members, 
 of the Eoman Church in general already responsible for the recent 
 innovations. The duty of observers, who think the claims involved in 
 the^e decrees arrogant and false, and such as not even impotence, real 
 or supposed, ought to shield from criticism, is frankly to state the case, 
 and, by way of friendly challenge, to entreat their Eoman Catholic 
 fellow-countrymen to replace themselves in the position which five- 
 and-forty years ago this nation, by the voice and action of its Parlia- 
 ment, declared its belief that they held. 
 
 Upon a strict re-examination of the language as apart fron> the sub- 
 stance of my fourth proposition, I find it faulty, inasmuch as it seems 
 to imply that a 'convert' now joining the Papal Church not only gives 
 up certain rights and duties of freedom, but surrenders them by a con- 
 scious and deliberate act. What I have less accurately said that he re- 
 
20 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 noil need, I might have more accurately said that he forfeited. To speak 
 strictly, the claim now made upon him by the authority which he 
 solemnly and with the highest responsibility acknowledges requires 
 him to surrender his mental and moral freedom, and to place his loyal- 
 ty and civil duty at the mercy of another. There may have been, and 
 may be, persons who in their sanguine trust will not shrink from this 
 result, and will console themselves with the notion that their loyalty 
 and civil duty are to be committed to the custody of one much wiser 
 than tliemselves. But I am sure that there are also ^converts' who, 
 when 'they perceive, will by w^ord and act reject the consequence 
 which relentless logic draws for them. If, however, my proposition be 
 true, there is no escape from the dilemma. Is it, then, true, or is it not 
 true, that Rome requires a convert who now joins her to forfeit his 
 moral and mental freedom, and to place his loyalty and civil duty at 
 the mercy of another ? 
 
 In order to place this matter in as clear a light as I can, it will be 
 necessary to go back a little upon our recent histor3\ 
 
 A century ago we began to relax that system of penal laws against 
 Roman Catholics, at once pettifogging, base, and cruel, which Mr. 
 Burke has scathed and blasted with his immortal eloquence. 
 
 When this process had reached the point at which the question was 
 whether they should be admitted into Parliament, there arose a great 
 and prolonged national controversy ; and some men, who at no time of 
 their lives were narrow-minded, such as Sir Robert Peel, the Minister, 
 resisted the concession. The arguments in its favor were obvious and 
 strong, and they ultimately prevailed. But the strength of the oppos- 
 ing party had lain in the allegation that, from the nature and claims of 
 the Papal power, it was not possible for the consistent Roman Catho- 
 lic to pay to the Crown of this country an entire allegiance, and that 
 the admission of persons thus self-disabled to Parliament was incon- 
 sistent with the safety of the State and nation, which had not very long 
 before, it may be observed, emerged from a struggle for existence. 
 
 An answer to this argument was indispensable ; and it was supplied 
 mainly from two sources. The Josephine laws,^ then still subsisting 
 
 ^ See the work of Count dal Pozzo on the Austrian Ecclesiastical Law. London, Mur- 
 ray, 1827. The Leopoldine Laws in Tuscany may also be mentioned. 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 21 
 
 ill the Austrian Empire, and the arrangements which had been made 
 after the peace of 1815 by Prussia and the German States with Pius 
 VII. and Gonsalvi, proved that the Papal Court could submit to cir- 
 cumstances, and could allow material restraints even upon the exercise 
 of its ecclesiastical prerogatives. Here, then, was a reply in the sense 
 of the phrase solvitur ainhiilando. Much information of this class 
 was collected for the information of Parliament and the country.^ 
 But there were also measures taken to learn, from the highest Roman 
 Catholic authorities of this country, what was the exact situation of the 
 members of that communion wdth respect to some of the better known 
 exorbitancies of Papal assumption. Did the Pope claim any temporal 
 jurisdiction ? Did he still pretend to the exercise of a power to depose 
 kings, release subjects from their allegiance, and incite them to revolt ? 
 Was faith to be kept with heretics? Did the Church still teach the 
 doctrines of persecution ? Now, to no one of these questions could the 
 answer really be of the smallest immediate moment to this powerful 
 and solidly compacted kingdom. They were topics selected by way of 
 sample ; and the intention was to elicit declarations showing generally 
 that the fangs of the mediaeval Popedom had been drawn, and its claws 
 torn away ; that the Roman system, however strict in its dogma, was 
 perfectly compatible w^ith civil liberty, and with the institutions of a 
 free State moulded on a different religious basis from its own. 
 
 Answers in abundance were obtained, tending to show that the doc- 
 trines of deposition and persecution, of keeping no faith with heretics, 
 and of universal dominion, were obsolete beyond revival ; that every 
 assurance could be given .respecting them, except such as required the 
 sjiame of a formal retractation ; that they were in effect mere bugbeai^s, 
 unworthy to be taken into account by a nation which prided itself on 
 being made up of practical men. 
 
 But it was unquestionably felt that something more than the renun- 
 ciation of these particular opinions was necessary in order to secure the 
 full concession of civil rights to Roman Catholics. As to their indi- 
 vidual loyalty, a State disposed to generous or candid interpretation 
 
 ^ See Report from the Select Committee appointed to Report the Nature and Substance of 
 the Laivs and Ordinances existing in Foreign States respecting the Regulation of their Roman 
 Catholic Subjects in Ecclesiastical Matters^ and their Intercourse with the See of Rome, or 
 any other Foreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction. Printed for the House of Commons in 181S 
 and 1817. Reprinted 185 L 
 
22 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 had 110 reason to be uneasy. It was only with regard to requisitions 
 which might be made on them from another quarter that apprehension 
 could exist. It was reasonable that England should desire to know 
 not only what the Pope^ might do for himself, but to what demands, 
 by the Constitution of their Church, they were liable ; and how far it 
 was possible that such demands could touch their civil duty. The 
 t^ieory which placed every human being, in things spiritual and things 
 temporal, at the feet of the Roman Pontiff had not been an idolum 
 sjpecus, a mere theory of the chamber. Brain power never surpassed 
 in the political history of the world had been devoted for centuries to 
 the single purpose of working it into the practice of Christendom; had 
 in the West achieved for an impossible problem a partial success ; and 
 had in the East punished the obstinate independence of the Church by 
 that Latin conquest of Constantinople which effectually prepared the 
 way for the downfall of the Eastern Empire and tlie establishment of 
 the Turks in Europe. What was really material therefore was, not 
 whether the Papal Chair laid claim to this or that particular power, 
 but whether it laid claim to some power that included them all, and 
 whether that claim had received such sanction from the authorities of 
 the Latin Church that there remained within her borders absolutely 
 no tenable standing-ground from which war against it could be main- 
 tained. Did the Pope, then, claim infallibility ? Or did he, eitlier 
 without infallibility or with it (and if with it so much the worse), 
 claim a universal obedience from his flock? And were these claims, 
 either or both, affirmed in his Church by authority w^hich even the 
 least Papal of the members of that Church must admit to be binding 
 upon conscience ? 
 
 The first two of these questions were covered by the third ; and well it 
 was that they were so covered, for to them no satisfactory answer could 
 even then be given. The Popes had kept up, with comparatively little 
 intermission, for well-nigh a thousand years their claim to dogmatic in- 
 fallibility ; and had, at periods within the same tract of time, often 
 enough made, and never retracted, that other claim which is theoretic- 
 
 ^ At that period the eminent and able Bishop Doyle did not scruple to write as follows; 
 ' We are taunted with the proceedings of Popes. What, my Lord, have we Catholics to do 
 with the proceedings of Popes, or why should we be made accountable for them T- — Essay on 
 the Catholic Claims. To Lord Liverpool, 182G, p. HI. 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. ^3 
 
 ally less but practically larger — their claim to an obedience virtually 
 universal from the baptized members of the Church. To the third 
 question it was fortunately more practicable to prescribe a satisfactory 
 reply. It was well known that, in the days of its glory and intellect- 
 ual power, the great Gallican Church had not only not admitted, but 
 had denied Papal infallibility, and had declared that the local laws 
 and usages of the Church could not be set aside by the will of the 
 Pontiff. Nay, further, it was believed that in the main these had 
 been, down to the close of the last century, the prevailing opinions of 
 the Cisalpine Churche^ in communion with Eome. The Council of 
 Constance had in act as well as word shown that the Pope's judgments, 
 and the Pope himself, were triable by the assembled representatives 
 of the Christian world. And the Council of Trent, notwithstanding 
 the predominance in it of Italian and Poman influences, if it had not 
 denied, yet had not afiirmed either proposition. 
 
 All that remained was to know what w^ere the sentiments entertain- 
 ed on these vital points by the leaders and guides of Roman Catholic 
 opinion nearest to our own doors. And here testimony was offered 
 which must not and can not be forgotten. In part, this was the testi- 
 mony of witnesses before the Committee of the House of Lords in 
 1825. I need quote two answers only, given by the Prelate who more 
 than any other represented his Church, and influenced the mind of this 
 country in favor of concession at the time, namely. Bishop Doyle. 
 He w^as asked :^ 
 
 ' In what, and how far, does the Roman Catholic profess to obey the Pope ?' 
 
 He replied : 
 
 ' The Catholic professes to obey the Pope in matters whicL Regard his -eligious faith, and in 
 those matters of ecclesiastical discipline which have already been defined by the competent 
 authorities.' 
 
 And again : 
 
 ' Does that justify the objection that is made to Catholics that their allegiance is divided ?' 
 
 * I do not think it does in any way. We are bound to obey the Pope in those things that I 
 
 have already mentioned. But our obedience to the law, and the allegiance whicli we owe the 
 
 ' Committees of both Lords and Commons sat — the former in 1825, the latter in 1824-5. 
 The References were identical, and ran as follows : ' To inquire into the state of Ireland, more 
 particularly with reference to the circumstances which may have led to disturbances in that 
 part of the United Kingdom.' Bishop Doyle was examined March 21, 1825, and April 21, 
 1825, before the Lords. • 
 
24 THE VATICAN DECRKES 
 
 Sovereign, are complete, and full, and peifect, and undivided, inasmuch as they extend to all 
 political, legal, and civil rights of the King or of his subjects, I tliink the allegiance due to 
 The King and the allegiance due to the Pope are as distinct and as divided in their nature as 
 any two things can possibly be. ' 
 
 Such is the opinion of the dead Prelate. We shall presently hear the 
 opinion of a living one. But the sentiments of the dead man power- 
 fully operated on the open and trustful temper of this people to induce 
 them to grant, at the cost of so much popular feeling and national tra- 
 dition, the great and just concession of 1829. That concession, without 
 such declarations, it would, to say the least, have been far more difficult 
 to obtain. 
 
 Now, bodies are usually held to be bound by the evidence of their 
 own selected and typical w^itnesses. But in this instance the colleagues 
 of those witnesses thought fit also to speak collectively. 
 
 First let us quote from the collective 'Declaration,' in the year 
 1826, of the Vicars Apostolic, who, with Episcopal authority, governed 
 the Iloman Catholics of Great Britain : 
 
 ' The allegiance which Catholics hold to be due, and are bound to pay, to their Sovereign, 
 and to the civil authority of the State, is perfect and undivided, . . . 
 
 'They declare that neither the Pope, nor any other Prelate or ecclesiastical person of the Ro- 
 man Catholic Church, . . . has any right to interfere, directly or indirectly, in the pivil govern- 
 ment, . . .' nor to oppose in any manner the performance of the civil duties which are due 
 to the King.' 
 
 Not less explicit was the Hierarchy of the Roman communion in its 
 * Pastoral Address to the Clergy and Laity of the Roman Catholic Church 
 in Ireland,' dated January 25, 1826. This address contains a declara- 
 tion, from wdiich I extract the following words : 
 
 ' It is a duty which they owe to themselves, as well as to their Protestant felloiv-subjects, 
 whose good opinion they value, to endeavor once more to remove the false imputations tliat 
 have been frequently cast upon the faith and discipline of that Church which is intrusted to 
 their care, that all may be enabled to know with accuracy their genuine principles.^ 
 
 In Article 11 : 
 
 'They declare on oath their belief that it is not an article of the Catholic Faith, neither are 
 thev^thereby required to believe, that the Pope is infallible.' 
 
 Aiix. ' "fter various recitals, they set forth : 
 
 'After this full,' explicit, and sworn declaration, we are utterly at a loss to conceive on what 
 possible ground we could be justly charged with bearing toward our most graciojis Sovereign 
 only a divided allegiance. ' 
 
 Thus, besides much else that I will not stop to. quote, Papal in- 
 
IN THEIR BEAKING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 25 
 
 fallibility was most solemnly declared to be a matter on which each 
 man might think as he pleased ; the Pope's power to claim obedience 
 was strictly and narrowly limited : it was expressly denied that he had 
 any title, direct or indirect, to interfere in civil government. Of the 
 right of the Pope to define the limits which divide the civil from tlie 
 spiritual by his own authority, not one word is said by the Prelates of 
 either country. 
 
 Since that time all these propositions have been reversed. The 
 Pope's infallibility, when he speaks ex cathedra on faith and morals, 
 has been declared, with the assent of the Bishops of the Roman Cluirch, 
 to be an article of faith, binding on the conscience of every Christian ; 
 his claim to the obedience of his spiritual subjects has been declared 
 in like manner without any practical limit or reserve ; and his suprem- 
 acy, without any reserve of civil rights, has been similarly affirmed to 
 include every thing which relates to the discipline and government of 
 the Church throughout the world. And these doctrines, we now know 
 on the lilghest authority, it is of necessity for salvation to believe. 
 
 Independently, however, of the Vatican Decrees themselves, it is nec- 
 essary for all who wish to understand what has been the amount of the 
 wonderful change now consummated in the Constitution of the Latin 
 Church, and what is the present degradation of its Episcopal order, to 
 observe also the change, amounting to revolution, of form in the pres- 
 ent, as compared with other conciliatory decrees. Indeed, that spirit 
 of centralization, the excesses of which are as fatal to vigorous life in 
 the Church as in the State, seems now nearly to have reached the last 
 and furthest point of possible advancement and exaltation. 
 
 When, in fact, we speak of the decrees of the Council of the Vatican, 
 we use a phrase which will not bear strict examination. The Canons 
 of the Council of Trent were, at least, the real Canons of a real Coun- 
 cil; and the strain in which they are promulgated is this: H(kg Sa- 
 crosancta^ ecumenica^ et generalis Tridentina Synodus, in Spiritu 
 Sancto legitime congregata, in ed pr-CBsidentibus eisdern trihus "^o- 
 stolicis Legatis^ hortatur^ or docet^ or statidt, or decernit, and <"^ .^Ke ; 
 and its canons, as published in Rome, are ^ Canones et decreta Sacro- 
 sancti ecumenici Ooncilii 2Videniini,'' ^ and so forth. But what we 
 
 * BorasB : iu Collegio urhano de Propaganda Fide. 1833. 
 
26 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 have now to do with is the Constitutio Dogmatica Prima de Celesta. 
 OAristi, edita in Sessione tertid of the Yatican Council. It is not a 
 constitution made by the 'Council, but one promulgated in the Council.^ 
 And who is it that legislates and decrees? It is Pius Episcojpus, servus 
 servorum Dei : and the seductive plural of his docemus et dedaranius 
 is simply the dignified and ceremonious 'We' of Eoyal declarations. 
 The document is dated Pontificatus nostri Anno XXV.: and the 
 humble share of the assembled Episcopate in the transaction is repre- 
 sented by sacra ajy^rohaiite concilio. And now for the Propositions 
 themselves. 
 
 First comes the Pope's infallibility : 
 
 ' Docemus, et divinitus revelatum dogma esse definimus, Eomanum Pontificem, cum ex 
 Cathedra loquitur, id est cum, omnium Christianorum Pastoris et Doctoris munere fungens, 
 pro sui)rema sua Apostolica auctoritate doctrinam de fide vel moribus ab universa Ecclesia 
 tenendam definit, per assistentiam divinam, ipsi in Beato Petro promissam, ea infallibilitate 
 pollere, qua Divinus Redemptor Ecclesiam suam in definienda doctrina de fide vel moribus 
 instructam esse voluit : ideoque ejus Romani Pontificis definitiones ex sese non autem ex 
 consensu Ecclesiai irreformabiles esse. ' ^ 
 
 Will it, then, be said that the infallibility of the Pope accrues only 
 when he speaks ex cathedi'd f Iso doubt this is a very material con- 
 sideration for those who have been told that the private conscience is 
 to derive comfort and assurance from the emanations of the Papal 
 Chair : for there is no established or accepted definition of the phrase 
 ex cathedra, and he has no power to obtain one, and no guide to direct 
 him in his choice among some twelve theories on the subject, which, it 
 is said, are bandied to and fro among Roman theologians, except the de- 
 spised and discarded agency of his private judgment. But while thus 
 sorely tantalized, he is not one whit protected. For there is still one 
 person, and one only, who can unquestionably declare ex cathedra what 
 is ex cathedra and what is not, and who can declare it when and as he 
 pleases. That person is the Pope himself. The provision is, that no 
 document he issues shall be valid without a seal ; but the seal remains 
 under his own sole lock and key. 
 
 ^ I am aware that, as some hold, this was the case with the Council of the Lateran in 
 A.D. 1215. But, first, this has not been established ; secondly, the very gist of the evil we 
 are dealing with consists in following (and enforcing) precedents from the age of Pope Inno- 
 cent III. 
 
 ^ Constitutio de. Ecclesia^ e. iv. 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 27 
 
 Again, it may be sought to plead tliat the Pope is, after all, only op- 
 erating by sanctions which unquestionably belong to the religious do- 
 main. He does not propose to invade the country, to seize Woolwich 
 or burn Portsmouth. He will only, at the worst, excommunicate op- 
 ponents, as he has excommunicated Dr. von Dcillinger and others. Is 
 this a good answer ? After all, even in the Middle Ages, it was not by 
 tlie direct action of fleets and armies of their own that the Popes con- 
 tended with kings who were refractory ; it w^as mainly by interdicts, 
 and by the refusal, which they entailed when the Bishops were not 
 brave enough to refuse their publication, of religious offices to the peo- 
 ple. It was thus that England suffered under John, France under 
 Philip Augustus, Leon under Alphonso the Koble, and every country 
 in its turn. But the inference may be drawn that they who, while 
 using spiritual weapons for such an end, do not employ temporal means, 
 only fail to employ them because they have them not. A religious so- 
 ciety which delivers volleys of spiritual censure in order to impede the 
 performance of civil duties does all the mischief that is in its power to 
 do, and brings into question, in face of the State, its title to civil pro- 
 tection. 
 
 Will it be said, finally, that the Infallibility touches only^matter of 
 faith and morals? Only matter of morals ! Will any of the Koman 
 casuists kindly acquaint us what are the departments and functions of 
 human life which do not and can not fall within the domain of morals ? 
 If they will not tell us, we must look elsewhere. In his work entitled 
 Literature and Dogma ^ Mr. Matthew Arnold quaintly informs us — as 
 they tell us nowadays how many parts of our poor bodies are solid and 
 how" many aqueous — that about seventy-five per cent, of all we do be- 
 longs to the department of ' conduct.' Conduct and morals, we may 
 suppose, are nearly co-extensive. Three fourths, then, of life are thus 
 handed over. But who will guarantee to us the other fourth ? Cer- 
 tainly not St. Paul, who says, ' Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or 
 whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' And, * Whatsoever ye 
 do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.' ^ Ko I 
 Such a distinction would be the unworthy device of a shallow policy, 
 vainly used to hide the daring of that wild ambition which at Rome, 
 
 ^ Pages 15, 44. » 1 Cor. x. 31 ; Col. iii. 7. 
 
^ ^ALIFOJiS ^ THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 not from the throne, but from behind the throne, prompts the move- 
 ments of the Yatican. I care not to ask if there be dregs or tatters of 
 human hfe, such as can escape from the description and boundary of 
 morals. I submit that Duty is a power which rises with us in the 
 morning, and goes to rest with us at night. It is co-extensive with the 
 action of our intelhgence. It is the shadow which cleaves to us go 
 where we will, and w^hicli only leaves us when we leave the light of life. 
 So, then, it is the supreme direction of us in respect to all Duty which 
 the Pontiff declares to belong to him sacro approhante concilio ; and 
 this declaration he makes, not as an otiose opinion of the schools, but 
 cunctis fidelihus credendarti et tenendam. 
 
 ■ But we shall now see that, even if a loophole had at this point been 
 left unclosed, the void is supplied by another provision of the Decrees. 
 While the reach of the Infallibility is as wide as it may please the 
 Pope, or those Avho may prompt the Pope, to make it, there is some- 
 thing wider still, and that is the claim to an absolute and entire Obedi- 
 ence. This Obedience is to be rendered to his orders in the cases I shall 
 proceed to point out, without any qualifying condition, such as the ex 
 catJiedrd. The sounding name of Infallibility has so fascinated the 
 public mind, and riveted it on the Fourth Chapter of the Constitution 
 de Ecclesidj that its near neighbor, the Third Chapter, has, at least in 
 my opinion, received very much less than justice. Let us turn to it: 
 
 ' Cujuscunque ritfis et dignitatis pastores atque fideles, tarn seorsiim singuli quam simnl 
 omnes, officio hierarchies subordinationis verasque obedientiai obstringuntur, non solum in 
 rebus, qua ad fidem et mores, set etiam in iis, qua? ad disciplinam et regimen EcclesijE per 
 totum orbem diffusae pertinent. . . . Hoec est Catholicae veritatis doctrina, a qua deviare, 
 salva fide atque salute, nemo potest. . . . 
 
 ' Doeemus etiam et declaramus eum esse judicem supremum fidelium, et in omnibus causis 
 ad examen ecclesiasticum spectantibus ad ipsius posse judicium recurri : Sedis vero Aposto- 
 lica;, cujus auctoritate major non est, judicium a nemine fore retractandum. Neque cuiquam 
 de ejus licere judicare judicio.' ^ 
 
 Even, therefore, where the judgments of the Pope do not present the 
 credentials of Infallibility, they are unappealable and irreversible : no 
 person may pass judgment upon them ; and all men, clerical and lay, 
 dispersedly or in the aggregate, are bound truly to obey them ; and 
 from this rule of Catholic truth no man can depart, save at the peril of 
 his salvation. Surely, it is allowable to say that this Third Chapter on 
 
 ... * Dogmatic Constitutions, etc., chap. iii. Dublin, 1870, pp. 30-32, 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 29 
 
 universal Obedience is a formidable rival to the Fourth Chapter on In- 
 fallibility. Indeed, to an observer from witliont, it seems to leave the 
 dignity to the other, but to reserve the stringency and efficiency to it- 
 self. The Third Chapter is the Merovingian Monarch ; the Fourth is 
 the Carolingian Mayor of the Palace. The Third has an overawing 
 splendor ; the Fourth, an iron grip. Little does it matter to me whether 
 my superior claims infallibility, so long as he is entitled to demand and 
 exact conformity. This, it will be observed, he demands even in cases 
 not covered by his infallibility ; cases, therefore, in which he admits it 
 to be possible that he may be wrong, but finds it intolerable to be told 
 so. As he must be obeyed in all his judgments, though not ex cathe- 
 dra^ it seems a pity he could not likewise give the comforting assur- 
 ance that they are all certain to be right. 
 
 But why this ostensible reduplication — this apparent surplusage? 
 Why did the astute contrivers of this tangled scheme conclude -hat 
 they could not afford to rest content with pledging the Council to In- 
 fallibility in terms which are not only wide to a high degree^ but elastic 
 beyond all measure ? 
 
 Though they must liave known pei-f ectly well that ' faith and morals ' 
 carried every thing, or ever}^ thing worth having, in the purely individual 
 sphere, they also knew just as well that, even where the individual was 
 subjugated, they might and would. still have to deal with the State. 
 
 In mediaeval history, this distinction is not only clear, but glaring. 
 Outside the borders of some narrow and proscribed sect, now and then 
 emerging, we never, or scarcely ever, hear of private and pei*sonal re- 
 sistance to the Pope. The manful ' Protestantism ' of mediaeval times 
 had its activity almost entirely in the sphere of public, national, and 
 State rights. Too much attention, in my opinion, can not be fastened 
 on this point. It is the very root and kernel of the matter. Individual 
 servitude, however abject, will not satisfy the party now dominant in 
 the Latin Church : the State must also be a slave. 
 
 Our Saviour had recognized as distinct the two provinces of the civil 
 rule and the Church ; had nowhere intimated that the spiritual author- 
 ity w^as to claim the disposal of physical force, and to control in its own 
 domain the authority which is alone responsible for external peace, 
 order, and safety among civilized communities of men. It has been 
 alike the peculiarity, the pride, and the misfortune of the Koman 
 
30 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 Church, among Christian communities, to allow to itself an unbounded 
 use, as far as its power would go, of earthly instruments for spiritual 
 ends. We liave seen with what ample assurances^ this nation and Par- 
 liament were fed in 1826 ; how w^ell and roundly the full and undivided 
 rights of the civil power, and the separation of the two jurisdictions, 
 were affirmed. All this had at length been undone, as far as Popes 
 could undo it, in the Syllabus and the Encyclical. It remained to com- 
 plete the undoing through the subserviency or pliability of the Council. 
 And the work is now truly complete. Lest it should be said that 
 supremacy in faith and morals, full dominion over personal belief and 
 conduct, did not cover the collective action of men in States, a third 
 province was opened, not indeed to the abstract assertion of Infallibil- 
 ity, but to the far more practical and decisive demand of absolute Obe- 
 dience. And this is the proper work of the Third Chapter, to which I 
 am endeavoring to do a tardy justice. Let us listen again to its few 
 but pregnant words on the point : 
 
 ' Non solum in rebus, qua ad fidem et mores, sed etiam in iis, qure ad disciplinam et regi- 
 men Ecclesiae per totum orbem diffusse pertinent.' 
 
 Absolute obedience, it is boldly declared, is due to the Pope, at the 
 peril of salvation, not alone in faith, in morals, but in all things which 
 concern the discipline and government of the Church. Thus are swept 
 into the Papal net whole multitudes of facts, whole systems of gov- 
 ernment, prevailing, though in different degrees, in every country of 
 the world. Even in the United States, where the severance between 
 Church and State is supposed to be complete, a long catalogue might 
 be drawn of subjects belonging to the domain and competency of the 
 State, but also undeniably affecting the government of the Churcli; 
 such as, by way of example, marriage, burial, education, prison disci- 
 pline, blasphemy, poor-relief, incorporation, mortmain, religious endow- 
 ments, vows of celibacy, and obedience. In Europe the circle is far 
 wider, the points of contact and of interlacing almost innumerable. But 
 on all matters respecting which any Pope may think proper to declare 
 that they concern either faith or morals, or the government or disci- 
 pline of the Church, he claims, with the approval of a Council un- 
 
 » See further, Appendix B. 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGUnCE. ' 31 
 
 doubtedly CEcumenical in the Roman sense, the absolute obedience, at 
 the peril of salvation, of every member of his communion. 
 
 It seems not as yet to have been thought wise to pledge the Council 
 in terms to the Syllabus and the Encyclical. That achievement is prob- 
 ably reserved for some one of its sittings yet to come. In the mean- 
 time it is well to remember that this claim in respect of all things af- 
 fecting the discipline and government of the Church, as well as faith 
 and conduct, is lodged in open day by and in the reign of a Pontiff 
 wlio has condemned free speech, free writing, a free press, toleration 
 of nonconformity^, liberty of conscience, the study of civil and philo- 
 sophical matters in independence of the ecclesiastical authority, mar- 
 riage unless sacramentally contracted, and the definition by the State 
 of the civil rights {jura) of the Church ; who has demanded for the 
 Church, therefore, the title to define its own civil rights, together with, 
 a divine right to civil immunities, and a right to use physical force ; 
 and who has also proudly asserted that the Popes of the Middle Ages 
 with their Councils did not invade the rights of princes : as for exam- 
 ple, Gregory YII., of the Emperor Henry lY. ; Innocent III., of Ray- 
 mond of Toulouse ; Paul III., in deposing Henry YIII. ; or Pius Y., 
 in performing the like paternal oflSce for Elizabeth. 
 
 I submit, then, that my fourth proposition is true ; and that England 
 is entitled to ask, and to know, in what way the obedience required by 
 the Pope and the Council of the Yatican is to be reconciled with the 
 integrity of civil allegiance ? 
 
 It has been shown that the Head of their Church, so supported as 
 undoubtedly to speak with its highest authority, claims from Roman 
 Catholics a plenary obedience to whatever he may desire in relation, 
 not to faith, but to morals, and not only to tliese, but to all that concerns 
 the government and discipline of the Church : that, of this, much lies 
 within the domain of the State ; that, to obviate all misapprehension, 
 the Pope demands for himself the right to determine the province of 
 his own rights, and has so defined it in formal documents as to warrant 
 any and every invasion of the civil sphere ; and that this new version 
 of the principles of the Papal Church inexorably binds its members to 
 the admission of these exorbitant claims, without any refuge or reser- 
 vation on behalf of their duty to the Crown. 
 
 Under circumstances such as these, it seems not too much to ask of 
 
32 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 them to confirm the opinion which we, as fellow-countrymen, entertain 
 of them, by sweeping away, in such manner and terms as they may 
 think best, tlie presumptive imputations which their ecclesiastical rulers 
 at Rome, acting autocratically, appear to have brought upon their ca- 
 pacity to pay a solid and undivided allegiance ; and to fulfill tlie en- 
 gagement whicli their Bisliops, as political sponsors, promised and de- 
 clared for them in 1825. 
 
 It would be impertinent, as well as needless, to suggest what should 
 be said. All that is requisite is to indicate in substance that Avhich (if 
 the foregoing argument be sound) is not wanted, and that which is. 
 What is not wanted is vague and general assertion, of whatever kind, 
 and however sincere. What is w^anted, and that in the most specific 
 form and the clearest terms, I take to be one of two things — that is to 
 say, either : 
 
 I. A demonstration that neither in the name of faith, nor in the name 
 of morals, nor in the name of the government or discipline of the 
 Church, is the Pope of Rome able, by virtue of the powders asserted for 
 him by the Vatican Decree, to make any claim upon those who adliere 
 to his communion of such a nature as can impair the integrity of their 
 civil allegiance ; or else, 
 
 II. That, if and when such claim is made, it will, even althongh rest- 
 ing on the definitions of the Vatican, be repelled and rejected, just as 
 Bishop Doyle, when he was asked what the Roman Catholic clergy 
 would do if the Pope intermeddled with their religion, replied frankly : 
 ' The consequences would be that we should oppose him by every means 
 in our power, even by the exercise of our spiritual authority.' ^ 
 
 In the absence of explicit assurances to this effect, we should appear 
 to be led, nay, driven, by just reasoning upon that documentary evidence, 
 to the conclusions : 
 
 1. That the Pope, authorized by his Council, claims for himself the 
 domain {a) of faith, (b) of morals, {c) of all that concerns the govern- 
 ment and discipline of the Church. 
 
 2. That he in like manner claims the power of determining the limits 
 of those domains. 
 
 3. That he does not sever them, by any acknowledged or intelligible 
 line, from the domains of civil duty and allegiance. 
 
 1 Report, March 18, 1826, p. 191. 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 33 
 
 4. That he therefore claims, and claims from the month of July, 1870, 
 onward, with plenary authority, from every convert and member of his 
 Church, that he shall ^ place his loyalty and civil duty at the mercy of 
 another :' that other being himself. 
 
 Y. Being Tkue, are the Pkopositions Material ? 
 
 But next, if these propositions be true, are they also material? The 
 claims can not, as I much fear, be denied to have been made. It can 
 not be denied that the Bishops, who govern in things spiritual more 
 than five millions (or nearly one sixth) of the inhabitants of the United 
 Kingdom, have in some cases promoted, in all cases accepted, these 
 claims. It has been a favorite purpose of my life not to conjure up, 
 but to conjure down, public alarms. I am not now going to pretend 
 that either foreign foe or domestic treason can, at the bidding of the 
 Court of Rome, disturb these peaceful shores. But though such fears 
 may be visionary, it is more visionary still to suppose for one mo- 
 ment that the claims of Gregory YII., of Innocent III., and of Boni- 
 face YIII., have been disinterred, in the nineteenth century, like hid- 
 eous mummies picked out of Egyptian sarcophagi, in the interests of 
 archaeology, or without a definite and practical aim. As rational beings, 
 we must rest assured that only with a very clearly conceived and fore- 
 gone purpose have these astonishing reassertions been paraded before 
 tlie world. What is that purpose? 
 
 I can well believe that it is in part theological. There have always 
 been, and there still are, no small proportion of our race, and those by 
 no means in all respects the worst, who are sorely open to the temj^- 
 tation, especially in times of religious disturbance, to discharge their 
 spiritual responsibilities hy power of attorney. As advertising houses 
 find custom in proportion, not so much to the solidity of their resources 
 as to the magniloquence of their promises and assurances, so theolog- 
 ical boldness in the extension of such claims is sure to pay, by widening 
 certain circles of devoted adherents, however it may repel the mass of 
 mankind. There were two special encouragements to this enterprise 
 at the present day : one of them the perhaps unconscious but manifest 
 leaning of some, outside the Roman precinct, to undue exaltation of 
 Church power; the other the reaction which is and must be brought 
 about in favor of superstition, by the levity of the destructive specula- 
 
 C 
 
34 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 tions so widely current, and the notable hardihood of the anti-Christian 
 writing of the day. 
 
 But it is impossible to account sufficiently in this manner for the par- 
 ticular course which has been actually pursued by the Koman Court. 
 All morbid spiritual appetites would have been amply satisfied by 
 claims to infallibility in creed, to the prerogative of miracle, to domin- 
 ion over the unseen world. In truth there was occasion, in this view, 
 for nothing except a liberal supply of Salmonean thunder : 
 
 ' Dum flammas Jovis, et sonitus imitatur Olympi.'^ 
 
 All this could have been managed by a few Tetzels, judiciously dis- 
 tributed over Europe. Therefore 'the question still remains. Why did 
 that Court, with policy forever in its eye, lodge such formidable de- 
 mands for power of the vulgar kind in that sphere which is visible, and 
 where hard knocks can undoubtedly be given as well as received ? 
 
 It must be for some political object, of a very tangible kind, that tlie 
 risks of so daring a raid upon the ciN'il sphere have been deliberately 
 run. 
 
 A daring raid it is. For it is most evident that the very assertion 
 of principles which establish an exemption from allegiance, or which 
 impair its completeness; goes, in many other countries of Europe far 
 more directly than with us, to the creation of political strife, and to 
 dangers of the most material and tangible kind. The struggle now 
 proceeding in Germany at once occurs to the mind as a palmary in- 
 stance. I am not competent to give any opinion upon the particulars 
 of that struggle. The institutions of Germany, and the relative esti- 
 mate of State power and individual freedom, are materially different 
 from ours. But I must say as much as this. Firstly, it is not Prussia 
 alone that is touched ; elsewhere, too, the bone lies ready, though the 
 contention may be delayed. In other States, in Austria particularly, 
 there are recent laws in force raising much the same issues as the Falck 
 laws have raised. But the Roman Court possesses in perfection one 
 art — the art of waiting ; and it is her wise maxim to fight but one enemy 
 at a time. Secondly, if I have truly represented the claims promul- 
 gated from the Vatican, it is difficult to deny that those claims, and the 
 
 ' ^En. vi. 586. 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 3$ 
 
 power which has made them, are primarily responsible for the pains 
 and perils, whatever they may be, of the present conflict between Ger- 
 man and Roman enactments. And that which was once truly said of 
 France may now also be said with not less truth of Germany : when 
 Germany is disquieted, Europe can not be at rest. 
 
 I should fefel less anxiety on this subject had the Supreme Pontiff 
 frankly recognized his altered position since the events of 1870 ; and, 
 in language as clear, if not as emphatic, as that in which he has pro- 
 scribed modern civilization, given to Europe the assurance that he 
 would be no party to the re-establishment by blood and violence of the 
 Temporal Power of the Church. It is easy to conceive that liis per- 
 sonal benevolence, no less than his feelings as an Italian, must have 
 inclined him individually towards a course so humane — and I should 
 add, if I might do it without presumption, so prudent. With what 
 appears to an English eye a lavish prodigality, successive Italian Gov- 
 ernments have made over the ecclesiastical powers and privileges of 
 tlie Monarchy, not to the Church of the country for the revival of the 
 ancient, popular, and self-governing elements of its constitution, but to 
 the Papal Chair for the establishment of ecclesiastical despotism and 
 the suppression of the last vestiges of independence. This course, so 
 difficult for a foreigner to appreciate, or even to justify, has been met, 
 not by reciprocal conciliation, but by a constant fire of denunciations 
 and complaints. When the tone of these denunciations and complaints 
 is compared with the language of the authorized and favored Papal 
 "organs in the press, and of the Ultramontane party (now the sole legit- 
 imate party of the Latin Church) throughout Europe, it leads many to 
 the painful and revolting conclusion that there is a fixed purpose among 
 the secret inspirers of Roman policy to pursue, by the road of force, 
 upon the arrival of any favorable opportunity, the favorite project of 
 re-erecting the terrestrial throne of the Popedom, even if it can only 
 be re-erected on the ashes of the city, and amid the whitening bones of 
 the people.^ 
 
 It is difficult to conceive or contemplate the effects of such an en- 
 deavor. But the existence at this day of the policy, even in bare idea, 
 is itself a portentous evil. I do not hesitate to say that it is an incen- 
 
 * Appendix C. 
 
36 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 tive to general disturbance, a premium upon European wars. "It is, 
 in my opinion, not sanguine only, but almost ridiculous to imagine that 
 such a project could eventually succeed ; but it is difficult to overesti- 
 mate the effect which it might produce in generating and exasperating 
 strife. It might even, to some extent, disturb and paralyze the action 
 of such Governments as might interpose for no separate purpose of their 
 own, but only with a view to the maintenance or restoration of the 
 general peace. If the baleful Power which is expressed by the phrase 
 Curia Bomana, and not at all adequately rendered in its historic force 
 by tlie usual English equivalent ' Court of Eome,' really entertains 
 the scheme, it doubtless counts on the support in every country of an 
 organized and devoted party, which when it can command the scales of 
 political power will promote interference, and when it is in a minori- 
 ty will work for securing neutrality. As the peace of Europe may be in 
 jeopardy, and as the duties even of England, as one (so to speak) of its 
 constabulary authorities, might come to be in question, it would be most 
 interesting to know the mental attitude of our Eoman Catholic fellow- 
 countrymen in England and Ireland with reference to the subject ; and 
 it seems to be one on which we are entitled to solicit information. 
 
 For there can not be the smallest doubt that the temporal power of 
 the Popedom comes within the true meaning of the words used at the 
 Vatican to describe the subjects on which the Pope is authorized to 
 claim, under lawful sanctions, the obedience of the ' faithful.' It is 
 even possible that we have here the key to the enlargement of the prov- 
 ince of Obedience beyond the limits of Infallibility, and to the intro- 
 duction of the remarkable phrase ad discijplinam et regimen Ecclesioe. 
 No impartial person can deny that the question of the Temporal Power 
 very evidently concerns the discipline and government of the Church 
 — concerns it, and most mischievously as I should venture to think; 
 but in the opinion, up to a late date, of many Koman Catholics, not 
 only most beneficially, but even essentially. Let it be remembered 
 that such a man as the late Count Montalembert, who in his general 
 politics was of the Liberal party, did not scruple to hold that the mill- 
 ions of Koman Catholics throughout the world were copartners with 
 the inhabitants of the' States of the Church in regard to their civil gov- 
 ernment ; and, as constituting the vast majority, were of course entitled 
 to override them. It was also rather commonly held, a quarter of a 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 37 
 
 century ago, that the question of the States of the Church was one with 
 which none but Roman Catholic Powers could have any thing to do. 
 This doctrine, I must own, was to me at all times unintelligible. It is 
 now, to say the least, hopelessly and irrecoverably obsolete. 
 
 Archbishop Manning, who is the head of the Papal Church in En- 
 gland, and whose ecclesiastical tone is supposed to be in the closest ac- 
 cordance witli that of his head-quarters, has not thought it too much to 
 say that the civil order of all Christendom is the offspring of the Tem- 
 poral Power, and has the Temporal Power for its* keystone ; that on 
 the destruction of the Temporal Power Hhe laws of nations would at 
 once fall in ruins ;' that (our old friend) the deposing Power ' taught 
 subjects obedience and princes clemency.'^ ^ay? this high authority 
 has proceeded further, and has elevated the Temporal Power to the 
 rank of necessary doctrine. 
 
 * The Catholic Church can not be silent — it can not hold its peace; it can not cease to preach 
 the doctrines of Revelation, not only of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, but likewise of 
 the Seven Sacraments, and of the Infallibility of the Church of God, and of the necessity of 
 Unity, and of the Sovereignty, both spiritual and temporal, of the Holy See.'* 
 
 I never, for m}^own part, heard that the work containing this remark- 
 able passage was placed in the * Index Prohibitorum Librorum.' On 
 the contrary, its distinguished author was elevated, on the first oppor- 
 tunity, to the headship of the Roman Episcopacy in England, and to 
 the guidance of the million or thereabouts of souls in its communion. 
 And the more recent utterances of the oracle have not descended from 
 the high level of those already cited. They have, indeed, the recom- 
 mendation of a comment, not without fair claims to authority, on the 
 recent declarations of the Pope and the Council, and of one which goes 
 to prove how far I am from having exaggerated or strained in the fore- 
 going pages the meaning of those declarations. Especially does this 
 hold good on the one point, the most vital of the whole — the title to 
 define the border-line of the two provinces, which the Archbishop not 
 unfairly takes to be the true criterion of supremacy as between rival 
 powers like the Church and the State. 
 
 *If, then, the civil power be not competent to decide the limits of the spiritual power, nnd 
 if the spiritual power can define, with a divine certainty, its own limits, it is evidently su- 
 
 ' Three Lectures on the Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes, 1860, pp. 34, 46, 47, 58, 59, 63. 
 » The Present Crisis of the Holy See, By H. E. Manning, D.D. London, 1861 , p. 73. 
 
38 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 preme. Or, in other words, the spiritual power knows, with divine certainty, the limits of 
 its own jurisdiction : and it knows, therefore, the limits and the competence of the civil pow- 
 er. It is thereby, in matters of religion and conscience, supreme. I do not see how this can 
 be denied without denying Christianity. And if this be so, this is the doctrine of the Bull 
 Unam Sanctain,^ and of the Syllabus, and of the Vatican Council. It is, in fact, Ultramon- 
 tanism, for this term means neither less nor more. The Church, therefore, is separate and 
 supreme. 
 
 * Let us, then, ascertain somewhat further what is the meaning of supreme. Any power 
 which is independent, and can alone fix the limits of its own jurisdiction, and can thereby fix 
 the limits of all other jurisdictions, is, ipso facto, sujyreme. ^ But the Church of Jesus Christ, 
 within the sphere of revelation, of faith and morals, is all this, or is nothing, or worse than 
 nothing, an imposture and a usurpation — that is, it is Christ or Antichrist. '^ 
 
 But the whole pamphlet should be read by those who desire to know 
 the true sense of the Papal declarations and Vatican Decrees, as they 
 are understood by the most favored ecclesiastics ; understood, I am 
 bound to own, so far as I can see, in their natural, legitimate, and in- 
 evitable sense. Such readers will be assisted by the treatise in seeing 
 clearly, and in admitting frankly that, w^hatever demands may hereafter, 
 and in whatever circumstances, be made upon us, we shall be unable to 
 advance w^ith any fairness the plea that it has been done without- due 
 notice. 
 
 There are millions upon millions of the Protestants of this country 
 who would agree with Archbishop Manning if he were simply telling 
 us that divine truth is not to be sought from the lips of the State, nor 
 to be sacrificed at its command. But those millions would tell him, in 
 return, that the State, as the power which is alone responsible for the 
 external order of the world, can alone conclusively and finally be com- 
 petent to determine what is to take place in the sphere of that external 
 order. 
 
 I have shown, then, that the Propositions, especially that w^hich has 
 been felt to be the chief one among them, being true, are also material ; 
 material to be generally known, and clearly understood, and well con- 
 sidered, on civil grounds ; inasmuch as they invade, at a multitude of 
 points, the civil sphere, and seem even to have no very remote or shad- 
 owy connection with the future peace and security of Christendom. 
 
 ' On the Bull Unam Sanctum, 'of a most odious kind,' see Bishop Doyle's Essay, already 
 cited. He thus describes it. 
 ^ The italics are not in the original. 
 ^ Ccesarism and Ultramontanism. By Archbishop Manning, 1874, pp. 35, 36. 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 39 
 
 YI. Were the Peopositions Peopek to be set foetii by the 
 Peesent Weitee ? 
 
 There remains yet before us only the shortest and least significant 
 portion of the inquiry, namely, whether these things, being true, and 
 being material to be said, were also proper to be said by me. I must 
 ask pardon if a tone of egotism be detected in this necessarily subordi- 
 nate portion of my remarks. 
 
 For thirty years, and in a great variety of circumstances, in office 
 and as an independent Member of Parliament, in majorities and in 
 small minorities, and during the larger portion of the time ^ as the rep- 
 resentative of a great constituency, mainly clerical, I have, with others, 
 labored to maintain and extend the civil rights of my Roman Catholic 
 fellow-countrymen. The Liberal party of this country, with which I 
 have been commonly associated, has suffered, and sometimes suffered 
 heavily, in public favor and in influence, from the belief that it was too 
 ardent in the pursuit of that policy ; w^hile at the same time it has al- 
 ways been in the worst odor with the Court of Eome, in consequence 
 of its (I hope) unalterable attachment to Italian liberty and independ- 
 ence. I have sometimes been the spokesman of that party in recom- 
 mendations w^hich have tended to foster, in fact, the imputation I have 
 mentioned, though not to warrant it as matter of reason. But it has 
 existed in fact. So that while (as I think) general justice to society 
 required that these things which I have now set forth should be writ- 
 ten, special justice, as toward the party to which I am loyally attached, 
 and which I may have had a share in thus placing at a disadvantage 
 before our countrymen, made it, to say the least, becoming that I should 
 not shrink from writing them. 
 
 In discharging that office, I have sought to perform the part, not of a 
 theological partisan, but simply of a good citizen ; of one hopeful that 
 many of his Eoman Catholic friends and fellow-countrymen, who are, 
 to say the Iqast of it, as good citizens as himself, may perceive that the 
 case is not a frivolous case, but one that merits their attention: 
 
 I will next proceed to give the reason why, up to a recent date, I 
 have thought it right in the main to leave to any others who might 
 feel it the duty of dealing in detail with this question. 
 
 ^ From 1847 to 1865 I sat for the University of Oxford. 
 
40 THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 The great change which seems to me to have been brought about in 
 the position of Euman Catholic Christians as citizens reached its con- 
 summation and came into full operation in July, 1870, by the proceed- 
 ings or so-called decrees of the Vatican Council. 
 
 Up to that time, opinion in the Eoman Church on all matters involv- 
 ing civil liberty, though partially and sometimes widely intimidated, 
 was free wherever it was resolute. During the Middle Ages heresy 
 was often extinguished in blood ; but in every Cisalpine country a prin- 
 ciple of liberty, to a great extent, held its own, and national life re- 
 fused to be put down. Kay more, these precious and inestimable gifts 
 had not infrequently for their champions a local prelacy and clergy. 
 The Constitutions of Clarendon, cursed from the Papal throne, were 
 the work of the English Bishops. Stephen Langton, appointed direct- 
 ly, through an extraordinary stretch of power, by Innocent III., to the 
 See of Canterbury, headed the Barons of England in extorting from 
 the Papal minion John, the worst and basest of all our sovereigns, that 
 Magna Charta which the Pope at once visited with his anathemas. In 
 the reign of Henry YIII., it was Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, who first 
 wrote against the Papal domination. Tunstal was followed by Gardi- 
 ner ; and even the recognition of the Royal Headship w^as voted by the 
 clergy, not under Cranmer, but under his unsuspected predecessor War- 
 ham. Strong and domineering as was the high Papal party in those 
 centuries, the resistance was manful. Thrice in history it seemed as if 
 what we may call the Constitutional party in the Church was about to 
 triumph : first, at the epoch of the Council of Constance ; secondly, 
 when the French Episcopate was in conflict with Pope Innocent XL ; 
 thirdly, when Clement XIY. leveled with the dust the deadliest foes 
 that mental and moral liberty have ever known. But from July, 1870, 
 this state of things has passed away, and the death-w^arrant of that Con- 
 stitutional party has been signed, and sealed, and promulgated in form. 
 
 Before that time arrived, although I had used expressions sufficiently 
 indicative as to the tendency of things in the great Latin Communion, 
 yet I had for very many years felt it to be the first and paramount 
 duty of the British Legislature, whatever Rome might say or do, to 
 give to Ireland all that justice could demand in regard to matters of 
 conscience and of civil equality, and thus to set herself right in the 
 opinion of the civilized world. So far from seeing, what some believed 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 41 
 
 the J saw, a spirit of unworthy compliance in sncli a course, it appeared 
 to me the only one which suited either the dignity or the duty of my 
 country. While this debt remained unpaid, both before and after 
 1870, I did not think it my province to open formally a line of argu- 
 ment on a question of prospective rather than immediate moment, 
 which might have prejudiced the matter of duty lying nearest our 
 hand, and morally injured Great Britain not less than Ireland, Church- 
 men and Nonconformists not less than adherents of the Papal Com- 
 munion, by slackening the disposition to pay the debt of justice. 
 When Parliament had passed the Church Act of 1869 and the Land 
 Act of 1870, there remained only, under the great head of Imperial 
 equity, one serious question to be dealt with — that of the higher Edu- 
 cation. I consider that the Liberal majority in the House of Com- 
 mons, and the Government to which I had the honor and satisfaction 
 to belong, formally tendered payment in full of this portion of the debt 
 by the Irish University Bill of February, 1873. Some, indeed, think 
 that it was overpaid : a question into w^hich this is manifestly not the 
 place to enter. But the Koman Catholic prelacy of Ireland thought fit 
 to procure the rejection of that measure by the direct influence which 
 they exercised over a certain number of Irish Members of Parliament, 
 and by the temptation which they thus offered — the bid, in effect, which 
 (to use a homely phrase) they made to attract the support of the Tory Op- 
 position. Their efforts were crowned with a complete success. From 
 that time forward I have felt that the situation was changed, and that 
 important matters would have to be cleared by suitable explanations. 
 The debt to Ireland had been paid : a debt to the country at large had 
 still to be disposed of, and this has come to be the duty of the hour. 
 So long, indeed, as I continued to be Prime Minister, I should not 
 have considered a broad political discussion on a general question suit- 
 able to proceed from me ; while neither I nor (I am certain) my col- 
 leagues would have been disposed to run the risk of stirring popular 
 passions by a vulgar and unexplained appeal. But every difficulty 
 arising from the necessary limitations of an official position has now 
 been removed. 
 
-^ >^ . »• " ^ ' Y >v 
 
 r.>riVERSITT 
 
 Op ^ ^r4\h-/ THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 YII. On the Home Policy of the Future. 
 
 I could not, however, conclude these observations without antici- 
 pating and answering an inquiry they suggest. 'Are they, then,' it 
 will be asked, ' a recantation and a regret ? and what are they meant 
 to- recommend as the policy of the future V My reply shall be suc- 
 cinct and plain. Of what the Liberal party lias accomplished, by w^ord 
 or deed, in establishing the full civil equality of Eoman Catholics, I 
 regret nothing, and I recant nothing. 
 
 It is certainly a political misfortune that, during the last thirty 
 years, a Church so tainted in its views of civil obedience, and so un- 
 duly capable of changing its front and language after Emancipation 
 from what it had been before — like an actor who has to perform several 
 characters in one piece — should have acquired an extension of its hold 
 upon the highest classes of this countiy. The conquests have been 
 chiefly, as might have been expected, among women ; but the number 
 of male converts, or captives (as I might prefer to call them), has not 
 been inconsiderable. There is no doubt that every one of these seces- 
 sions is in the nature of a considerable moral and social severance. 
 The breadth of this gap varies, according to varieties of individual char- 
 acter. But it is too commonly a wide one. Too commonly the spirit 
 of the neophyte is expressed by the words which have become notori- 
 ous : 'A Catholic first, an Englishman afterwards.' Words which prop- 
 erly convey no more than a truism; for every Christian must seek to 
 place his religion even before his country in his inner heart. But very 
 far from a truism in the sense in which we have been led to construe 
 them. We take them to mean that the * convert' intends, in case of 
 any conflict between the Queen and the Pope, to follow the Pope, and 
 let the Queen shift for herself ; which, happily, she can well do. 
 
 Usually,' in this country, a movement in tlie highest class would raise 
 a presumption of a similar movement in the mass. It is not so here. 
 Pumors have gone about that the proportion of members of the Papal 
 Church to the population has increased, especially in England. But 
 these rumors would seem to be confuted by authentic figures. The 
 Poman Catholic Marriages, which supply a competent test, and which 
 were 4.89 per cent, of the whole in 1854, and 4.62 per cent, in 1859, 
 were 4.09 per cent, in 1869, and 4.02 per cent, in 1871. 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 43 
 
 There is something at the least abnormal in such a partial growth, 
 taking eifect as it does among the wealthy and noble, while the people 
 can not be charmed, by any incantation, into the Roman camp. The 
 original Gospel was supposed to be meant especially for the poor ; but 
 the gospel of the nineteenth century from Rome courts another and 
 less modest destination. If the Pope does not control more souls 
 among us, he certainly controls more acres. 
 
 The severance, however, of a certain number of lords of the soil 
 from those who till it can be borne. And so I trust will in like man- 
 ner be endured tlie new and very real * aggression' of the principles 
 promulgated by Papal authority, whetlier they are or are not loyally 
 disclaimed. In this matter eacli man is his own judge and his own 
 guide : I can speak for myself. I am no longer able to say, as I 
 would have said before 1870, 'There is nothing in the necessary be- 
 lief of the Roman Catholic which can appear to impeach his full civil 
 title; for, whatsoever be the follies of ecclesiastical power in his 
 Church, his Church itself has not required of him, with binding au- 
 thority, to assent to any principles inconsistent with his civil duty.' 
 That ground is now, for the present at least, cut from under my feet. 
 What, then, is to be our course of policy hereafter ? First, let me say 
 that, as regards the great Imperial settlement, achieved by slow de- 
 grees, which has admitted men of all creeds subsisting among us to 
 Parliament, that I conceive to be so determined beyond all doubt or 
 question as to have become one of the deep foundation-stones of the 
 existing Constitution. But inasmuch as, short of this great charter of 
 public liberty, and independently of all that has been done, there are 
 pending matters of comparatively minor moment which have been, or 
 may be, subjects of discussion, not without interest attaching to them, 
 I can suppose a question to arise in the minds of some. My own 
 views and intentions in the future are of the smallest significance. 
 But, if the arguments I have here offered make it my duty to declare 
 them, I say at once the future will be exactly as the past : in the little 
 that depends on me, I shall be guided hereafter, as heretofore, by the 
 rule of maintaining equal civil rights irrespectively of religious differ- 
 ences ; and shall resist all attempts to exclude the members of the Ro- 
 man Church from the benefit of that rule. Indeed, I may say that I 
 have already given conclusive indications of this view, by supporting 
 
44r THE VATICAN DECREES 
 
 in Parliament, as a Minister, since 1870, the repeal of tlie Ecclesiastical 
 Titles Act, for what I think ample reasons. !N^ot only because the time 
 has not ^-et come when we can assume the consequences of the rev- 
 olutionary measures of 1870 to liave been thoroughly weighed and 
 digested by all capable men in the Roman Communion. Not only 
 because so great a numerical proportion are, as I have before observed, 
 necessarily incapable of mastering, and forming their personal judg- 
 ment upon, the case. Quite irrespectively even of these considera- 
 tions, I hold that our onward even course should not be changed by 
 follies, the consequences of which, if the worst come to the worst, this 
 country will have alike the power and, in case of need, the will to 
 control. The State w^ill, I trust, be ever careful to leave the domain 
 of religious conscience free, and yet to keep it to its own domain; and 
 to allow neither private caprice nor, above all, foreign arrogance to 
 dictate to it in the discharge of its proper office. 'England expects 
 every man to do his duty;' and none can be so well prepared under all 
 circumstances to exact its performance as that Liberal party which has 
 done the work of justice alike for Nonconformists and for Papal dis- 
 sidents, and whose members have so often, for the sake of that work, 
 hazarded their credit with the markedly Protestant constituencies of 
 the country. Strong the State of the United Kingdom has always 
 been in material strength ; and its moral panoply is now, we may hope, 
 pretty complete. 
 
 It is not, then, for the dignity of the Crown and people of the Unit- 
 ed Kingdom to be diverted from a path which they have deliberately 
 chosen, and which it does not rest with all the myrmidons of the Apos- 
 tolic Chamber either openly to obstruct or secretly to undermine. It 
 is rightfully to be expected, it is greatly to be desired, that the Roman 
 Catholics of this country should do in the Nineteenth century what 
 their forefathers of England, except a handful of emissaries, did in the 
 Sixteenth, when they were marshaled in resistance to the Armada, and 
 in the Seventeenth, when, in despite of the Papal Chair, they sat in the 
 House of Lords under the Oath of Allegiance. That which we are 
 entitled to desire, we are entitled also to expect: indeed, to say we did 
 not expect it would in my judgment be the true way of conveying an 
 'insult' to those concerned. In this expectation we may be partially 
 disappointed. Should those to whom I appeal thus unhappily come to 
 
IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 45 
 
 Ijear witness in their own persons to the decay of sound, inanly, true 
 life in their Church, it will be their loss more than ours. The inhabit- 
 ants of these Islands, as a whole, are stable, though sometimes credu- 
 lous and excitable ; resolute, though sometimes boastful : and a strong- 
 headed and sound-hearted race will not be hindered, either by latent 
 or by avowed dissents, due to the foreign influence of a caste, from 
 the accomplishment of its mission in the world. 
 
U'^IVEKSITT 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 The number's here given correspond with those of the Eighteen Propositions 
 given in the text, lohere it icould have been less convejiient to cite the 
 originals, 
 
 1,2,3. *Ex qua omnino falsa socialis regiminis idea baud timent er- 
 roneam illam fovere opinionem, Catholicse Ecclesiae, animarumque saluti 
 maxime exitialem, a rec. mem. Gregorio XIY. praedecessore JSTostro deli- 
 ramentum appellatam (eadem Eiicycl. mirari), nimirum, libertatem con- 
 scientise et eultuum esse proprium cujuscunque hominis jus, quod lege 
 proclaniari, et asseri debet in omni recte constituta societate, et jus civi- 
 bus inesse ad omnimodara libertatem nulla vel ecclesiastica, vel civili 
 auctoritate coarctandam, quo suos conceptus quoscumque sive voce sive 
 typis, sive alia ratione palam publiceque manifestare ac declarare valeant.' 
 — Encyclical Letter. 
 
 4. ' Atque silentio prseterire non possumus eorum audaciam, qui sanam 
 non sustinentes doctrinam "illis Apostolicae Sedis judiciis, et decretis, 
 quorum objectum ad bonum generale Ecclesise, ejusdemque jura, ac dis- 
 ciplinam spectare declaratur, duramodo fidei morumque dogmata non 
 attingat, posse assensum et obedientiam detrectari absque peceato, et 
 absque ulla Catholicse professionis jactura." ' — Ibid. 
 
 5. 'Ecclesia non est vera perfectaque societas plane libera, nee pollet 
 suis propriis et constantibus juribus sibi a divino suo Fundatore collatis, 
 sed civilis potestatis est definire quae sint Ecclesise jura, ac limites, intra 
 quos eadem jura exercere queat.' — Syllabus v. 
 
 6. ' Romani Pontifices et Concilia oecumenica a limitibus suae potesta- 
 tis recesserunt, jura Principum usurparunt, atque etiam in rebus fidei et 
 morum definiendis errarunt.' — Ibid, xxiii. 
 
 7. *Ecclesia vis inferendse potestatem non habet, neque potestatem 
 ullam temporalem directam vel indirectam.' — Ibid. xxiv. 
 
 8. 'Prseter potestatem episcopatui inhaerentem, alia est attributa tern- 
 
48 , APPENDICES. 
 
 poralis potestas a civili imperio vel express^ vel tacite coiicessa, revocan- 
 da propterea, cum libuerit, a civili imperio.' — Syllabus xxvs 
 
 9. *Ecclesiae et personarum ecclesiasticarum immunitas a jure civili 
 ortum habuit.' — Ibid. xxx. 
 
 10. 'In conflictu legum utriusque potestatis, jus civile prsevalet.' — 
 Ibid, xlii. 
 
 11. *Catholicis viris probari potest ea juventutis instituends3 ratio, qua3 
 sit a Catholica fide et ab Ecclesise potestate sejuncta, quaeque rerura dum- 
 taxat, naturalium scientiam ac terrense socialis vitse fines tantummodo vel 
 saltem primarium spectet.' — Ibid, xlviii. 
 
 12. *Philosophicarum rerum morumque scientia, itemque civiles leges 
 possunt et debent a divina et ecclesiastica auctoritate declinare.' — 
 Ibid. Ivii. 
 
 13. * Matrimonii sacramentum non est nisi contractui accessorium ab 
 eoque separabile, ipsumque sacramentum in una tantum nuptiali benedic- 
 tione situm esV—Ibid. Ixvi. 
 
 ' Yi contractus mere civilis potest inter Christianos constare veri nomi- 
 iiis matrimonium; falsumque est, aut contractum matrimonii inter Chris- 
 tianos semper esse sacramentum, aut nullum esse contractum, si sacramen- 
 tum excludatur.' — Ibid. Ixxiii. 
 
 14. 'De temporalis regni cum spirituali compatibilitate disputant inter 
 se Christianae et Catholicae Ecclesise filii.' — Ibid. Ixxv. 
 
 15. * Abrogatio civilis imperii, quo Apostolica Sedes potitur, ad Ecclesise 
 libertatem felicitatemque vel maxime conduceret.' — Ibid. Ixxvi. 
 
 IQ. '-^tate hac nostra non amplius expedit religionem Catholicam 
 haberi tanquam unicam status religionem, cseteris quibuscumque cultibus 
 exclusis.' — Ibid. Ixxvii. 
 
 11. 'Hinc laudabiliter in quibusdam Catholici nominis regionibus lege 
 cautum est, ut hominibus illuc immigrantibus liceat publicum proprii 
 cujusque cultus exercitium habere.' — Ibid. Ixxviii. 
 
 18. ' Romanus Pontifex potest ac debet cum pro^ressu, cum liberalismo 
 et cum recenti civilitate sese reconciliare et componere.' — Ibid. Ixxx. 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 I have contented myself with a minimum of citation from the docu- 
 ments of the period before Emancipation. Their full effect can only be 
 gathered by such as are acquainted with, or will take the trouble to re- 
 fer largely to, the originals. It is worth while, however, to cite the fol- 
 
APPENDICES. 49 
 
 lowing passage from Bishop Doyle, as it may convey, through the indig- 
 nation it expresses, an idea of the amplitude of the assurances which had 
 been (as I believe, most honestly and sincerely) given : 
 
 * There is no justice, my Lord, in thus condemning us. Such conduct 
 on the part of our opponents creates in our bosoms a sense of wrong be- 
 ing done to us; it exhausts our patience, it provokes our indignation, 
 and prevents us from reiterating our eiforts to obtain a more impartial 
 hearing. We are tempted, in such cases as these, to attribute unfair 
 motives to those who differ from us, as we can not conceive how men 
 gifted with intelligence can fail to discover truths so plainly demon- 
 strated as — 
 
 'That our faith or our allegiance is not regulated by any such doc- 
 trines as those imputed to us ; 
 
 'That our duties to the Government of our country are not influenced 
 nor affected by any Bulls or practices of Popes ; 
 
 'That these duties are to be learned by us, as by every other class of 
 His Majesty's subjects, from the Gospel, from the reason given to us by 
 God, from that love of country which nature has implanted in our hearts, 
 and from those constitutional maxims which are as well understood and 
 as highly appreciated by Catholics of the present day as by their an- 
 cestors, who founded them with Alfred, or secured them at Runnymede.' 
 — Doyle's Essay on the Catholic Claims, London, 1826, p. 38. 
 
 The same general tone as in 1826 was maintained in the ansvrers of 
 the witnesses from Maynooth College before the Commission of 1855. 
 See, for example, pp. 132, 161-4, 272-3, 275, 361, 370-5, 381-2, 394-6,405. 
 The Commission reported (p. 64), ' We see no reason to believe that there 
 has been any disloyalty in the teaching of the College, or any disposition 
 to impair the obligations of an unreserved allegiance to your Majesty.' 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 Compare the recent and ominous forecasting of the 'future European 
 policy of the British Crown, in an article from a Romish Periodical for 
 the current month, which has direct relation to these matters, and which 
 has every appearance of proceeding from authority: 
 
 'Surely in any European complication, such as may any day arise, nay, 
 such as must ere long arise, from the natural gravitation of the forces, 
 which are for the moment kept in check and truce by the necessity of 
 preparation for their inevitable collision, it may very well be that the 
 
 D 
 
50 APPENDICES. 
 
 future prosperity of England may be staked in the struggle, and that the 
 side which she may take may be determined, not either by justice or in- 
 terest, but hy a passionate resolve to keep up the Italian kingdom at any 
 hazard.'* — The Month for Kovember, 1874: *Mr. Gladstone's Durham 
 Letter,' p. 265. ^ 
 
 This is a remarkable disclosure. With %chom could England be 
 brought into conflict by any disposition she might feel to keep up the 
 Italian kingdom? Considered as States, both Austria and France are in 
 complete harmony with Italy. But it is plain that Italy has some en- 
 emy ; and the writers of the Month appear to know who it is. 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 Notice has been taken, both in this country and abroad, of the appar- 
 ent inertness of public men, and of at least one British Administration, 
 with respect to the subject of these pages. See Friedberg, Grenzen 
 zwischen Staat und Kirche, Abtheilung iii. pp. 755-6 ; and the Preface to 
 the Fifth Volume of Mr. Greenwood's elaborate, able, and judicial work 
 entitled Cathedra Petri, p. iv. 
 
 If there be any chance of such a revival, it would become our political 
 leaders to look more closely into the peculiarities of a system which de- 
 nies the right of the subject to freedom of thought and action upon mat- 
 ters most material to his civil and religious welfare. There is no mode 
 of ascertaining the spirit and tendency of great institutions but in a care- 
 ful study of their history. The writer is profoundly impressed with the 
 conviction that our political instructors have wholly neglected this im- 
 portant duty; or, which is perhaps worse, left it in the hands of a class 
 of persons whose zeal has outrun their discretion, and who have sought 
 rather to engage the prejudices than the judgment of their hearers in the 
 cause they have, no doubt sincerely, at heart. 
 
HISTORY OF THE YATICAI^ COUNCIL 
 
 TOGETHER WITH THE LATIN AND ENGLISH TEXT OF THE 
 
 PAPAL SYLLABUS AND THE VATICAN DECREES. 
 
 Rev. PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D. 
 
 FROM HIS FORTHCOMING 'HISTORY OP THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 TAGE 
 
 I. A History of the Vatican Council 51 
 
 Literature 63 
 
 Call of the Council. Its Aim 55 
 
 Opening of the Council 58 
 
 Attendance and CcTmposition . . . .• 59 
 
 Rules. Private and Public Sessions 60 
 
 Papal Management and Control 61 
 
 Proceedings 63 
 
 Importance. Claim to CEcumenicity 65 
 
 The Vatican Decrees : 
 
 '1. The Constitution of the Catholic Faith 66 
 
 2. The Infallibility Decree 69 
 
 Papal Infallibility Explained and Tested 82 
 
 Ultramontanism and Gallicanism 86 
 
 Papal Infallibility and Personal Responsibility 88 
 
 Papal Infallibility and Tradition 90 
 
 Papal Infallibility and the Bible 102 
 
 II. The Papal Syllabus of 1864 109 
 
 (In Latin, with English Translation.) 
 
 III. The Dogmatic Decrees of the Vatican Councii of 1870.. 131 
 (In Latin, with English Translation.) 
 
;^ « A f{y* 
 
 «'# VMS 
 
 
 HISTORY OF THE YATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 I. Works peeoeuing the Council. 
 
 Officielle Actenstucke zu dem von Sr. Heiligkeit dem Papste Pius IX. nach Horn bervfenen Oekumenischen 
 Condi, Berlin, 1S69 (pp. 189). This work contains the Papal Encyclica of 18C4, and the various papal 
 letters and official documents preparatory to the Council, in Latin and German. 
 
 Chronique concernant le Prochain Concile. Tradxiction revue et approuvee de la Civiltd cattolica par la 
 correspondance de Rome, Vol. I. Avant le Concile. Rome, Deuxieme ed. 1869, fol. (pp. 192). Begins wiih 
 the Papal letter of June 26, 1867. 
 
 Henry Euwarb Manning (Archbishop of Westminster) : The Centenary of St. Peter and the General 
 Council. A Pastoral Letter. London, 186T. Also in Italian {tipog. della Civiltd cattolica). In favor of In- 
 fallibility. 
 
 C, H. A. Plantier (Bishop of Nimes) : Sicr les Conciles generaux d Voccasion de celui que Sa SnintetePie 
 IX. a convoque pour le 8 decembre prochain, Nimes et Paris, 1869, The same in German : Ueber die allge- 
 meinen Kirchenversammlungen, translated by Th. von Lamezan, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1S69. Infallibilist. 
 
 Magb. Vict. Aug. Deouamps (Archbishop of Malines) : LHnfaillibilite et le Concile general, 2d ed., Paris 
 et Malines, 1869. German translation : Die Un/ehlbarkeit desPapstes und das Allgemeine Condi, Mainz, 
 1869. Strong Infallibilist. 
 
 H. L. C. Maret (Dean of the Theol. Faculty of Paris) : Du Concile general et de la paix rcligieuse, Paris, 
 1869, 2 vols. Against Infallibility. Has since recanted. 
 
 W. Emmanuel Fbeiuerr von Ketteleb (Bishop of Mayence) : Das Allgemeine Condi und seine Bedeu- 
 tungfiir unsere Zeit, 4th ed. Mainz, 1869, First against, now in favor of Infallibility. 
 
 Dr. Joseph Fesslek (Bishop of St. Polten and Secretary of the Vatican Council, d. 1872) : Das letztetmd 
 das ndchste A llgemdne Condi, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1869, 
 
 F, DuPANLoup (Bishop of Orleans) : Lettre sur le futur Concile (Ecumenique, in French, German, and 
 other languages, 1869. The same on the Infallibility of the Pope. First against, then in favor of the new 
 dogma. 
 
 Der Papst und das Condi von Janus, Leipzig, 1869, Several editions. The same in English : The Pope 
 and the Council, by Janus, London, 1869, In opposition to the Jesuit programme of the Council, from 
 the liberal (old) Catholic stand-point ; probably the joint production of Profs. Dollingeb, FRiEDEiou, 
 and HoBEB, of the University of Munich, 
 
 Dr. J. Heroenrotueb (R. C.) : A nti-Janus, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1870. Also iu English, by J. B. Rob- 
 ertson, Dublin, 1870. 
 
 Reform der R'htt. Kirche in Haupt und Gliedern Aufgabe des bevorstehenden Rom. Condla, Leipz. 1869. 
 [By Prof, VON Suulte, of Prague,] Liberal Catholic. 
 
 Felix Bungener (Prot,) : Rome and the Council in the Nineteenth Century. Translated from the French, 
 with additions by the Author. Ediub, 1870. (Conjectures as to what the Council will be, to judge from the 
 Papal Syllabus and the past history of the Papacy.) 
 
 II. Reports during the Council. 
 
 The Civiltd catholica, of Rome, for 1869 and 1870. Chief organ of the Jesuits and Infallibilists. 
 
 Louis Veuillot: Rome pendant le Concile, Paris, 1870, 2 vols. Collection of his correspondence to 
 his journal, VUnivers, of Paris. Ultra-Infallibilist and utterly unscrupulous. 
 
 J. Friedrich (Prof, of Church History in Munich, lib, Cath.) : Tagebttch wdhrend des VaticaniscJien Con- 
 oils gefiihrt, Nodlingen, 1871. A journal kept during the Council, and noting the facts, projects, and ru- 
 mors as they came to the surface. The author, a colleague and intimate friend of DiJllinger, has since 
 been excommunicated. 
 
 Lord Acton (liberal Catholic) : Ziir Geschichte des Vatican. Condls, first published in the North Britinh 
 Review for October, 1870 (under the title : TheVatican Council^ pp. 95-120 of the Amer. reprint), translated 
 by Dr. Reischl, at Munich, 1871. 
 
54 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 QuiRiNUB : Letters from Rome on the Council, first in the Krxg^'b. Allgemdne Zeitting, and then in a sep- 
 arate volume, Munich, 1S70; also in English, London, 1870 (pp. 856). Letters of three liberal Catholics, 
 of different nations, who had long resided in Kome, and, during the Council, communicated to each 
 other all the information they could gather from members of the Council, and sent their letters to a 
 friend in Germany for publication in the Augsburg General Gazette. 
 
 Compare against Quirinus: Die Unwahrheiten der Ri'miischen Brief e vom Concil in der Allg. Zeitung, 
 VON W. Emmanuel Feeiheken von Kettelee (Bishop of Mayence), 1870. 
 
 Ce qui se passe au Concile. Dated April 10, 1870. Troisieme ed. Paris, 1870. [By Jules Gaillaei>.] 
 
 La derniere heure dtc Concile, Paris, 1870. [By a member of the Council.] The last two works were 
 denounced as a calumny by the presiding Cardinals in the session, July 16, 1870. 
 
 Also the Reports during the Council in the Giornale di Roma, the Turin Unitd catholica, the London 
 Times, the London (R. C.) Tablet, the Dublin Review, the New York Tribune, and other leading period- 
 icals. 
 
 IIL TuE Acts and PEOOEEniNcs of this Council. 
 
 (1.) Roman Catholic (Infallibilist) Sources. 
 
 Acta et Decreta sacrosancti et oecumenici Concilii Vaticani die 8 Dec. 1869 a ss. D. X. Pio IX. inchoati. 
 Cum p9rmissione superiorum, Friburgi Brisgoviae, 1871, in 2 Parts. The first part contains the Papal 
 Encyclica with the Syllabus and the acts preparatory to the Council ; the second, the public acts of the 
 Council itself, with a list of the dioceses of the Roman Church and the members of the Vatican Council. 
 
 Actes et histoire du Concile cecumenique de Rome, premier du Vatican, ed. under the auspices of Victor 
 Frond, Paris, 1869 sqq. 6 vols. Includes extensive biographies of Pope Pius IX. and his Cardinals, etc., 
 with portraits. Vol. VI. contains the Actes, decrets et documents reccuillia et mis en ordrepar M. Pelletier, 
 chanoine d^ Orleans. Each vol. costs 100 francs. 
 
 A tti ufficialli del Concilio ecumenico, Turino, pp. 682 (? 1870). 
 
 Officielle ActenstUcke zu dem vo7i Sr. Heiligkeit dem Papst Pius IX. nach Rom hervfenen Oekumenischen 
 Concil, Zweite Sammlung, Berlin, 1S70. 
 
 Das Oekumenische Concil. Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, Neue Folge. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1870. A se- 
 ries of discussions in defense of the Council by Jesuits (Florian Riess, and K. v. Weber). 
 
 Hkney Edwaep Manning (R. C. Archbishop of Westminster) : The Vatican Council and its Definitions. 
 A Pastoral Letter to his Clergy. London and New York, 1871. A defense of the two Constitutions of the 
 Council de fide and de ecclesia. This, together with two other Pastoral Letters on the Council (quoted 
 p. 134), are also publishad in one volume under the joint title Petri Privilegium, Lond. 1871. 
 
 Bp. Jos. Fessler (Secretary of the Vatican Council) : Das Vaticanische Condi, dessen dtissere Bedeutung 
 und innerer Verlavf, Wien, 1871. 
 
 The stenographic reports of the speeches of the Council are still locked up in the archives of the Vat- 
 ican. 
 
 (2.) Old Catholic (anti-Infallibilist). 
 
 Jon. FBiEnEion: Documenta ad illustrandum Concilium Vaticanum anni 1870, Nordlingen, 1871, in 2 
 Parts. Contains oflScial and unofHcial documents bearing on the Council and the various schemata de 
 fide, de ecclesia, etc. Compare his Tagebuch loiihrend des Vaticanischen Ccncils gefiihrt, above quoted, 
 and his Zur Vertheidigung meines Tagebuchs. Offener Brief an P. R. Cornely, Priester der Gesellschaft 
 Jesu, Nordl. 1872. 
 ^Joxi. Fbiedeich Rittee von SonuLTE (Prof, of Canon Law in the University of Prague, now in Bonn) : 
 T)as Unfehlbarkeitsdecret vom, 18 Juli 1870 . . . gepruft, Prag, 1871. Also, Die Macht der Rom. Papste iiber 
 Fursten, Lander, Volker, Individuen, etc., Prag, 2d ed. 1871. 
 
 Stim'hien aus der katholischen Kirche Hber die Kirchenfragen der Gegenwart, Mi\nchen,1870 sqq. 2 vols. 
 A series of discussions against the Vatican Council, by Dollingeb, Huueb, Soiimitz, Feieueicii, Rbin- 
 KEN8, and HiixzL. 
 
 (3.) Protestant. 
 
 Dr. Emil FBiEnBEEG (Prof, of Ecclesiastical Law in Leipzig) : Sammlung der ActenstUcke zum ersten 
 Vaticanischen Concil, mit eincm Grundrvis der Geschichte desselbcn, Tubingen, 1872 (pp. 954). Very valu- 
 able ; contains all the important documents, and a full list of works on the Council. 
 
 TiiEon. Feommann {Privatdocent in Berlin): Geschichte und Kritik des Vaticanischen Concils von 1869 
 und 1870, Gotha, 1872 (pp. 529). 
 
 E. t)E Peessense (Ref. Pastor in Paris) : Le Concile du Vatican, son histoire et ses consequences politiqries 
 et religieuses, Paris, 1S72. Also in German, by Fabaritis, Niirdlingen, 1872. 
 
 L. W. Baoon : An Inside View of the Vatican Council, New York, 1872 (Amer. Tract Society). Contains 
 a translation of Archbishop Kenrick's speech against Infallibility, with a sketch of the Council, and 
 several documents. 
 
 An extensive criticism on the Infallibility decree in the third edition of Dr. Hase's Handbuch der Prot- 
 estant. Polemik gegen die romisch-katholische Kirche, Leipz. 1871, pp. 155-200. Comp. pp. 24-37. 
 
 [The above are only the most important works of the large and increasing literature, historical, apol- 
 ogetic, and polemic, on the Vatican Council. A. Erlecke, in a pamphlet. Die Literatur des rom. Concils, 
 gives a list of over 200 books and pamphlets which appeared in Germ.any alone till the close of 1870. 
 Friedberg notices in all no less thau 1041 writings on the subject till June 1872. His lists are classified 
 and very accurate.] 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 55 
 
 More than three hundred years after the close of the Council of 
 Trent, Pope Pius IX., who had proclaimed the new dogma of the 
 Immaculate Conception, who in the presence of five hundred Bishops had 
 celebrated the eighteenth centennial of the martyrdom of the Apostles 
 Peter and Paul, and who was permitted to sui-vive not only the golden 
 wedding of his priesthood, but even — alone among his more than two 
 hundred and fifty predecessors — the silver wedding of his popedom 
 (thus falsifying the tradition 'non videhit annos Pe'trV), resolved to 
 convoke a new oecumenical Council, which w^as to proclaim his own in- 
 fallibility in all matters of faith and discipline, and thus to put the 
 top-stone to the pyramid of the Eoman hierarchy. 
 
 He first intimated his intention, June 26, 1867, in an Allocution to 
 five hundred Bishops who were assembled at the eighteenth centen- 
 ary of the martyrdom of St. Peter in Kome. The Bishops, in a most 
 humble and obsequious response, July 1, 1867, approved of his he- 
 roic courage, to employ, in his old age, an extreme measure for an 
 extreme danger, and predicted a new splendor of the Church, and a new 
 triumph of the kingdom of God.^ Whereupon the Pope announced to 
 them that he would convene the Council under the special auspices of 
 the imnlaculate Virgin, who had crushed the serpent's head and was 
 mighty to destroy alone all the heresies of the w^orld.^ 
 
 * ^ Summo igitur gnudio^'' said the five hundred Bishops, ^repletus est animus noster, dum 
 sacrato ore Tuo intellexii/ms, tot inter prcesentis temporis discrimina eo Te esse consilio, tit 
 ^^rnaximum,^' prout aiehat inclitus Tuus prcedecessor Paulus III., ''''in vmxi.nis rei christi- 
 ance periculis remediu7n," Concilium oecumenicum convoces. Annuat Deus huic Tuo proposito, 
 cuius ipse Tibi mentem inspiravit ; habeantque tandem cevi nostri homines, qui injirmi in fide, 
 semper discentes et nunquain ad veritatis agnitionem pervenientes omni vento doctrince circum- 
 feruntur, in sacrosancta hac Synodo novani, prcesentissimamque occasionem accedendi ad sanc- 
 tum Ecclesiam columnam ac Jirmamentum venitatis, cognoscendi salutiferam Jidem, perniciosos 
 reiiciendi errores ; ac fiat, Deo propitio, et conciliatrice Deipara Immaculata, hcec Sy nodus 
 grande opus unitatis, sanctificationis et pads, unde novus in Ecclesiam splendor redundet, novtis 
 regni Dei triumphus consequatur. Et hoc ipso Tuce proiiidentice opere denuo exibeatur vmndo 
 immensa beneficia, per Pontificatum romanum humance societati asserta. Pateat cunctis, Eccle- 
 siam eo quod super soUdissima Petrafundetur, tantum valere, ut errores depellat, mores c.orri- 
 gat, barbariem compescat, civilisque humanitatis mater dicatur et sit. Pateat mundo, quod 
 divin(e auctoritatis et debitce eidem obedientice manifestissimo specimine, in divina Pontifica- 
 tus institutione dato, ea omnia stabilita et sacrata sint, quoe societatum fundamenta ac diutur- 
 nitatem solident.' 
 
 ' ' Quod sane votum apertius etiam se prodit in eo communi Concilii oecumenici desiderio, 
 quod omnes non modo perutile, sed et necessarium arbitramini. Superbia enim humana, vete- 
 rem ansum instauratura, jamdiu per commenticium progressum civitatem et turrein extruere 
 nititur, cujtis culmen pertingat ad codum, unde demum Detis ipse detrahi possit. At is de- 
 scendisse videtur inspecturus opus, et cedificantium linguas ita cor>fusurtis, ut non audiat unus- 
 
56 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCm 
 
 The call was issued by an Encyclical, commencing jEterni Patris 
 Uaigenitus Filius, in the twenty-third year of his Pontificate, on the 
 feast of St. Peter and Paul, Jnne 29, 1868. It created at once a uni- 
 versal commotion in the Christian world, and called forth a multitude 
 of books and pamphlets even before the Council convened. The high- 
 est expectations were suspended by the Pope and his sympathizers on 
 the comino^ event. What the Council of Trent had effected as^ainst 
 
 O CD 
 
 the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, the Council of the 
 Vatican was to accomplish against the more radical and dangerous foes 
 of modern liberalism and rationalism, which threatened to undermine 
 Romanism itself in its own strongholds. It was to crush the power of 
 infidelity, and to settle all that belongs to the doctrine, worship, and 
 discipline of the Church, and the eternal salvation of souls.^ It was 
 even hoped that the Council might become a general feast of recon- 
 ciliation of divided Christendom; and lience the Greek schismatics, 
 
 quisque voceyn proximi sui : id enim animo ohj;ciunt Ecclesice vexationes, miseranda civilis con- 
 sortii conditio, perturhatio rerum omnium, in tjua versamur. Cm sane gravisslmce calamitati sola 
 certe ohjici potest divina Ecclesice virtus, qace tunc viaxime se prodit, cum Episcopi a Sum- 
 mo Pontijice convocati, eo procside, conveni^mt in noniine Domini de Ecclesice rebus acturi. 
 Et gaudemus omnino, prcevertisse vos hac in re propositum jamdiu a nobis conceptum, com- 
 viendandl sacrum hunc coetum ejus patrocinio, cujus pedi a rerum exordia serpentis caput sub- 
 jectumfuit, quceque deinde universas hcereses sola interemit. Satisfacturi propterea communi 
 desiderio jam nunc nunciamus, futurum quandocunque Concilium sub auspiciis Deiparce Virgi- 
 nis ab omni labe immunis esse constituendum, et eo apeiriendum die, quo insignis hujus privilegii 
 ipsi coUati memoria recolitur. Faxit Deus,faxit Immaculata Virgo, ut a7n])lissimos e saluber- 
 rimo isto Conciliofructus percipere valeamus.' While the Pope complains of the pride of the 
 age in attempting to build another tower of Babel, it did not occur to him that the assump- 
 tion of infallibility, i. e., a predicate of the Almighty by a mortal man, is the consummation 
 of spiritual pride. 
 
 * After describing, in the stereotyped phrases of the Roman Court, the great solicitude of 
 the successors of Peter for pure doctrine and good gOAernment, and the terrible tempests and 
 calamities by which the Catholic Church and the very foundations of society are shaken in 
 the present age, the Pope's Encyclical comprehensively but vaguely, and with a prudent re- 
 serve concerning the desired dogma of Infallibility, defines the objects of the Council in these 
 words : '/« cecumenico hoc Concilio ea omnia accuratissime examine sunt perpendenda ac sta- 
 tuenda, quce hisce prcesertim asperrimis temporibus majorem Dei gloriam, etjidei itrtegritatem, 
 divinique cultus decorem, sempiternamque hominum salutem, et utriusque Cleri disciplinam 
 ejusque salutarem solidamque culturam, atque ecclesiasticarum legum observantiam, morumque 
 emendationem, et christianam juventutis institutionem, et communem omnium pacem et concor- 
 diam in primis respiciunt. Atque etiam intentissimo studio curandum est, ut, Deo beneju- 
 rante, ovinia ab Ecclesia et civili societate amoveantur mala, ut miseri errantes ad rectum 
 veritatis, justitice salutisque tramitem reducantur,ut vitiis erroribusque eliminatis, augusta nos- 
 tra religio ejusque salutijera doctrina ubique terrarum reviviscat, et quotidie magis propagetur 
 et dominetur, atque ita jnetas, honestas, probitas, jtistitia, carifas omnesque Christiance vir- 
 tutes cum maxima humance socieiatis utilitate vigeant et ej/lorescant.' 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 57 
 
 and the Protestant heretics and other non-Cathoh'cs, were invited by 
 two special letters of the Pope (Sept. 8, and Sept. 13, 1868) to return 
 on this auspicious occasion to ' the only sheepfold of Christ,' for the 
 salvation of their souls.^ 
 
 But the Eastern Patriarchs spurned the invitation, as an insult to 
 their time-honored rights and traditions, from which they could not 
 depai*t.2 The Protestant communions either ignored or respectfully 
 declined it.^ 
 
 Thus the Vatican Council, like that of Trent, turned out to be sim- 
 ply a general Eoman Council, and apparently put the prospect of a 
 reunion of Christendom farther off than ever before. 
 
 While these sanguine expectations of Pius IX. were doomed to dis- 
 appointment, the chief object of the Council w^as attained in spite of 
 the strong opposition of the minority of liberal Catholics. This object, 
 which for reasons of propriety is omitted in the bull of convocation and 
 other preliminary acts, but clearly stated by the organs of the Ultra- 
 montane or Jesuitical party, was nothing less than the proclamation of 
 
 * ' Omnes Christianos etiam atque etiam hortamur et ohsecramus, xit ad unicum Christi oinle 
 redirefestinent.^ And at the end again, ' unum ovile et unus pastor;^ according to the false and 
 mischievous translation of John x. 16 in the Vulgate (followed by the authorized English 
 Version), instead of ^ one Jlock' (fiia Troifivr], not auXij). There may be many folds, and yet 
 one flock under one Shepherd, as there are ' many mansions' in heaven (John xiv, 2). 
 
 ^ The Patriarch of Constantinople declined even to receive the Papal letter from the Papal 
 messenger, for the reasons that it had already been publishecf in the Giornale di Roma ; tl.at 
 it contained principles contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, the doctrines of the oecumenical 
 Councils, and the holy Fathers ; that there was no supreme Bishop in the Church except 
 Christ; and that the Bishop of Old Rome had no right to convoke an oecumenical Council 
 without first consulting the Eastern Patriarchs. The other Oriental Bishops either declined 
 or returned the Papal letter of invitation. See the documents in Eriedberg, 1. c. pp. 233-2a3 ; 
 in OfficielleAcienstucke, etc., pp. 127-135 ; and ml\\QChromque concernant le Prochain Con- 
 cile, Vol. I. pp. 3 sqq., 103 sqq, 
 
 ^ The Evangelical OUrkirchenrath of Berlin, the Kirchentag of Stuttgart, 1869, the Paris 
 Branch of the Evangelical Alliance, 'The Venerable Company of Pastors of Geneva,' the 
 Professorc of the University of Groningen, the Hungarian Lutherans assembled at Pesth, and 
 the Presbyterians of the United States, took notice of the Papal invitation, all declining it, and 
 reaffirming the principles of the Protestant Reformation. The Presbyterian Dr. Cumming, 
 of London, seemed willing to accept the invitation if the Pope would allow a discussion of the 
 reasons of the separation from Rome, but was informed by the Pope, through Archbishop 
 Manning, in two letters (Sept. 4, and Oct. 30, 1869), that such discussion of questions long 
 settled would be entirely inconsistent with the infallibility of the Church and the supremacy 
 of the Holy See. See the documents in Eriedberg, pp. 235-2,57 ; comp. pp. 16, 17, and Offic. 
 Actenstiicke, pp 158-176. The Chronique concernant le Prochain Concile, p. 169, criticises 
 at length the American Presbyterian letter signed by Jacobus and Fowler (Moderators of the 
 General Assembly), and sees in its reasons for declining a proof of 'heretical obstinacy and 
 ignorance. ' 
 
58 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 the personal Infallibility of the Pope, as a binding article of the Ro- 
 man Catholic faith for all time to come.^ Herein lies the whole im- 
 portance of the Council; all the rest dwindles into insignificance, and 
 could never have justified its convocation. 
 
 After extensive and careful preparations, the first (and perhaps the 
 last) Yatican Council was solemnly opened amid the sound of innu- 
 merable bells and the cannon of St. Angelo, but under frowning skies 
 and a pouring rain, on the festival of the Immaculate Conception of the 
 Virgin Mary, Dec. 8, 1869, in the Basilica of the Vatican.- It reached 
 its height at the fourth public session, July 18, 1870, when the decree 
 of Papal Infallibility was proclaimed. After this it dragged on a sickly 
 existence till October 20, 1870, when it w^as adjourned till Xov. 11, 
 1870, but indefinitely postponed on account of the extraordinary change 
 in the political situation of Europe. For on the second of September 
 the French Empire, which had been the 'main support of the temporal 
 power of the Pope, collapsed with the surrender of Kapoleon III., at 
 the old Huguenot stronghold of Sedan, to the Protestant King William 
 of Prussia, and on the twentieth of September the Italian troops, in the 
 
 * So the Civilta cattolica (a monthly Review established 1 SnO, at Rome, the principal organ 
 of the Jesuits, and the Moniteur of the Papal Court) defined the programme, Feb. 6, 1869 ; add- 
 ing to it also the adoption of the Syllabus of 18G4, and, perha[)S, the proc lamation of the as- 
 sumption of the Virgin Mary to heaven. The last is reserved for the future. The Archbishop 
 of Westminster (Manning) and the Archbishop of Mechlin (Dechamps) predicted, in pastoral 
 letters of 1867 and 1869, the proclamation of the Papal Infallibility as a certain event. To 
 avert this danger, the Bishop of Orleans (Dupanloup), Pere Gratry of the Oratory, Pere 
 Ilyacinthe, Bishop Maret (Dean of the Theological Faculty of Paris), Montalembert, John 
 Henry Newman, the German Catholic laity (in the Coblenz Address), in part the German 
 Bishops assembled at Fulda, and especially the learned authors of the Janus, lifted their 
 voice, though in vain. See the literature on the subject in Friedberg, pp. 17-21. 
 
 2 Hence the name. The right cross-nave of St. Peter's Church, which itself is a large 
 church, was separated by a painted board wall, and fitted up as the council-hall. See a 
 draught of it in Friedberg, p. 98. The hall was very unsuitable for hearing, and had to be 
 repeatedly altered. The Pope, it is said (Hase, 1. c. p. 26), did not ca.e that all the orators 
 should be understood. The Vatican Palace, where the Pope now resides, adjoins the Church 
 of St. Peter. Councils were held there before, but only of a local character. Formerly the Ro- 
 man oecumenical Councils were held in the Lateran Palace, the ancient residence of the 
 Popes, which is connected with the Church of St. John in the Lateran or Church of the 
 Saviour (^omnium urbis et orhis ecclesiarum mater et caput'). There are five Lateran Coun- 
 cils : the first was held, II 23, under Calixtus II. ; the second, 1139, under Innocent II. ; the 
 third, 1179, under Alexander III. ; the fourth and largest, 1215, under Innocent III. ; the 
 fifth, 1512-1517, under Leo X., on the eve of the Reformation. The basilica of the Late- 
 ran contains the head, the basilica of St. Peter the body, of St. Peter, The Pope expressed 
 the hope that a special inspiration would proceed from the near grave of the prince of the Apos^ 
 ties upon the Fathers of the Council. 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 59 
 
 name of King Victor Emanuel, took possession of Rome, as the future 
 capital of united Italy. Whether the Council will ever he convened 
 again to complete its vast labors, like the twice interrupted Council of 
 Trent, remains to be seen. But, in proclaiming the personal Infallibil- 
 ity of the Pope, it made all future oecumenical Councils unnecessary 
 for the definition of dogmas and the regulation of discipline, so that 
 hereafter they will be expensive luxuries and empty ritualistic shows. 
 The acts of the Vatican Council, as far as they go, are irrevocable. 
 
 The attendance was larger than that of any of its eighteen predeces- 
 sors,^ and presented .an imposing array of hierarchical dignity and 
 power such as the world never saw before, and as the Eternal City itself 
 is not likely ever to see again. What a contrast this to the first Coun- 
 cil of the apostles, elders, and brethren in an upper chamber in Jerusa- 
 lem ! The whole number of prelates of the Eoman Catholic Church, 
 who are entitled to a seat in an oecumenical Council, is one thousand 
 and thirty-seven. 2 Of these there were present at the opening of the 
 Council 719, viz., 49 Cardinals, 9 Patriarchs, 4 Primates, 121 Arch- 
 bishops, 479 Bishops, 57 Abbots and Generals of monastic orders.^ 
 This number afterwards increased to 764, viz., 49 Cardinals, 10 Pa- 
 triarchs, 4 Primates, 105 diocesan Archbishops, 22 Archbishops in parti- 
 bus infidelium, 424 diocesan Bishops, 98 Bishops in partibus, and 52 
 
 Abbots, and Generals of monastic orders.'^ Distributed according to con- 
 
 t 
 
 * As the oecumenical character of two or three Councils is disputed, the Vatican Council is 
 variously reckoned as the 1 9th or 20th or 21st oecumenical Council; by strict Romanists (as 
 Manning) as the 19th. Compare note on p. 91. 
 
 ^ See a full list, with all the titles, in the Lexicon ^geographicum added to the second part 
 of the Acta et Decretcy sacrosancti et oecum. Cone. Vaticani, Friburgi, 1871. The Prelates 
 ^ quibus aut jus aut privilegium fuit sedendi in occumenica synodo Vaticana,' are arranged as 
 follows : 
 
 (1.) Eminentissimi et reverendissimi Domini S.E. Rom. Cardinales : (a) ordinis Episco- 
 porum, (b) ordinis Presbyterorum, (c) ordinis diaconorum — 51. 
 
 (2.) Reverendissimi Domini Patriarchs — 11. 
 
 (3.) Reverendissimi DD. Primates— 10. 
 
 (4.) Reverendissimi DD. Archiepiscopi — 166. 
 
 (5.) Reverendissimi DD. Episcopi — 740. 
 
 (6.) AiJBATES nuUius dioceseos — 6. 
 
 (7.) Abbates Generales ordinum monasticorum — 23. 
 
 (8.) Generales et Vicarii Generales congregationum clericorum regularium, ordinum 
 monasticorum, ordinum mendicantium — 29. In all, 1037. 
 
 " See the list of names in Friedberg, pp. 376-394. 
 
 * See the official Catalogo alfabetico del Padri jpresenti al Concilio ecumenico Vaticano^ 
 Roma, 1870. 
 
60 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 tinents, 541 of these belonged to Europe, 83 to Asia, 14 to Africa, 113 to 
 America, 13 to Oceanica. At the proclamation of the decree of Papal 
 Infallibility, July 18, 1870, the number was reduced to 535, and after- 
 wards it dwindled down to 200 or 180. 
 
 Among the many nations represented,^ the Italians had a vast ma- 
 jority of 276, of whom 143 belonged to the former Papal States alone. 
 France, with a much larger Catholic population, had only 84, Austria 
 and Hungary 48, Spain 41, Great Britain 35, Germany 19, the United 
 States 48, Mexico 10, Switzerland 8, Belgium 6, Holland 4, Portugal 
 2, Russia 1. Tlie disproportion between the representatives of the dif- 
 ferent nations and tlie number of their constituents w^as overwhelm- 
 ingly in favor of the Papal influence. More than one-half of the 
 Fathers were entertained during the Council at the expense of the Pope. 
 
 The Eomans themselves were remarkably indifferent to the Council, 
 though keenly alive to the financial gain which the dogma of the In- 
 fallibility of their sovereign would bring to the Eternal City and the 
 impoverislied Papal treasury.^ It is well known how soon after the 
 Council they votfed almost in a body against the temporal power of the 
 Pope, and for their new master. 
 
 The strictest secresy was enjoined upon the members of the Council.^ 
 The stenographic reports of the proceedings were locked up in the 
 archives. Tlie world was only to know the final results as proclaimed 
 in the public sessions, until it should please the Roman court to issue 
 an ofiicial history. But the freedom of tlie press in the nineteenth 
 century, the elements of discord in the Council itself, the enterprise or 
 indiscretion of members and friends of both parties, frustrated the 
 precautions. The principal facts, documents, speeches, plans, and in- 
 trigues leaked out in the official schemata^ the controversial pamphlets 
 of Prelates, and the private reports and letters of outside observers 
 who were in intimate and constant intercourse with their friends in 
 the Council.* 
 
 * Manning says, ' some thirty nations' — probably an exaggeration. 
 ^ Quirinus, pp. 480, 481 (English translation). 
 
 ^ They had to promise and swear to observe ' mviolabilem secreti Jidem^ with regard to the 
 discussions, the opinions, and all matters pertaining to the Council. See the* form of the oath 
 in Friedberg, p. 06. In ancient Councils the people are often mentioned as being present 
 during the deliberations, and manifesting their feelings of approval and disapproval. 
 
 * Among the irresponsible but well-infoiined reporters and correspondents must be men- 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 61 
 
 The subject-matter for deliberation was divided into four parts : on 
 Faith, Discipline, Eeligious Orders, and on Rites, including Missions. 
 Each part was assigned to a special Commission {Congregatio ov Be- 
 putatio), consisting of 24 Prelates elected bj ballot for the whole pe- 
 riod of the Council, with a presiding Cardinal appointed by the Pope. 
 These Commissions prepared the decrees on the basis of schemata pre- 
 viously drawn up by learned divines and canonists, and confidentially 
 submitted to the Bishops in print.^ The decrees were then discussed, 
 revised, and adopted in secret sessions by the General Congregation 
 (Congregationes ^^Ti^T-aZ^^), including all the Fathers, with five pre- 
 siding Cardinals appointed by the Pope. The General Congregation 
 held eighty-nine sessions in all. Finally, the decrees thus matured were 
 voted upon by simple yeas or nays {Placet or Non Placet), and sol- 
 emnly promulgated in public sessions in the presence and by the au- 
 thority of the Pope. A conditional assent {Placet juxta modum) was 
 allowed in the secret, but not in the public sessions. 
 
 There were only four such public sessions held during the ten months 
 of the Council, viz., the opening session (lasting nearly seven hours), 
 Dec. 8, 1869, which was a mere formality, but of a ritualistic splendor 
 and magnificence such as can be gotten up nowhere on earth but in 
 St. Peter's Cathedral in Eome ; the second session, Jan. 6, 1870, when 
 the Fathers simply professed each one before the Pope the Nicene 
 Creed and the Profession of the Tridentine Faith ; the third session, 
 April 24, 1870, when the dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith 
 was unanimously adopted ; and the fourth session, July 18, 1870, when 
 the first dogmatic constitution on the Church of Christ and the In- 
 fallibility of the Pope was adopted with two dissenting votes. 
 
 The management of the Council was entirely in the hands of the 
 Pope and his dependent Cardinals and Jesuitical advisers. He origi- 
 
 tioned especially the writers in the Civilta cotfolica, and the Paris Univers^ on the part of 
 the Infallibilists ; and the pseudonymous Quirinus, Prof. Friedrich, and the anonymous 
 French authors of Ce qui se passe au Concile, and of La derniere heure du Concile, on the 
 part of the anti-Infallibilists. 
 
 ^ There were in all forty-five schemata, divided into four classes : (1) circa Jidem, (2) circa 
 disciplinam ecclesio', (3) circa ordines regulares, (4) circa res ritus orientalis et apostoHcas 
 rnissiones. See a list in Friedberg, pp. 432-434. Only a part of the schemata were submit- 
 ted, and only the first two schemata defide were acted upon. Friedrich, in the Second Part 
 of his Documeiita, gives the schemata, as far as they were distributed among the Bishops, ^O" 
 gether with the revisions.and criticisms of the Bishops. 
 
62 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 nated the topics which were to be acted on ; he selected the prepara- 
 tory committees of theologians (mostly of the Ultramontane school) 
 who, during the winter of 1868-69, drew np the schemata ; he ap- 
 pointed the presiding officers of the four Deputations, and of the Gen- 
 eral Congregation; and he proclaimed the decrees in his own name, 
 * with the approval of the Council.'^ He provided, by the bull ^ Cum 
 Bomanis Pontificibiis^ of Dec. 4, 1869, for the immediate suspension 
 and adjournment of the Council in case of his death. He even person- 
 ally interfered during the proceedings in favor of his new dogma by 
 praising Infallibilists, and by ignoring or rebuking anti-Infallibilists.^ 
 The discussion could be virtually arrested by the presiding Cardinals 
 at the request of only ten members ; we say virtually, for although it 
 required a vote of the Council, a majority was always sure. The revised 
 order of business, issued Feb. 22, 1870, departed even from the old rule 
 requiring absolute or at least moral unanimity in definitions of faith 
 (according to the celebrated canon quod sem/per, quod ubiqice^ quod ah 
 omnibus credituvi est), and substituted for it a mere numerical major- 
 ity, in order to secure the triumph of the Infallibility decree in spite of 
 a powerful m'inority. Nothing could be printed in Rome against In- 
 fallibility, while the organs of Infallibility had full freedom to print 
 
 ^ Under the title : Pius episcopus, servus servorwn Dei, sacro approhante Concilio, ad per- 
 petuam rei memoriam. The order prescribed for voting was this : The Pope, through the Sec- 
 retary, asked the members of the Council first in general : Recerendissimi Patres, placentne 
 vohis Deci^eta et Canones qui in hac Constitutione continentur? Then each one was called by 
 name, and must vote either placet or no7i placet. When the votes were collected and brought 
 to the Pope, he announced the result by this formula : Decreta et Canones qui in Constitu- 
 tione modo lecta continentur, placuerunt omnibus Patribus, nemine dissentiente [if there were 
 dissenting votes the Pope stated their number] ; Nosque, sacro approbante Concilio, ilia 
 [sc. decreta'] et illos [canones~\, ita ut lecta sunt, dejinimus, et Apostolica Auctoritate conjir- 
 nuvnus. See the Monitum in the Giornale di Rovia, April 18, 1870; Friedberg, pp. 462-464. 
 
 ' See the laudatory letters of Pius to several advocates of Infallibility, in Friedberg, pp. 487- 
 495 ; comp. pp. 108-1 ll. To Archbishop Dechamps, of Mechlin, he wrote that, in his tract 
 on Papal Infallibility, he had proved the harmony of the Catholic faith with human reason 
 so convincingly as to force even the Rationalists to see the absurdity of the opposite views. 
 He applauded the indefatigable and abusive editor of the Paris Univers, Veuillot, who had col- 
 lected 100,000 francs for the Vicar of Christ (May 30, 1870). On the other hand, he is re- 
 ported to have rebuked in conversation Cardinal Schwarzenberg by the remark: 'I, John 
 Maria Mastai, believe in the infallibility of the Pope. As Pope I have nothing to ask from 
 the Council. The Holy Ghost will enlighten it.' He even attacked the memory of the elo- 
 quent French champion of Catholic interests, the Count Montalembert, who died during the 
 Council (March 13, 1870), by saying, in the presence of three hundred persons : ' He had a 
 great enemy, pride. He was a liberal Catholic, i. e., a half Catholic' Ce qui se passe au 
 Concile, 154 sqq. 
 

 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. ^3 
 
 and publish what they pleased.^ Such prominence of the Pope is char- 
 acteristic of a Council convoked for the very pui-pose of proclaiming 
 his personal infallibility, but is without precedent in history (except in 
 some mediaeval Councils) ; even the Council of Trent maintained its 
 own dignity and comparative independence by declaring its decrees in 
 its own name.^ 
 
 This want of freedom of the Council — not to speak of the strict 
 police surveillance over the members — was severely censured by lib- 
 eral Catholics. More than one hundred Prelates of all nations signed 
 a strong protest (dated Kome, March 1, 1870) against the order of 
 business, especially against the mere majority vote, and expressed the 
 fear that in the end the authority of this Council might be impaired as 
 wanting in truth and liberty — a calamity so direful in these uneasy 
 times, that a greater could not be imagined. But this protest, like 
 all the acts of the minority, was ignored. 
 
 The proceedings were, of course, in the official language of the Ro- 
 man Church, which all Prelates could understand and speak, but. very 
 few with sufficient ease to do justice to themselves and their subjects. 
 The acoustic defects of the Council-hall and the difference of pronun- 
 ciation proved a great inconvenience, and the Continentals complained 
 
 * Several minority documents, as Kenrick's speech against Infallibility, and the Latin edi- 
 tion of Hefele's tract on Honorius, were printed in Naples; the German in Tiibingen. But 
 the Civilta cattoUca, the irresponsible organ of tlie Jesuits and the Pope, was provided with a 
 special building and income, and every facility for obtaining information. See Acton, Quiri- 
 nus, and Frommann (1. c. p. 13). 
 
 ^ ^ Sacrosancta Tridentina Synodus, in Spiritu Sancto legitime congregata . . . declarat.* 
 See the order of the Council of Trent as republished in Fri^drich's Documenta, I. pp. 265 sqq; 
 
 ^ '/g? autetii, quod spectat ad nu.nerum suffragiorum requisitum, tit qucestiones dogniaticce 
 solvantur, in quo quidem rei summa est totiusque Concilii cardo vertitur, ita grave est, ut nisi 
 admitteretur, quod reverenter et enixe postularnus, conscientia nostra intolerabili pondere preme- 
 
 tur : timeremus, ne Concilii cecumenici character in dubium vocari posset ; ne ansa hostibus 
 proeberetur Sanctam Sedem et Concilium impetendi, sicque demum opud' populum Christianuvi 
 hujus Concilii auctoritas labejactar.etur, quasi veritate et libertate caruerit: quod his turba- 
 tissimis temporibus tanta esset calamitas, ut pejor excogitari nulla possit.^ See the remarkable 
 protest in Friedberg, pp. 417-422. Also Bollinger's critique of the order of business, ib. 422- 
 482 ; Archbishop Kenrick's famous concio habenda at non habita, published in Naples, 1870 
 (and republished in Friedrich's Docuin.); the work La liberie du Concile et rinfaillibilit€j 
 which was either written or inspired by Archbishop Darboy, of Paris (in Friedrich's Docum, 
 I. pp. 129 sqq.), and the same Prelate's speech in the General Congregation, May 20, 1870 
 {ibidem, II. pp. 415 sqq.). Archbishop Manning, sublimely ignoring all these facts and docu- 
 ments, and referring us to the inaccessible Archives of the Vatican, assures us (Petri Privil. 
 III. 32) that the Council was as free as the Congress of the United States, and that the won- 
 der is, not that the opposition failed of its object, but that the Council so long held its peace. 
 
64 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 that they could not understand the English Latin. The Council had 
 a full share of ignorance and superstition/ and was disgraced by in- 
 trigues and occasional outbursts of intolerance and passion such as are, 
 alas! not unusual in deliberative assemblies even of the Christian 
 Church.'^ But it embraced also much learning and eloquence, espe- 
 cially on the part of the French and German Episcopate. Upon the 
 whole, it compares favorably, as to intellectual ability, moral character, 
 and far-reaching effect, with preceding Koman Councils, and must be 
 
 * Some amusing examples are reported by the well-informed Quirinus. Bishop Pie, of 
 Poitiers, supported the Papal Infallibility in a session of the General Congregation (May 
 13) by an entirely original argument derived from the legend that Peter was crucified down- 
 ward ; for as his head bore the whole weight of the body, so the Pope, as the head, bears 
 the whole Church ; but he is infallible who bears, not he who is borne! The Italians and Span- 
 iards applauded enthusiastically. Unfortunately for the argument, the head of Peter did not 
 bear his body, but the cross bore both ; consequently the cross must be infallible. A Sicilian 
 Prelate said the Sicilians first doubted the infallibility of Peter when he visited the island, 
 and sent a special deputation of inquiry to the Virgin Mary, but were assured by her that she 
 remembered well having been present when Christ conferred this prerogative on Peter ; and 
 this satisfied them completely. Quirinus adds : ' The opposition Jiishops see a proof of the 
 insolent contempt of the majority in thus putting up such men as Pie and this Sicilian to speak 
 against them. ' Letter XLVI. ip. 5S4:. 
 
 ' The following characteristic episode (ignored, of course, in Manning's eulogy) is well au- 
 thenticated by the concurrent and yet independent reports of Lord Acton (V. Brit. Rev.\ 
 Quirinus {Letter XXXIL), Friedrich {Tagebuch, pp. 271, 272), and the author of Ce qui se 
 passe au Concile (p. 69); comp. Friedberg (pp. 104-106). When Bishop Strossmayer, the 
 boldest member of the opposition and an eloquent Latinist, in a session of the General Con- 
 gregation (March 22), spoke favorably of the great Leibnitz, and paid Protestants the poor 
 comphment of honesty (quoting from St. Augustine : ^Errant, sed bona fide errant''), he was 
 interrupted by the bell of the President (De Angelis) and his rebuke, ' This is no place for 
 praising Protestants' {'■hicce non est locus laudandi Protestantes' )\ Veiy true, for the Coun- 
 cil-hall was only a hundred paces from the Palace of the Inquisition. When, resuming, the 
 speaker ventured to attack the principle of deciding questions of foith by mere majorities, ho 
 was more loudly interrupted from all sides by confused exclamations : ' Shame ! shame I 
 down with the heretic!' {'' Descendat ab ambone! Descendat ! Hcereticus! Hcereticus ! Dam- 
 namus eum! Damnamus !' ) 'Several Bishops sprang from their seats, rushed to the tribune, 
 and shook their fists in the speaker's face' (Quirinus, p. 387). When one Bishop (Place, of 
 Marseilles) interposed, ^Ego non damnoT the cry was raised with increased fury: ^ Omnes, 
 omnes ilium damnamus ! damnamus .'' Strossmayer was forced by the uproar and the con- 
 tinued ringing of the bell to quit the tribune, but did so with a triple 'Protestor.' The noise 
 was so great that it could be heard in the interior of St. Peter's. Some thought the Gari- 
 baldia,us had broken in ; others that Infallibility had been proclaimed, and shouted, accord- 
 ing to their opposite views, either 'Long live the infallible Pope!' or 'Long live the Pope, 
 but not the infallible one' (comp. Quirinus, and Ce qui se passe, p. 69). Quirinus says that 
 the scene, ' for dramatic force and theological significance, exceeded almost any thing in the 
 past history of Councils' (p. 386), and that a Bishop of the United States said afterwards, 'not 
 without a sense of patriotic pride, that he knew now of one assembly still rougher than the 
 Congress of his own country' (p. 388). Similar scenes of violence occurred in the oecumen- 
 ical Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, but Christian civilization ought to have made some 
 progress since the fifth century. 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL Q^ 
 
 regarded as the greatest event in the history of the Papacy since the 
 Council of Trent. 
 
 The chief importance of the Council of the Vatican lies in its decree 
 on Papal supremacy and Infallibility. It settled the internal dissen- 
 sions between Ultramontanism and Gallicanism, which struck at the 
 root of the fundamental principle of authority ; it destroyed the inde- 
 pendence of the Episcopate, and made it a tool of the Primacy; it 
 crushed liberal Catholicism ; it completed the system of Papal abso- 
 lutism ; it raised the hitherto disputed opinion of Papal Infallibility to 
 the dignity of a binding article of faith, which no Catholic can deny 
 without loss of salvation. The Pope may now say not only, * I am the 
 tradition' {La tradisione son^ ^^),but also, 'I am the Church' {Ltglise 
 c'est moi)\ 
 
 But this very triumph of absolutism marks also a new departure. It 
 gave rise to a secession lieaded by the ablest divines of the Poman 
 Church. It put the Papacy into direct antagonism to the liberal tend- 
 encies of the age. It excited the hostility of civil government in all 
 those countries wdiere Church and State are united on the basis of a 
 concordat with the Roman See. No State w^ith any degree of self- 
 respect can treat w^ith a sovereign who claims infallibility, and there- 
 fore unconditional submission in matters of moral duty as well as of 
 faith. In reaching the summit of its power, the Papacy has hastened 
 its downfall. 
 
 For Protestants and Greeks the Vatican Council is no more oecu- 
 menical than that of Trent, and has only intensified the antagonism. 
 Its oecumenicity was also denied by such eminent Eoman Catholic 
 scholars as DoUinger, von Schulte, and Eeinkens, before tlieir ex- 
 communication as ' Old Catholics,' because it lacked the two fun- 
 damental conditions of liberty of discussion and moral unanimity 
 of suffrage.^ But the subsequent submission of all the Bishops who 
 had voted against Papal Infallibility, supplies the defect as far as the 
 
 ' See the Old Catholic protests of the Professors in Munich and Breslau in Friedberg, 
 pp. 152-154, and the literature on the reception of the Council, ib. 53-56 ; also the discussion 
 of Frommann, pp. 325 sqq. 454 sqq. DoUinger, in his famous censure of the new order of the 
 Council, takes the ground that the oecumenicity of a Council depends upon an authority out- 
 side of itself, viz., the public opinion as expressed in the subsequent approval of the whole 
 Church ; and Pater Hotzl laid down the principle that no Council is oecumenical which is not 
 approved and adopted as such by the Church. Admitting this, the condition is now fulfilled 
 in the case of the Vatican Council to the whole extent of the Roman Episcopate, -which coE' 
 stitutes the ecclesia docens, the laitv having nothing to do but to submit. 
 
 E 
 
QQ HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 Roman Church is concerned. There was notliing left to them but 
 either to submit or to be expelled. They chose the former, and thus 
 destroyed the legal and moral force of their protest, although not the 
 power of truth and the nature of the facts on which it was based. 
 Henceforward Romanism must stand or fall with the Vatican Council. 
 But (as we have before intimated) Romanism is not to be confounded 
 with Catholicism any more than the Jewish hierarchy which crucified 
 our Saviour, is identical with the people of Israel, from w^hich sprang 
 the Apostles and early converts of Christianity. Tlie destruction of 
 the infallible and irreformable Papacy may be the emancipation of 
 Catholicism, and lead it from its prison-house to the light of a new 
 Reformation. 
 
 The Vatican Decrees. The Constitution on the Catholic Faith. 
 
 Three schemes on matters of faith were prepared for the Vatican 
 Council — one against Rationalism, one on the Church of Christ, and 
 one on Christian Matrimony. The first two were revised and adopted; 
 the third w^as indefinitely postponed. There was also much discussion 
 on the preparation ox a small popular Catechism adapted to the present 
 doctrinal status of the Roman Church, and intended to supersede the 
 numerous popular Catechisms now in use ; but the draft, which assigned 
 the whole teaching power of the Church to the Pope, to the exclusion 
 of the Episcopate, encountered such opposition (57 J^^on Placet, 24 
 conditional Placet) in the provisional vote of May 4, that it was laid 
 on the table and never called up again.^ 
 
 I. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith (constitdtio 
 
 dogmatic A DE FIDE CATHOLICA). 
 
 It was unanimously adopted in the third public session, April 24 
 {Dominica in albis), 1870. 
 
 The original draft laid before the Council embraced eighteen chap- 
 ters — on Pantheism, Rationalism, Scripture and tradition, revelation, 
 faith and reason, the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, the primitive 
 state, original sin, the Christian redemption, the supernatural order of 
 
 * Cardinal-Archbishop Matthieu of Besan9on, who voted Non Placet, is reported by Quirinus 
 to have said on this occasion: 'On veut jeter V^glise dans rabme^ nous y jeterons plutot nos 
 cadavres. ' Comp. FrommanD, 1. c. p. 1 60. 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. ^7» 
 
 grace; but was laid aside..^ Archbishop Connolly, of Halifax, recom- 
 ntended that it should be decently buried.^ 
 
 In its present form, the Constitution on the Catholic faith is reduced to 
 four chapters, with a proemium and a conclusion. Chap. I. treats of God 
 as the Creator ; Chap. II. of revelation ; Chap. III. of faith ; Chap. lY. 
 of faith and reason. Then follow 18 canons, in which the errors of 
 Pantheism, Naturalism, and Rationalism are condemned in a manner 
 substantially the same, though more clearly and fully, than had been 
 done in the first two sections of the Syllabus. 
 
 Tlie decree asserts, in the old scholastic terminology, the well-known 
 principles of Supernaturalism as held by orthodox Christians in all ages, 
 but it completely ignores the freedom and progress of theological and 
 philosophical science and learning since the Council of Trent, and it 
 forbids (in Chap. II.) all interpretation of the Scriptures which does not 
 agree with the Romish traditions, the Latin Yulgate, and the fictitious 
 ' unanimous consent of the Fathers.' Hence a liberal member of the 
 Council, in the course of discussion, declared the schema dejide a work 
 of supererogation. ' What boots it,' he said, ' to condemn errors which 
 have been long condemned, and tempt no Catholic ? The false beliefs 
 of mankind are beyond the reach of your decrees. The best defense of 
 Catholicism is religious science. Encourage sound learning, and prove 
 by deeds as well as words that it is the mission of the Church to pro- 
 mote among the nations liberty, light, and true prosperity.'^ On the 
 other hand, the Univers calls the schema a ' masterpiece of clearness 
 and force ;' the Civiltd cattolica sees in it ' a reflex of the wisdom of 
 God ;'^ and Archbishop Manning thinks that its importance * can not 
 be overestimated,' that it is ^ the broadest and boldest'aifirmation of the 
 supernatural and spiritual order ever yet made in the face of the world, 
 which is now more than ever sunk in sen^e and heavy with MateJ•ial-^ 
 
 ism.'^ Whatever be the value of the positive principles of the scTiema, 
 
 _ — _^^_^ 
 
 ' Friedrich, Z)oc«m. XL pp. 3-23. v " -^^ -i^ 
 
 ^ ^Censeo schema cum honore esse sepeliendum^ (Quirinus, p. 122). "> Itnttscher also «{^k¥ • 
 
 against the schema, which made mucli impression, because he had brought its ^Ifef tiuthor, 
 
 the Jesuit Schrader, to the University of Vienna. ^ ' -- 
 
 ^ Quoted in L^tin by Lord Acton in the North British R^iStl>,'bct.1S70, p. 112, and in 
 
 Friedberg, p. 102. Acton attributes this speech, not to Strbssmayer (as Friedberg says, 1. c ; 
 
 comp. pp. 28 and 102)^ but to a ' Swiss prelate,' whom he does not name. 
 
 * 'C/n riverbero della sapienza di Dio^' VII. 10, p. 523, quoted by Frommann, 1. c. p. 383. 
 
 * Petri Privilegium^ III, pp. 49, 50. 
 
 V' 
 . 1* 
 
C8 HISTOilY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 its Popish head and tail reduce it to a hrutum fulmen outside of the 
 Eomish Church, and even the most orthodox Protestants must apply 
 to it the warning, 2V?;i^c> Danaos et dona ferentes. 
 
 The preamble, even in its present modified form, derives modern 
 Rationalism and infidelity, as a legitimate fruit, from the heresies con- 
 demned by the Council of Trent — that is, from the Protestant Eefor- 
 mation ; in the face of the fact, patent to every scholar, that Protestant 
 theology has been in the thickest of the fight with unbelief, and, not- 
 withstanding all its excesses, has produced a far richer exegetical and 
 apologetic literature than Romanism during the last three hundred 
 years.^ The boldest testimony heard in the Council was dii-ected 
 against this preamble by Bishop Strossmayer, from the Turkish frontier 
 (March 22, 1870). He characterized the charge against Protestantism 
 as* neither just nor charitable. Protestants, he said, abhorred the errors 
 condemned in the schema as much as Catholics. The germ of Ration- 
 alism existed in the Catholic Church before the Reformation, especially 
 in the humanism which was nourished in the very sanctuary by the 
 highest dignitaries,^ and bore its worst fruits in the midst of a Catholic 
 nation at the time of Yoltaire and the Encjyclopedists. Catholics had 
 produced no better refutation of the errors enumerated in the schema 
 than such men as Leibnitz and Guizot. There were multitudes of 
 Protestants in Germany, England, and North America who loved our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and had inherited from the shipwreck of faith posi- 
 tive truths and monuments of divine grace.^ Although this speech 
 was greeted with execrations (see page 145), it had at least the effect 
 that the objectionable preamble was somewhat modified.* 
 
 * The objectionable passage, as finally adopted, reads thus : ' No one is ignorant that the 
 lieresies proscribed by the Fathers of Trent, by which the divine magisterium of the Church 
 was rejected, and all matters regarding religion were surrendered to the judgment of each 
 individual, gradually became dissolved into many sects, which disagreed and contended with 
 one another, until at length not a few lost all faith in Christ. Even the Holy Scriptures, 
 which had previously been declared the sole source and judge of Christian doctrine, began to 
 be held no longer as divine, but to be ranked among the fictions of mythology. Then there 
 arose, and too widely overspread the world, that doctrine of Rationalism which opposes itself 
 in every way to the Christian religion as a supernatural institution.' See the different re- 
 visions of the schema dejide in Friedrich's Monum. Ft. 11. pp. 3, G5, 73. 
 
 ' Allusion to Pope Leo X. 
 
 ^ See the principal part of Strossmayer's speech in Latin in Lord Acton's article in the 
 North British Review, Oct. 1870, pp. 11 5, 1 IG, and in Friedberg, pp. 104-100. 
 
 * The words in the first revision (Friedr. Docuin. II. p. G.')), s)/stematum monstra, mythismi, 
 rationalismi, indifferentismi nomine designata, etc., together with some other offensive ex- 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 6^ 
 
 The supplement of the decree binds all Catholics to observe also 
 those constitutions and decrees by which such erroneous opinions as 
 are not here specifically enumerated have been proscribed and con- 
 demned by the Holy See. This can be so construed as to include 
 all the eiglity errors of the Syllabus. The minority who in the Gen- 
 eral Congregation had voted Non Placet or only a conditional Placet, 
 were quieted by the ofiicial assurance that the addition involved no 
 new dogma, and had a disciplinary rather than a didactic character. 
 * Some gave their votes with a heavy heart, conscious of the snare.' 
 Strossmayer stayed away. Thus a unanimous vote of 667 or 668 fa- 
 thers was secured in the public session, and the Infallibility decree was 
 virtually anticipated. The Pope, after proclaiming tlie dogma, gave 
 the Bishops his benediction of peace, and gently intimated what he 
 next expected from them.^ 
 
 TuE Vatican Deceees, continued. The Infallibility Decree. 
 II. The Fikst Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ (con- 
 
 STITUTIO DOGMATICA PRIMA DE ECCLESIA ChEISTi). 
 
 It was passed, with two dissenting votes, in the fourth public session, 
 July 18, 1870. It treats, in four chapters — (1) on the institution of the 
 Apostolic Primacy in the blessed Peter; (2) on the perpetuity of St. 
 Peter's Primacy in the Koman Pontiff; (3) on the power and nature 
 
 pressions, were omitted ; but, after all, the substance remained. Lord Acton relates that the 
 German Jesuit Kleutgen hastily drew up the more moderate form. Comp. Quirinus, Letter 
 XXXIII. p. 394 sq. Political influence was also brought to bear indirectly upon the Coun- 
 cil, as appeared afterwards from Italian papers. Bismarck directed the German Embas- 
 sador at Rome, Count Arnim, to inform Cardinal Antonelli that, unless the charge against 
 Protestantism was withdrawn, he would not allow the Prussian Bishops on their return to 
 resume their functions in a country whose faith they had insulted. Friedrich, Tagehuch, pp. 
 27.5, 292 ; Frommann, Geschichte des Vat. Concils^ p. 145 ; Hase, Polem. p. 34. The latter 
 overestimates the influence of Prussia on the Papal court when he says: 'If France com- 
 plains of the Council, Antonelli makes three bows, and all remains as before ; but if Prussia 
 comes with her mustache and cavalry boots, Rome understands that the word is quickly fol- 
 lowed by the deed, and wisely yields. Strossmayer and von Arnim were in doubt which one 
 of them had been most instrumental in saving the Council from an impropriety.' 
 
 ^ '^Videtis,^ he said, ^Fratres carissimi, quam honum sit et jticundum ambulare in domo Dei 
 cum consensu, ambulare cum pace. Sic ambuletis semper. Et quoniam hac die Dominus Nostcr 
 Jesus Chrisius dedit pacem Apostolis suis, et ego, Vicarizis ejus indignus, nomine suo do vobis 
 pacem. Pax ista, prout scitis, expellit timorem. Pax i.tta, prout scitis, claudit aures sermo- 
 nibus imperitis. Ah I ista pax vos comitetur omnibus diebus vitoe vestra; sit ista pax vis in 
 morte, sit ista pax vobis gaudium sempiternum in coelis.^ 
 
'JTSriVERSITT ' 
 
 . ^•*<-£iId£22«'*^HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 of the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff ; (4) on the Infallibility of the 
 Roman Pontiff. 
 
 Tlie new features are contained in the last two chapters, which teach 
 Papal Absolutism and Papal Infallibility. The third chapter vindi- 
 cates to the Roman Pontiff a superiority of ordinary episcopal (not 
 simply an extraordinary primatial) power over all other Churches, and 
 an immediate jurisdiction, to which all Catholics, both pastors and peo- 
 ple, are bound to submit in matters not only of faith and morals, but 
 even of discipline and government.* He is, therefore, the Bishop of 
 Bishops, over every single Bishop, and over all Bishops put together ; 
 he is in the fullest sense the Yicar of Christ, and all Bishops are sim- 
 ply Yicars of the Pope. The fourth chapter teaches and defines, as a 
 divinely revealed dogma, that the Roman Pontiff, when speaking from 
 his cliair {ex cathedra), i. e., in his official capacity, to the Christian 
 world on subjects relati-ng to faitli or morals, is infallible, and that sucli 
 definitions are irreformable (i. e., final and irreversible) in and of them- 
 selves, and not in consequence of the consent of the Church.^ 
 
 * After quoting, in a mutilated form, the definition of the Council of Florence, whose 
 genuineness is disputed (compare p. 97, note 1), the third chapter goes on: ''Docemus et 
 declaramus, Ecclesiam Romanam, disponente Domino, super omnes alias ordinarice potestatis 
 obtinere principatum, et hanc Romani Pontijicis jurisdictionis potestatem, qua; vere episco- 
 palis est, immediatam esse, erga quam cujuscunque ritus et dignitatis pastores atque Jideles, 
 tain seorsum singuU quam simul omnes, officio hierarchiccB suhordinationis verceque obedieniice 
 obstringuntur, non solum in rebus, qua; adjidem et mores, sed etiam in iis, quce ad disciplinam 
 et regimen EcclesicE per totum orbem diffusce pertinent ; ita ut,c.ustodita cum Romano Pontijice 
 tarn communionis quam ejusdem Jidei professionis unitate, Ecclesioe Christi sit unus grex. sub 
 uno summo past ore. Hcec est catholicce veritatis doctrina, a qua deviare salvajide atque salute 
 nemo potest. . . . Si quis itaque dixerit, Romanum Pontijicem habere tantummodo officium 
 inspectionis vel directionis, non autem plenum et supremam potestatem jurisdictionis in uni- 
 versam Ecclesiam, non solum in rebus, quce adjidem et mores, sed etiam in its, quce ad discipli- 
 nam et regimem Ecclesioe per totum orbem diffusce pertinent ; aut eum habere tantum potiores 
 partes, non vero totam plenitudinem hujus supremce potestatis; aut hanc ejus potestatem non 
 esse ordinariam et immediatam sive in omnes ac singulas ecclesias, sive in omnes et singidos 
 pastores et Jideles; anathema sit/ 
 
 ^ ^Itaque Nos traditioni a Jidei Christiance exordia perceptoi Jideliter inhcerendo, ad Dei 
 Salvatoris nostri gloriam, religionis Catholicce exaltationem et Christianorum populorum salu- 
 tem, sacro approbante Concilio, docemus et divinitus revelatum dogma esse declaramus ; Ro- 
 manum POXTIFICEM, CUM EX CaTHEDRA LOQUITUR, ID EST, CUM OMNIUM ChRISTIANORUM 
 
 Pastoris et Doctoris munere fungens pro suprema sua Apostolica AUCTORITATE 
 roctrinam de fide vel moribus ab universa ecclesia tenendam definit, per assis- 
 
 TENTIAM DIVINAM, IPSI IN BEATO PeTRO PROMISSAM, EA INFALLIBILITATE POLLERE, QUA 
 
 DiviNus Redemptor Ecclesiam suam in definienda doctrina de fide vel MORIBUS 
 
 INSTRUCTAM ESSE VOLUIT ; IDEOQUE EJUSMODI RoMANI PONTIFICIS DEFINITIONES EX SESE, 
 NON AUTEM EX CONSENSU EcCLESIiE, IRREFORMABILES ESSE. 
 
 ^Si quis autem huic Nostrce definitioni contradicere, quod Deus avertat, proesumpserit ; 
 anathema sit.' 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 71 
 
 To appreciate the value and bearing of this decree, we must give a 
 brief history of it. 
 
 The Infallibility question was suspended over the Council from the 
 very beginning as the question of questions, for good or for evil. The 
 original plan of the Infallibilists, to decide it by acclamation, had to be 
 abandoned in view of a formidable opposition, which was developed in- 
 side and outside of the Council. The majority of the Bishops circulated, 
 early in January, a monster petition, signed by 410 names, in favor of 
 Infallibility.^ The Italians and the Spaniards circulated similar peti- 
 tions separately. Archbishop Spalding, of Baltimore, formerly an anti- 
 Infallibilist, prepared an address offering some compromise to the 
 effect that an appeal from the Pope to an oecumenical Council should 
 be reproved.^ But five counter-petitions, signed by very weighty 
 names, in all 137, representing various degrees of opposition, but 
 agreed as to the inojpjportunity of the definition, were sent in during 
 the same month (Jan. 12 to 18) by German and Austrian, Hungarian, 
 French, American, Oriental, and Italian Bishops.^ 
 
 The Pope received none of these addresses, but referred them to the 
 Deputation on Faith. While in this he showed his impartiality, he 
 did not conceal, in a private way, his real opinion, and gave it the 
 weight of his personal character and influence. ' Faith in his personal 
 infallibility,' says a well-informed Catholic, ' and belief in a constant 
 and special communication with the Holy Ghost, form the basis of 
 the character of Pius IX.''* In the Council itself. Archbishop Manning, 
 the Anglican convert, was the most zealous, devout, and enthusiastic 
 Infallibilist ; he urged the definition as the surest means of gaining 
 hesitating Anglo-Catholics and Kitualists longing for absolute authority ; 
 while his former teacher and friend, Dr. Pusey, feared that the new 
 
 * Friedberg, pp. 465-470. Comp. Frommann, p. 59 sq. 
 2 Friedberg, pp. 470 sqq. ; Frommann, pp. Gl-63. 
 
 ^ Friedberg, pp. 472-478. The American petition against Infallibility was signed by Pur- 
 cell, of Cincinnati ; Kenrick, of St. Louis ; McCloskey, of New Yoik ; Connolly, of Halifax ; 
 Bayley, of Newark (now Archbishop of Baltimore), and several others. 
 
 * Ce qui se passe au Concile, p. 130. The writer adds that some of the predecessors of Pius 
 have held his doctrines, but none has been so ardently convinced, none has professed them 
 ' avec ce wysticisme enthousiaste, ce d^dain pour les remontrances des savants et des sar/es, 
 cette conjiance impassible. Quel que soit lejugement de Vhistoire, personne ne pourra nier que 
 cettefoi profonde ne lui ait cr^e dans le dix-neuvieme siecle une personnalit€ d'une puissance et 
 d'une majeste incomparables, dont V eclat grandit encore zin pontijicat d^ja si remarquable par 
 une dur^e, des vertus et des malheurs vraiment cxceptionneis.' 
 
72 HISTORY OF THE VxVTICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 dogma would make the breach between Oxford and Rome wider than 
 ever. Manning is 'more Catholic than Catholics' to the manor born, 
 as the English settlers in Ireland were more Irish than Irishmen,^ and 
 is altogether worthy to be the successor of Pius IX. in the chair of 
 St. Peter. Both these eminent and remarkable persons show how a 
 sincere faith in a dogma, which borders on blasphemy, may, by a strange 
 delusion or hallucination, be combined witl^rare purity and amiability 
 of character. 
 
 Besides the all-powerful aid of the Pope, whom no Bishop can dis- 
 obey without fatal consequences, the Infallibilists had the great advan- 
 tage of perfect unity of sentiment and aim ; while the anti-Infallibilists 
 were divided among themselves, many of them being simply inoppor- 
 tunists. They professed to agree with the majority in principle or 
 practice, and to differ from them only on the subordinate question of 
 definability and opportunity .^ This qualified opposition had no weight 
 whatever with the Pope, ^\\\o was as fully convinced of the opportu- 
 nity and necessity of the definition as he was of the dogma itself.^ 
 And even the most advanced anti-Infallibilists, as Ken rick, Hefele, and 
 Strossmayer, w^ere too much hampered by Romish traditionalism to plant 
 their foot firmly on the Scriptures, which after all must decide all ques- 
 tions of faith. 
 
 In the mean time a literary war on Infallibility was carried on in 
 the Catholic Church in Germany, France, and England, and added 
 to the commotion in Rome. A large number of pamphlets, written 
 or inspired by prominent members of the Council, appeared for and 
 against Infallibility. Distinguished outsiders, as Dollinger, Gratry, H}*- 
 acinthe, Montalembert, and Xewman, mixed in the fight, and strength- 
 
 ^ So Archbishop Kenrick, of St. Louis, characterized him in his Concio hahenda at non 
 habita. Quirinus (Appendix I. p. 832) quotes from a sermon of Manning, preached at Ken- 
 siogton, 1869, in the Pope'^ name, the following passage : ' I claim to be the Supreme Judge 
 and director of the consciences of men — of the peasant that tills the field, and the prince that 
 sits on the throne ; of the household that lives in the shade of privacy, and the Legislature 
 that viakes laics for kingdoms. I am the sole last Supreme Judge of what is right and wrong.' 
 
 ^ Only the address of the German Bishops took openly the ground that it would be difficult 
 from internal reasons (viz., the contradiction of history and tradition) to proclaim Infallibility 
 as a dogma of revelation. See Friedrich, Tagehuch, p. 1 20 ; and Frommann, Gesrhichte, p. G2. 
 
 ' On being asked whether he considered the definition of the dogma opportune, Pius IX. 
 resolutely answered, 'No! but necessary.^ He complained of the opposing Bishops, that, 
 living among Protestants, they were infected by their freedom of thought, and had lost the 
 true traditional feeling. Hase, p. 180. 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 73 
 
 eiied the minority.^ The utterance of Dr. John Henry Newman, tlie 
 intellectual leader of the Anglo-Catholic apostasy, and by far the ablest 
 scholar and dialectician among English Eomanists, reveals a most curi- 
 ous state of mind, oscillating between absolute infallibilism and hope- 
 less skepticism, and taking refuge at last in prayer — not to Christ, nor 
 to the Holy Ghost, nor to the Apostles, but — to St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, 
 and St. Augustine, that they might enlighten the Council at this critical 
 juncture, and decide the matter by their intercession.^ 
 
 ' See the literature in the next section, and in Fiiedberg, pp. 33-44. Comp. Frommann, 
 pp. G6 sqq. 
 
 = In striking contrast with his admiring pupil, Manning, Dr. Newman thus unburdened his 
 troubled heart to Bishop Ullathorne, of Birmingham (see his letter published ' by permission' 
 in the Standard of April 7, 1870) : ' Rome ought to be a name to lighten the heart at all 
 times, and a Council's proper office is,Avhen some great heresy or other evil impends, to in- 
 spire hope and confidence in the faithful ; but now we have the greatest meeting which ever 
 lias been, and that at Rome, infusing into us by the accredited organs of Rome and of its 
 partisans, such as the Civilta (t\vQ Armonia^, the Univers, and the Tablet, little else than fear 
 and dismay. When we are all at rest, and have no doubts, and — at least practically, not to 
 say doctrinally — hold the Holy Father to be infallible, suddenly there is thunder in the clear- 
 est sky, and we are told to prepare for something, we know not what, to try our faith, we 
 know not how. No impending danger is to be averted, but a great difficulty is to be created. 
 Is this the proper work for an oecumenical Council? As to myself personally, please God, 
 I do not expect any trial at all ; but I can not help suffering with the many souls who are 
 suffering, and I look with anxiety at the prospect of having to defend decisions which may 
 not be difficult to my own private judgment, but may be most difficult to maintain logically 
 in the face of historical facts. What have we done to be treated as the faithful never were 
 treated before? When has a definition dejide been a luxury of devotion, and not a stern, . 
 painful necessity? Why should an aggressive, insolent faction be allowed to "make the 
 heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful ?" Why can not we be let 
 alone when we have pursued peace and thought no evil ? I assure you, my lord, some of the 
 truest minds are driven one way and another, and do not know where to rest their feet — one 
 day determining "to give up all theology as a bad job," and recklessly to believe henceforth 
 almost that the Pope is impeccable, at another tempted to "believe all the worst which a 
 book like Janws says;" others doubting about "the capacity possessed by Bishops drawn 
 from all corners of the earth to judge what is fitting for European society," and then, again, 
 angry with the Holy See for listening to " the flattery of a clique of Jesuits. Kedcmptorists, 
 and converts," Then, again, think of the store of Pontifical scandals in the history of ei. hteen 
 centuries, which have partly been poured forth, and partly are still to come. W^hat Murphy 
 [a Protestant traveling preacher] inflicted upon us in one way, Mr. Veuillot is indirectly bring- 
 ing on us in another. And then, again, the blight which is falling upon the multitude of Angli- 
 can Ritualists, etc., who themselves, perhaps— at least their leaders — may never become Cath- 
 olics, but who are leavening the various English denominations and parties (far beyond their 
 own range) with principles and sentiments tending towards their ultimate absorption into the 
 Catholic Church. With these thoughts ever before me, I am continually asking myself wheth- 
 er I ought not to make my feelings public ; but all I do is to pray those early doctors of the 
 Church, whose intercession would decide the matter (Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Atha- 
 nasius, Chrysostom, and Basil), to avert this great calamity. If it is God's will that the Pope's 
 infallibility be defined, then is it God's will to throw back "the times and moments" of that 
 
74 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 After preliminary skirmishes, the formal discussion began in earnest 
 in the 50th session of the General Congregation, May 13, 1870, and 
 lasted to the 86th General Congregation, July 16. About eighty Latin 
 speeches^ were delivered in the general discussion on the schema de 
 Romano Poiitifice, nearly one half of them on the part of the oppo- 
 sition, which embraced less than one fifth of the Council. When the 
 arguments and the patience of the assembly were pretty well exhaust- 
 ed, the President, at the petition of a hundred and fifty Bishops, closed 
 the general discussion on the third day of June. About forty more 
 Bishops, who had entered their names, were thus prevented from speak- 
 ing; but one of them, Archbishop Kenrick, of St. Louis, published his 
 strong argument against Lifallibility in Naples." Then five special 
 discussions commenced on the proemium and the four chapters. ' For 
 the fifth or last discussion a hundred and twenty Bishops inscribed 
 their names to speak ; fifty of them were- heard, until on both sides tlie 
 burden became too heavy to bear ; and, by mutual consent, a useless 
 and endless discussion, from mere exhaustion, ceased.'^ 
 
 When the vote was taken on the whole four chapters of the Consti- 
 tution of the Church, July 13, 1870, in the 85th secret session of the 
 General Congregation (601 members being present), 451 voted Placet^ 
 SS Non Placet^ 62 Placet juxia modum^ over 80 (perhaps 91), though 
 present in Rome or in the neighborhood, abstained for various reasons 
 from voting.* Among the negative votes w^ere the Prelates most dis- 
 
 triumph which he has destined for his kingdom, and I shall feel I have but to bow my head 
 to his adorable, inscrutable Providence. You have not touched upon the subject yourself, but 
 I think you will allow me to express to you feelings which, for the most part, I keep to my- 
 self. . . .' See an excellent German translation of this letter in Quirinus (p. 274, Germ, ed.) 
 and in Friedberg (p. 131). The English translator of Quirinus has substituted the English 
 original as given here. 
 
 ' According to Manning, but only G5 according to Friedberg, p. 47. 
 
 ^ Hence the title '■Concio Jiabenda at non hahita' — prepared for speaJd'ng, but not spoJcen. 
 See the prefatory note, dated Rome, June 8, 1870. 
 
 ' Manning, Petri Privil. III. pp. 31, 32. He gives this representation to vindicate the 
 liberty of the Council ; but the minority complained of an arbitrary close of the discussion. 
 They held an indignation meeting in the residence of Cardinal Rauscher, and protested '■con- 
 tra violationem nostri juris,^ but without effect. See the protest, with eighty-one signatures, 
 in Friedrich, Doc. II. p. 379 ; comp. Frommann, Geschickte, p. 174. 
 
 * See the list in Friedberg, pp. 146-149 ; also in Friedrich, Docum. II. pp. 426 sqq. ; and 
 Quirinus, Letter LXVI. pp. 778 sqq. Quirinus errs in counting the 91. (according to others, 
 85 or only 70) absentees among the GOl. There were in all from 680 to 692 members present 
 in Rome at the time. See Fessler, p. 89 (who states the number of absentees to be ' over 80'), 
 and Frommann, p. 201. The protest of the minority to the Pope, July 17, states the number 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 75 
 
 tinguished for learning and position, as Sciiwarzenberg, Cardinal 
 Prince-Arclibishop of Prague ; Rauscher, Cardinal Prince- Archbishop 
 of Vienna ; Darboy, Archbishop of Paris ; Matphieu, Cardinal-Arch- 
 bishop of Besangon; Ginoulhiac, Archbishop of Lyons; Dcpanloup, 
 Bishop of Orleans ; Maret, Bishop of Sura (i. p.) ; Simor, Archbisliop 
 of Gran and Primate of Hungary; IIaynald, Archbishop of Kalocsa; 
 FoRSTER, Prince-Archbishop of Breslau ; Scherr, Archbishop of Mu- 
 nich ; Ketteler, Bishop of Mayence ; Hefele, Bishop of Rottenburg ; 
 Strossmayer, Bishop of Bosnia and Sirmium ; MacHale, Archbishop 
 of Tuam ; Connolly, Archbishop of Halifax ; Kenrick, Archbishop of 
 St. Louis. 
 
 On the evening of the 13th of July the minority sent a deputation, 
 consisting of Simor, Ginoulhiac, Scherr, Darboy, Ketteler, and Rivet, 
 to the Pope. After waiting an hour, they were admitted at 9 o'clock 
 in the evening. They asked simply for a withdrawal of the addition 
 to the third chapter, which assigns to the Pope the exclusive posses- 
 sion of all ecclesiastical powers, and for the insertion, in the fourth 
 chapter, of a clause limiting his infallibility to those decisions which 
 he pronounces 'innixus testimonio ecclesiarwn,^ Pius returned the 
 almost incredible answer : ' I shall do what I can, my dear sons, but I 
 have not yet read the scheme ; I do not know what it contains.'^ He 
 requested Darboy, the spokesman of the deputation, to hand him the 
 petition in writing. Darboy promised to do so ; and added, not without 
 irony, that he would send with it the schema which the Deputation on 
 Faith and the Legates had with such culpable levity omitted to lay be- 
 fore his Holiness, exposing him to the risk of proclaiming in a few days 
 a decree he was ignorant of. Pius surprised the deputation by the 
 astounding assurance that the whole Church had always taught the 
 unconditional Infallibility of the Pope. Then Bishop Ketteler of 
 Mayence implored the holy Father on his knees to make some conces- 
 
 of voters in the same way, except that 70, instead of 91 or 85, is given as the number of absen- 
 tees : ^Notum est Sanctitati Vestrce, 88 Patres fuisse, qui, conscientia urgente et amore s. Ec- 
 clesice permoti, suffragium suum per verba NON placet emiserunt ; 02 alios, qui suffragati sunt 
 per verba placet juxta modum, denique 70 circiter qui a congregatione abfuerunt atque a 
 suffragio emittendo abstinuerunt. Hie accedunt et alii, qui, injirmitatibus aut gravioribus 
 rationibus ducti, ad suas diceceses reversi sunt.* 
 
 * He spoke in French : '•Je feral vion possible, mes chersfils, mais je n'ai pas encore lu le 
 schema; je ne sais pas ce quil contient.' Quirinus, Letter LXIX. p. 800. 
 
76 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 sion for tlie peace and unity of the Church.^ . This prostration of the 
 proudest of the German prelates made some impression. Pius. dis- 
 missed the deputation in a hopeful temper. But immediately after- 
 wards Manning and Senestrey (Bishop of Regensburg) strengthened his 
 faith, and frightened him by the warning that, if he made any conces- 
 sion, he would be disgraced in history as a second Honorins. 
 
 In the secret session on the 16th of July, on motion of some Spanish 
 Bishops, an addition was inserted ' non autem ex consensu ecclesice^ 
 which makes the decree still more obnoxious.^ On the same day Car- 
 dinal Rauscher, in a private audience, made another attempt to induce 
 the Pope to yield, but w^as told, ' It is too late.' 
 
 On the 17th of July fifty-six Bishops sent a written protest to the 
 Pope, declaring that nothing had occurred to change their conviction 
 as expressed in their negative vote ; on the contrary, tliey were con- 
 firmed in it ; yet filial piety and reverence for the holy Father would 
 not permit them to vote N'on Placet, openly and in his face, in a matter 
 which so intimately concerned his person, and that therefore they had 
 
 ' Quirinus, Letter LXIX. p. 801, gave, a few days afterwards, from direct information, the 
 following fresh and graphic description of this interesting scene : ' Bishop Ketteler then came 
 forward, flung himself on his knees before the Pope, and entreated for several minutes that 
 the Father of the Catholic world would make some concession to restore peace and her lost 
 unity to the Church and the Episcopate. It was a peculiar spectacle to witness these two 
 men, of kindred and yet widely diverse nature, in such an attitude — the one prostrate on the 
 ground before the other. Pius is " totus teres atque rotundus," firm and immovable, smooth 
 and hard as marble, infinitely self-satisfied intellectually, mindless and ignorant ; without any 
 understanding of the mental condifions and needs of mankind, without any notion of the 
 character of foreign nations, but as credulous as a nun, and, above all, penetrated through 
 and through with reverence for his own person as the organ of the Holy Ghost, and therefore 
 an absolutist from head to heel, and filled with the thought, "I, and none beside me." He 
 knrws and believes that the Holy Virgin, with whom he is on the most intimate terms, will 
 inaemnify him for the loss of land and subjects by means of the Infallibility doctrine, and the 
 restoration of the Papal dominion over states and peoples as well as over churches. He also 
 believes firmly in the miraculous emanations from the sepulchre of St. Peter. At the feet 
 of this man the German Bishop flung himself, ^^ipso Papa papalior," a zealot for the ideal 
 greatness and unapproachable dignity of the Papacy, and, at the same time, inspired by the 
 aristocratic feeling of a Westphalian noblema^ and the hierarchical self-consciousness of a 
 Bishop and successor of the ancient chancellor of the empire, while yet he is surrounded by 
 the intellectual atmosphere of Germany, and, with all his firmness of belief, is sickly with the 
 pallor of thought, and inwardly struggling with the terrible misgiving that, after all, historical 
 facts are right, and that the ship of the Curia, though for the moment it proudly rides the 
 waves with its sails swelled by a favorable wind, will be wrecked on that rock at last.' 
 
 ' Quirinus, p. 804 : 'Thus the Infallibilist decree, as it is now to be received under anathema 
 by the Catholic world, is an eminently Spanish production, as is fitting for a doctrine which 
 was bora and reared under the shadow of the Inquisition.' 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. '77 
 
 resolved to return forthwith to their flocks, which had ah'eady too long 
 been deprived of their presence, and were now filled with apprehensions 
 of war. Schwarzenberg, Matthieu, Simor, and Darboy head the list 
 of signers.^ On the evening of the same day not only the fifty-six 
 signers, but sixty additional members of the opposition departed from 
 Home, promising to each other to make their future conduct dependent 
 on mutual understanding. 
 
 This was tlie turning-point : the opposition broke down by its own 
 act of cowardice. They ought to have stood like men on the post of 
 duty, and repeated their negative vote according to their honest convic- 
 tions. They could thus have prevented the passage of this momentous 
 decree, or at all events shorn it of its oecumenical w^eight, ai:Ki kept it 
 open for future revision and possible reversal. But they left Rome at 
 the very moment w^hen their presence was most needed, and threw an 
 easy victory into the lap of the majority. 
 
 When, therefore, the fourth public session was held, on the memora- 
 ble 18th of July (Monday), there were but 535 Fathers present, and of 
 these all voted Placet^ with the exception of two, viz.. Bishop Riccio, of 
 Cajazzo, in Sicily, and Bishop Fitzgerald, of Little Bock, Arkansas, who 
 had the courage to vote Non Placet^ but immediately, before the close 
 of the session, submitted to the voice of the Council. In tiiis way a 
 moral unanimity was secured as great as in tlie first Council of Kicssa, 
 where likewise two refused to subscribe the Nicene Creed. ^ Wliat a 
 wise direction of Providence,' exclaimed the Civiltd cattolica, ^ 535 yeas 
 against 2 nays. Oyily two nays, therefore almost total unanimity; and 
 yet two nays, therefore full liberty of the Council. How vain are all 
 attacks against the oecumenical character of this most beautiful of all 
 Councils !' 
 
 After the vote tlie Pope confirmed the decrees and canons on the 
 Constitution of the Church of Christ, and added from his own inspira- 
 tion the assurance that tlie supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff did 
 not suppress but aid, not destroy but build up, and formed the best pro- 
 tection of the rights and interests of the Episcopate.^ 
 
 * See the protest in Friedberg, p. G22. Comp. Frommann, p. 207. 
 
 ' ^Summa ista Romani Pontijicis auctoritaa, Venerabiles Fratres, non opprimit sed adjuvat^ 
 non destruit sed cedijicat, et scepissime confirmat in dignitate, unit in ckaritate, et Fratrum^ 
 scilicet Episcoporum, jura Jirmat atque tuetur. Ideoque illi, qui nunc judicant in commotionej 
 
7S HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 The days of the two most important public sessions of the Vatican 
 Council, namely the first and the last, were the darkest and stormiest 
 which Kome saw from Dec. 8, 1869, to the 18th of July, 1870. The 
 Episcopal votes and the Papal proclamation of the new dogma were 
 accompanied by flashes of lightning and claps of thunder from the skies, 
 and so great was the darkness which spread over the Church of St. Peter, 
 that the Pope could not read the decree of his own Infallibility without 
 the artificial light of a candle.^ This voice of nature was variously in- 
 
 sciant, non esse in commotione Dominurn. Meminerint, quod paucis ahhinc annis, oppositam 
 tenentes sententiam, abundaverunt in sensu Nostra, et in sensii majoris partis hujus amplissimi 
 Consessiis, sed tunc judicaverunt in spiritu aurce lenis. Numquid in eodem judicio judicando 
 dure oppositxB possunt existere conscientice ? Absit. Illuminet ergo Deus sensus et corda; et 
 quoniam Ipse facit viirabilia magna solus, illuminet sensus et corda, ut omnes accedere possint 
 ad sinum Patris, Christi Jesu in terris indigni Vicarii, qui eos amat, eos diligit, et exoptat 
 unum esse cum illis; et ita simul in vinculo charitatis conjuncti prceliare possimus prvelia 
 Domini, ut non solum non irrideant nos inimici nostri, sed timeant potius, et aliquando arma 
 malitlce cedant in conspectu veritatis, sicque omnes cum D. Augustino dicere valeant: ^^Tu 
 vocasti me in admirabile lumen tuum, et ecce video.^^ ' 
 
 ^ Quiriniis, Letter LXIX. p. 809. A Protestant eye-witness, Prof. Ripley, thus described 
 the scene in a letter from Rome, published in the New York Tribune (of which he is one of 
 the editors) for Aug. 11, 1870 : ' Rome, July 19. — Before leaving Rome I send you a report 
 of the last scene of that absurd comedy called the Qicumenical Vatican Council. ... It is 
 at least a remarkable coincidence that the opening and closing sessions of the Council were 
 inaugurated with fearful storms, and that the vigil of the promulgation of the dogma was cele- 
 brated with thunder and lightning throughout the whole of the night. On the 8th of last 
 December I was nearly drowned by the floods of rain, which came down in buckets ; yester- 
 day morning I went down in rain, and under a frowning sky which menaced terrible storms 
 later in the day. . . . Kyrie eleison we heard as soon as the mass was said, and the whole 
 multitude joined in singing the plaintive measure of the Litany of tlie Saints, and then with 
 equal fervor was sung Veni Creator, which was followed by the voice of a secretary reading 
 in a high key the dogma. At its conclusion the names of the Fathers were called over, and 
 Placet after Placet succeeded ad nauseam. But what a storm burst over the church at this 
 moment! The lightning flashed and the thunder pealed as we have not heard it this season 
 before. Every Placet seemed to be announced by a flash and terminated by a clap of thun- 
 der. Through the cupolas the lightning entered, licking, as it were, the very columns of the 
 Baldachino over the tomb of St. Peter, and lighting up large spaces on the pavement. Sure, 
 God was there — but whether approving or disproving what was going on, no mortal man can 
 say. Enough that it was a remarkable coincidence, and so it struck the minds of all who 
 were present. And thus the roll was called for one hour and a half, with this solemn accom- 
 paniment, and then the result of the voting was taken to the Pope. The moment had arrived 
 when he was to declare himself invested with the attributes of God — nay, a God upon earth. 
 Looking from a distance into the hall, which was obscured by the tempest, nothing was visible 
 but the golden mitre of the Pope, and so thick was the darkness that a servitor was compelled 
 to bring a lighted candle and hold it by his side to enable him to read the formula by which 
 he deified himself. And then — what is that indescribable noise ? Is it the raging of the storm 
 above? — the pattering of hail-sto"nes ? It approaches nearer, and for a minute I most seri- 
 ously say that I could not understand what that swelling sound was until I saw a cloud of 
 white handkerchiefs waving in the air. The Fathers had begun with clapping— they were 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 79 
 
 terpreted, either as a condemnation of Gallicanism and liberal Cathol- 
 icism, or as a divine attestation of the dogma like that whicli accom- 
 panied the promulgation of the law from Mount Sinai, or as an evil 
 omen of impending calamities to the Papacy. 
 
 And behold, the day after the proclamation of the dogma, Napoleon 
 III., the political ally and supporter of Pius IX., unchained the furies of 
 war, which in a few weeks swept away the Empire of France and the 
 temporal throne of the infallible Pope. His own subjects forsook him, 
 and almost unanimously voted for a new sovereign, whom he had ex- 
 communicated as the worst enemy of the Church. A German Empire 
 arose from victorious battle-fields, and Protestantism sprung to the po- 
 litical and military leadership of Europe. About half a dozen Prot- 
 estant Churches have since been organized in Kome, where none was 
 tolerated before, except outside of the walls or in the house of some 
 foreign embassador; a branch of the Bible Society was established, 
 which the Pope in his Syllabus denounces as a pest ; and a public de- 
 bate was held in which even tlie presence of Peter at Home was called 
 in question. History records no more striking example of swift retri- 
 bution of criminal ambition. Once before the tapacy was shaken to 
 its base at the very moment when it felt itself most secure : Leo X. had 
 hardly concluded the fifth and last Lateran Council in March, 1517, 
 with a celebi-ation of victory, when an humble monk in the North of 
 Europe sounded the key-note of the great Peformation. 
 
 What did the Bishops of the minority do ? They all submitted, even 
 those who had been most vigorous in opposing, not only the opportu- 
 nity of the definition, but the dogma itself. Some hesitated long, but 
 yielded at last to the heavy pressure. Cardinal Pauscher, of Vienna, 
 published the decree already in August, and afterwards withdrew his 
 powerful 'Observations on the Infallibility of the Church' from the 
 market; regarding this as an act of glorious self-denial for the wel- 
 fare of the Church. Cardinal Schwarzenberg, of Prague, waited with 
 the publication till Jan. 11, 1871, and shifted the responsibility upon his 
 
 the fuglemen to the crowd who took up the notes and signs of rejoicing until the church of 
 God was converted into a theatre for the exhibition of human passions. *' Viva Pio Nono .'" 
 ''Viva il Papa Infaltibile T '■'Viva il trionfo dei Cattolici T' were shouted by this priestlj 
 assembly ; and again another round they had ; and yet another was attempted as soon as the 
 Te Deum had been sung and the benediction had been given.' 
 
so HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 theological advisers. Bishop Ilefele, of Rottenburg, who has f oi'gotten 
 more about the history of Councils than the infallible Pope ever knew, 
 after delaying till April 10, 1871, submitted, not because he had changed 
 his conviction, but, as he says, because 'the peace and unity of the 
 Church is so great a good that great and heavy personal sacrifices may 
 be made for it ;' i. e., truth must be sacrificed to peace. Bishop Maret, 
 who wrote two learned volumes against Papal InfalHbility and in de- 
 fense of Gallicanism, declared in his retractation that he ' wholly re- 
 jects every thing in his work which is opposed to the dogma of the 
 Council,' and ' withdraws it from sale.' Archbishop Kenrick yielded, 
 but has not refuted his Concio hahenda at non habita, which remains 
 an irrefragable argument against the new dogma. Even Strossmayer, 
 the boldest of the bold in the minority, lost his courage, and keeps 
 his peace. Darboy died a martyr in the revolt of the communists of 
 Paris, in April, 1871. In a conversation with Dr. Michaud, Yicar of 
 St. Madeleine, who since seceded from Pome, he counseled external 
 and official submission, with a mental reservation, and in the hope of 
 better times. His successor, Msgr. Guibert, published the decrees a 
 year later (April, 1872), without asking the permission of the head of 
 the French Republic. Of those opponents who, though not members 
 of the Council, carried as great weight as any Prelate, Montalembert 
 died daring the Council; Newman kept silence; Pere Gratry, who 
 had declared and proved that the question of Ilonorius ' is totally gan- 
 grened by fraud,' wrote from his death-bed at Montreux, in Switzer- 
 land (Feb. 1872), to the new Archbishop of Paris, that he submitted to 
 the Vatican Council, and effaced ' every thing to the contrary he may 
 have written.' 1 
 
 It is said that the adhesion of the minority Bishops was extorted by 
 the threat of the Pope not to renew their 'quinquennial faculties' 
 {facultates quinquen7iales), that is, the Papal licenses renewed every 
 five years, permitting them to exercise extraordinary episcopal func- 
 tions which ordinarily belong to the Pope, as the power of absolving 
 from heresy, schism, apostasy, secret crime (except murder), from vows, 
 duties of fasting, the power of permitting the reading of prohibited 
 
 * See details on the reception and publication of the Vatican decrees in Friedberg, pp. ~>?> 
 sqq., 775 sqq. ; Frommann, pp. 215-230 ; on Gratry, the Annales de Philosophie Chretienne, 
 Sept. 1871, p. 236. 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 81 
 
 books (for the purpose of refutation), marrying within prohibited de- 
 grees, etc.^ 
 
 But, aside from this pressure, the following considerations sufficiently 
 explain the fact of submission. 
 
 1. Many of the dissenting Bishops were professedly anti-Infallibilists, 
 not from principle, but only from subordinate considerations of expe- 
 diency, because they apprehended that the definition would provoke 
 the hostility of secular governments, and inflict great injury on Catholic 
 interests, especially in Protestant countries. Events have since proved 
 that their apprehension was well founded. 
 
 2. All Boman Bishops are under an oath of allegiance to the Pope, 
 which binds them ' to preserve, defend, increase, and advance the rights, 
 honors, privileges, and authority of the holy Boman Cliurch, of our lord 
 the Pope, and his successors.' 
 
 3. The minority Bishops defended Episcopal infallibility against Pa- 
 pal infallibility. They claimed for themselves what they denied to the 
 Pope. Admitting the infallibility of an oecumenical Council, and for- 
 feiting by their voluntary absence on the day of voting the right of 
 their protest, they must either on their own theory accept the decision 
 of the Council, or give up their theory, cease to be Boman Catholics, 
 and run the risk of a new schism. 
 
 At the same time this submission is an instructive lesson of the fear- 
 ful spiritual despotism of the Papacy, which overrules the stubborn 
 facts of history and the sacred claims of individual conscience. For 
 the facts so clearly and forcibly brought out before and during the 
 Council by such men as Kenrick, Hefele, Bauscher, Maret, Schwarzen- 
 berg, and Dupanloup, have not changed, and can never be undone. On 
 the one hand we find the results of a life-long, conscientious, and thor- 
 ough study of the most learned divines of the Boman Church, on < 
 the other ignorance, prejudice, perversion, and defiance of Scripture 
 and tradition ; on the one hand we have history shaping theology, on 
 the other theology ignoring or changing history ; on the one hand the 
 just exercise of reason, on the other blind submission, which destroys 
 reason and conscience. But truth must and will prevail at last. \ 
 
 ^ See the article Facultaten, in Wetzer und Weltb's KirchenUxikon oder Emyklop. der 
 katholischen T/ieologie^Yol. III. pp. 879 sqq. 
 
 F 
 
82 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCII* 
 
 Papal Infallibility Explained, and Tested by Tkadition and 
 
 sckiptuke. 
 
 Literature. 
 1. Foe*Infai.libilitt. 
 
 The older defenders of Infallibility are chiefly Bem-armin, Ballkrini, Litta, Alphons de Liqloei 
 (whom the Pope raised to the dignity of a dbctor ecclesice, March 11,1872), Card. Oesi, Peebone, and Jo- 
 BKPn Count de Matstek (Sardinian statesman, d. at Turin Feb. 26, 1821, author of Du Pape, 1819 ; new 
 edition, Paris, 1843, with the Homeric motto: el? Kolpavo^: eVro)). 
 
 During and after the Vatican Council : the works of Archbishops Manning and Dechamps, already 
 quoted, pp. 134, 135. 
 
 Jos. CAsnoNi (Archbishop of Edessa, in partibus) : Elucubratio de dogmatica Romani Pontificis Infal- 
 libilitate ejusqxie Definibilitate, Romse (typis Civilitatis Cattolicae), 1870 (May, 174 pp.). The chief work 
 on the Papal side, clothed with a semi-official character. 
 
 Hermann Rump : Die Unfehlharkeit des Papstes und die Stellung der in Deutschland verbreiteten theolo- 
 giftchen Lehrbuchcr zu dieser Lehre, Miinster, 1870 (173 pp.). 
 
 Feanz Feieduoff (Prof, at Miinster) » Gegen-Erwugungeti uber die pdpatliche Unfehlharkeit, Miinster, 
 
 1869 (21 pp.). Superficial. 
 
 Fi-OE. R1E88 and Kart. von Webke (Jesuits) : Das Oekum. Concil. Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, Neue Folge, 
 No. X. Die pupstliche Unfehlbarkeit und der alte Glaube der Kirche, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1870 (110 pp.). 
 
 G. Biokel: Grundefur die Unfehlbarkeit des Kirchenoberhauptes nebst Widerlegung der Einwurfe, Miin- 
 Bter, 1870. 
 
 Rev. P. Weninger (Jesuit) : LHnfaillibilite du Pape devant la raison et Vecriture, les papes et les can- 
 dles, les peres et les theologiens, les rois et les empcreurs. Translated from the German into French by 
 P. Belet. (Highly spoken of by Pius IX. in a brief to Abbe Belet, Nov. 17, 1809 ; see Friedberg, 1. c. 
 p. 487. Weninger wrote besides several pamphlets on Infallibility in German, Innsbruck, 1841 ; Graz, 
 1853 ; in English, New York and Cincinnati, 1868. Archbishop Kenrick, in his Concio, speaks of him as 
 'a pious and extremely zealous but ignorant man,' whom he honored with * the charity of silence' when 
 requested to recommend one of his books.) 
 
 Widerlegung der vier unter die Vuter des Concils vertheilten Broehuren gegen die Unfehlbarkeit (transl. 
 of Animadversiones in qtiattwr contra Romani Pontificis infallibilitatem editos libellos), Miinster, 1870. 
 
 Bishop Jos. Fesslee: Die wahre und die falsche Unfehlbarkeit der Pdpste (against Prof, von Schulte), 
 Wien, 1871. 
 
 Bishop Ketteler : Das unfehlbare Lehramt des Papstes, nach der Entscheidwig des Vaticanischen Con^ 
 cils, Mainz, 1871, 3te Aufl. 
 
 M. J. Scheeben : Schulte und D'llinger, gegen das Concil. Kritische Beleuchtung, etc., Regensbnrg, 1871. 
 
 Prof. Amedee de Maegeeie : Lettre au R. P. Gratrg sur le Pape Ilonorius et le Breviaire /{omain, Nancy, 
 1870. 
 
 II. Against Infallicilitt. 
 
 (a) By Members of the Council. 
 
 Mgr. H. L. C. Maret (Bishop of Sura, in part.. Canon of St. Denis and Dean of the Theological Faculty 
 in Paris) : Du Concile general et de la paix religieuse, Paris, 1869, 2 Tom. (pp. 554 and 555). An elaborate 
 defense of Gallicanism ; since revoked by the author, and withdrawn from sale. 
 
 Peter Riouard Keneiok (Archbishop of St. Louis) : Concio in Concilio Vaticano habendaat ^lon habita, 
 Neapoli (typis fratrum de Angelis in via Pellegrini 4), 1870. Reprinted in Friedrich, Documenta, I. pp. 187- 
 226. An English translation in L. W. Bacon's A n Imide View of the Vatican Council, New York, pp. 90-166. 
 
 QUiESTio (no place or date of publication). A very able Latin dissertation occasioned and distributed 
 (perhaps partly prepared) by Bishop Ketteler, of Mayence, during the Council. It was printed but not 
 published in Switzerland, in 1870, and reprinted in Friedrich, Documenta, I. pp. 1-128. 
 
 La liberie du Concile et Vinfaillibilite. Written or inspired by Daeboy, Archbishop of Paris. Only fifty 
 copies were printed, for distribution among the Cardinals. Reprinted in Friedrich, Documenta, I. pp. 
 129-1S6. 
 
 Card.RAUscuEE: Observationes qucedam de infallibilitatis ecclesice sufc/ccto, Neapoli and Vindobona?, 
 
 1870 (83 pp.). 
 
 De Summi Pontificis infallibilitate personal/, Neapoli, 1870 (32 pp.). Written by Prof. Salesius Mayer, 
 and distributed in the Council by Cardinal Schwarzenberg. 
 
 Jos. DE Hefele (Bishop of Rottenburg, formerly Prof, at Tubingen) : Causa Ilonorii Papce, Neap. 1870 
 (pp.28). The same: Honorius und das sechste allgemeine Co«cr7 (with an appendix against Pennachi, 
 43 pp.), Tiibingen, 1870. English translation, with introduction, by Dr. Heney B. Smith, in the Presby- 
 terian Qrutrierly and l^inceton Review, New York, for April, 1872, pp. 273 sqq. Against Hefele comp. 
 Jos. Penn Aoui (Prof, of Church History in Rome) : De Honorii L Pontificis Romani causa in Concilio VI. 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 83 
 
 (6) By Catholics, not Members of the Council. 
 
 Janus : The Pope a^id the Council, 1869. See above, p. 134. 
 
 Erwagungen fur die Bischofe des Conciliuma iiber die Frage der papstlichen Un/ehlbarkeit, Oct. 1869. 
 Dritte Aufl. Miincheu. [By J. von Dollinokb.] 
 
 J. VON DoLLiNOER : Einige Worte fiber die Lrr?/(?W6arA;erYsadres8e, etc., Miinchen, 1870. 
 
 Jos. H. Reinkens (Prof, of Church History iu Breslau) : Ueber pupstliche Un/ehlbarkeit,'M.iiuche}),1810. 
 
 Clemens Sohmitz (Cath. Priest) : M der Papst uv/ehlbar f Aua Deutschlands und des P. Deharbe Cate- 
 chismen beantwortet, Miincheu, 1870. 
 
 J. Fb. Ritteb von Souulte (Prof, in Prague, now in Bonn) : Das Un/ehlbarkeits-Decret vom 18 Juli 
 1870 av/ seine Verbindlichkeit gepri/ft, Prague, 1870. Die Macht der ri'mi. Papste uber Fursten, Lander, 
 Volker, etc. seit Gregor VII. zur Wiirdigung ihrer Unfehlbarkeit beleuchtet, etc., 2d edition, Prague. The 
 same, translated into English {The Power of the Roman Popes over Princes, etc.), by Alfred Somers [a 
 brother of Schulte], Adelaide, 1871. 
 
 A. Geatky (Priest of the Oratoire and Member of the French Academy) : Four Letters to the Bishop of 
 Orleans (Dupanloup) and the Archbishop of Malines (Dechamps), in French, Paris, 1870; several editions, 
 also translated into German, English, etc. These learned and eloquent letters gave rise to violent con- 
 troversies. They were denounced by several Bishops, and prohibited in their dioceses ; approved by 
 others, and by Montalembert. The Pope praised the opponents. Against him wrote Dechamps (Three 
 Letters to Gratry, in French ; German translation, Mayeuce, 1870) and A. de Margerie. Gratry recanted 
 on his death-bed. 
 
 P. Le Page Renouf : !7%e Case of Pope Honorius, Lond. 1869. • 
 
 Antonio Maqkassi: Lo Schema suW infallibilitd personale del Romano Pontefice, Alessandria, 1870 
 <64pp.). 
 
 Delia pretesa infallibilitd personale del Romano Pontefice, 2d ed., FIrenze, 1870 (Anonymous, 80 pp.). 
 
 J. A. B. LuTTEBBECK : Die Clementinen und ihr Verhdltniss zuvi Unfehlbarkeitsdogma, Giessen, 1872 
 (pp.85). 
 
 The sinlessness of the Virgin Mary and the personal infallibility of 
 the Pope are the characteristic dogmas of modern Romanism, the two 
 test dogmas which must decide the ultimate fate of this system. Both 
 were enacted under the same Pope, and both faithfully reflect his char- 
 acter. Both have the advantage of logical consistency from certain 
 premises, and seem to be the yovj perfection of the Romish form of 
 piety and the Romish principle of authority. Both rest on pious fiction 
 and fraud ; both present a refined idolatry by clothing a pure humble 
 woman and a mortal sinful man with divine attributes. The dogma 
 of the Immaculate Conception, which exempts the Virgin Mary from 
 sin and guilt, perverts Christianism into Marianism ; the dogma of In- 
 fallibility, w^iich exempts the Bishop of Home from error, resolve? 
 Catholicism into Papalism, or the Church into the Pope. The wor- 
 ship of a woman is virtually substituted for the worship of Christ, and 
 a man-god in Rome for tlie God-Man in heaven. This is a severe 
 judgment, but a closer examination will sustain it. 
 
 The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, being confined to the 
 sphere of devotion, passed into the modern Roman creed without seri^ 
 ous difficulty ; but the dogma of Papal Infallibility, which involves a 
 question of absolute power, forms an epoch in the history of Roman- 
 ism, and created the greatest commotion and a new secession. It is 
 in its very nature the most fundamental and most comprehensive of 
 
84 HISTOKY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL; 
 
 of all dogmas. It contains the whole system in a nutshell. It con- 
 stitutes a new rule of faith. It is the article of the standing or fall- 
 ing Church. It is the direct antipode of the Protestant principle of the 
 absolute supremacy and infallibility of the Holy Scriptures. It estab- 
 lishes a perpetual divine oracle in the Vatican. Every Catholic may 
 hereafter say, I believe — not because Christ, or the Bible, or the Church, 
 but — because the infalUble Pope has so declared and commanded. 
 Admitting this dogma, we admit not only the whole body of doctrines 
 contained in the Tridentine standards, but all the official Papal balls, 
 including the mediaeval monstrosities of the Syllabus (1864), the con- 
 demnation of Jansenism, the bull ' Unam Sanctam^ of Boniface VIIL 
 (1302), w^hich, under pain of damnation, claims for the Pope the double 
 sword, the secular as well as the spiritual, over the whole Christian 
 world, and the power to depose princes and to absolve subjects from 
 their oath of allegiance.^ The past is irreversibly settled, and in all 
 future controversies on faith and morals we must look to the same 
 unerrinor tribunal in the Vatican. Even oecumenical Councils are 
 superseded hereafter, and would be a mere waste of time and 
 strength. 
 
 On the other hand, if the dogma is false, it involves a blasphemous 
 assumption, and makes the nearest approach to the fulfillment of 
 St. Paul's prophecy of the man of sin, who ' as God sitteth in the 
 temple of God, showing himself off that he is God' (2 Thess. ii. 4). 
 
 Let us first see what the dogma does not mean, and what it does 
 mean. 
 
 It does not mean that the Pope is infallible in his private opinions 
 on theology and religion.^ As a man, he may be a heretic (as Liberius, 
 Honorius, and John XXII.), or even an unbeliever (as John XXIII., 
 
 '^ This bull has been often disowned by Catholics (e. g., by the Universities of Sorbonne, 
 Louvain, Alcala, 8alamanca, when officially asked by Mr. Pitt, Prime Minister of Great Brit- 
 ain, 1788, also by Martin John Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore, in his Lectures on 
 Evidences, 1866), and, to some extent, even by Pius IX. (see Friedberg, p. 718), but it is 
 unquestionably official, and was renewed and approved by the fifth Lateran Council, Dec. 
 19, 1516. Paul III. and Pius V. acted upon it, the former in excommunicating and depos- 
 ing Henry VIIL of England, the latter in deposing Queen Elizabeth, exciting her subjects 
 to rebellion, and urging Pliilip of Spain to declare war against her (see the Bullarium Rom., 
 Camden, Burnet, Froude, etc.). The Papal Syllabus sanctions it by implication, in No. 23, 
 which condemns as an error the opinion that Roman Pontiffs have exceeded the limits of 
 their power. 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 85 
 
 and, perhaps, Leo X.), and yet, at the same time, infallible as Pope, 
 after the fashion of Balaam and Kaiplias. 
 
 Nor does it mean that infallibility extends beyond the proper sphere 
 of religion and the Church. The Pope may be ignorant of science and 
 literature, and make grave mistakes in his political administration, or 
 be misinformed on matters of fact (unless necessarily involved in doc- 
 trinal decisions), and yet be infallible in defining articles of faith.^ 
 
 Infallibility does not imply impeccability. And yet freedom from 
 error and freedom from sin are so nearly connected in men's minds 
 that it seems utterly impossible that such moral monsters as Alexander 
 YI. and those infamous Popes who disgraced humanity during the 
 Koman pornocracy in the tenth and eleventh centuries, should have 
 been vicars of Jesus Christ and infallible organs of the Holy Ghost, 
 If the inherent infallibijity of the visible Church logically necessitates 
 the infallibility of the visible head, it is difficult to see why the same 
 logic should not with equal conclusiveness derive the personal holiness 
 of the head from the holiness of the body. 
 
 On the other hand, the dogma does mean that all official utterances 
 of the Eoman Pontiff addressed to the Catholic Church on matters of 
 Christian faith and duty are infallibly true, and must be accepted with 
 the same faith, as the word of the living God. They are not simply 
 final in the sense in which all decisions of an absolute government or 
 a supreme court of justice are final until abolished or superseded by 
 other decisions,^ but they are irreformable, and can never be revoked. 
 This infallibility extends over eighteen centuries, and is a special privi- 
 lege conferred by Christ upon Peter, and through him upon all his legiti- 
 mate successors. It belongs to every Pope from Clement to Pius IX., 
 and to every Papal bull addressed to the Catholic world. It is per- 
 
 * Pope Pius IX. started as a political reformer, and set in motion that revolution which, 
 notwithstanding his subsequent reactionary course, resulted in the unification of Italy and 
 the loss of the States of the Church, against which he now so bitterly protests. 
 
 ' In this general sense Joseph de Maistre explains infallibility to be the same in the spir- 
 itual order that sovereignty means in the civil order : 'Z'?«n et Vautre exprivient cette haute 
 puissance qui les domine toutes, dont toutes les autres d^rivent, qui gouverne et nest pas gou- 
 vernee, qui jug e et n'estpasjugde. Quand nous disons que V Eg Use est infaillible, nous ne de- 
 mandons pour elle, il est hien esseniiel de Vohserver, aucun privilege particulier ; nous demandons 
 seulement qu'ellejouisse du droit commun a toutes les souverainet^s possible qui toutes agisscnt 
 n^cessairement comine infaillibles ; car tout gouvernement est absolu; et du moment ou fon pent 
 lui r€sister sous pr€iexte d'erreur ou dHnjustice^ il n'existe plus.' Du Pape, ch. i., pp. 15, 16. 
 
86 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 sonal, i. e., inherent in Peter and the Popes; it is independent, and 
 needs no confirmation from the Church or an oecumenical Council, 
 eitlier preceding or succeeding; its decrees are binding, and can not be 
 rejected without running the risk of eternal damnation.^ 
 
 Even within the narrow limits of the Vatican decision there is room 
 for controversy on the precise meaning of»the figurative term ex cathe- 
 dra loqid, and the extent of faith and mfiorals^ viz., w^hether Infallibil- 
 ity includes only the supernatural order of revealed truth and dutj^, or 
 also natural and political duties, and questions of mere history, such as 
 Peter's residence in Rome, the number of oecumenical Councils, the 
 teaching of Jansen and Quesnel, and other disputed facts closely con- 
 nected with dogmas. But the main point is clear enough. The Ultra- 
 montane theory is established, Gallicanisni is dead and buried. 
 
 TJltramontanism and Gallicanism. 
 
 The Vatican dogma is the natural completion of the Papal polity, as 
 the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is the completion 
 of the Papal cultus. 
 
 If we compare the Papal or Ultramontane theory with the Episcopal 
 or Galilean theory, it has the undeniable advantage of logical consist- 
 ency. The two systems are related to each other like monarchy and 
 aristocracy, or rather like absolute monarchy and limited monarchy. 
 The one starts from the divine institution of the Primacy (Matt. xvi. 18), 
 
 * Archbishop Manning (Petri Privil. III. pp. 112, 113) defines the doctrine of Infallibility 
 in this way : 
 
 ' 1. The privilege of infallibility is personal, inasmuch as it attaches to the Roman Pontiff, 
 the successor of Peter, as a public person, distinct from, but inseparably united to, the Church; 
 but it is not personal, in that it is attached, not to the private person, but to the primacy 
 which he alone possesses. 
 
 ' 2. It is also independent, inasmuch as it does not depend upon either the Ecclesia docens 
 or the Ecclesia discens ; but it is not independent, in that it depends in all things upon the 
 divine head of the Church, upon the institution of the primacy by him, and upon the assist- 
 ance of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 ' 3. It is absolute, inasmuch as it can be circumscribed by no human or ecclesiastical law ; 
 it is not absolute, in that it is circumscribed by the office of guarding, expounding, and de- 
 fending the deposit of revelation. 
 
 ' 4. It is separate in no sense, nor can be, nor can be so called, without manifold heresy, 
 unless the word be taken to mean distinct. In this sense, the Roman Pontiff is distinct from 
 the Episcopate, and is a distinct subject of infallibility; and in the exercise of his supreme 
 doctrinal authority, or magisterium, he does not depend for the infallibility of his definitions 
 upon the consent or consultation of the Episcopate, but only on the divine assistance of the 
 Holy Ghost.' 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 87 
 
 and teaches the infallibility of the head ; the other starts from the di- 
 vine institution of the Episcopate (Matt, xviii. 18), and teaches the infal- 
 libility of the body and the superiority of an oecumenical Council over 
 the Pope. Conceding once the infallibility of the collective Episcopate, 
 we must admit, as a consequence, the infallibility of the Primacy, which 
 represents the Episcopate, aiid forms its visible and permanent centre. If 
 the body of the teaching Church can never err, the head can not err; and, 
 vice versa, if the head is liable to error, the body can not be free from 
 error. The Galhcan theory is an untenable via media. It secures only 
 ,a periodic and intermittent infallibility, which reveals itself in an oecu- 
 menical Council, and then relapses into a quiescent state ; but the Ultra- 
 montane theory teaches an unbroken, ever living, and ever active infalli- 
 bility, which alone can fully answer the demands of an absolute authority. 
 
 To refute Papal infallibility is to refute also Episcopal infallibility; 
 for tlie higher includes the lower. The Vatican Council is the best ai-gu- 
 ment against the infallibility of oecumenical Councils, for it sanctioned 
 a fiction, in open and irreconcilable contradiction to older oecumenical 
 Councils, which not only assumed the possibility of Papal fallibility, 
 but actually condemned a Pope as a heretic. The fifth Lateran Coun 
 oil (1512) declared the decrees of the Council of Pisa (1409) null and ' 
 toid ; the Council of Florence denied the' validity of the Council of 
 Basle, and this denied the validity of the former. The Council of Con- 
 stance condemned and burned John Hus for teaching evangelical doc- 
 trines; and this fact forced upon Luther, at the disputation with Eck at 
 Leipzig, the conviction that even oecumenical Councils may err. Pome 
 itself has rejected certain canons of Constantinople and Chalcedon, 
 which put the Pope on a par with the Patriarch of Constantinople ; and 
 a strict construction of the Papal theory would rule out the old oecu- 
 menical Councils, because they were not convened nor controlled by the 
 Pope ; while the Greek Church rejects all Councils which were purely 
 Latin. 
 
 The Bible makes no provision and has no promise for an oecumenical 
 Council.^ The Church existed and flourished for more than three hun- 
 dred years before such a Council was heard of. Large assemblies are 
 
 ^ The Synod of Jerusalem, composed of Apostles, Elders, and Brethren, and legislating in 
 favor of Christian liberty, differs very widely from a purely hierarchical Council, which ex- 
 eludes Elders and Brethren, and imposes new burdens upon the conscience. 
 
88 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 often ruled by passion, intrigue, and worldly ambition (remember the 
 complaints of Gregory of Nazianzum on the Synods of the Nicene age). 
 Majorities are not necessarily decisive in matters of faith. Christ prom- 
 ised to be even with two or three who are gathered in his name (Matt, 
 xviii. 20). Elijah and the seven thousand who had not bowed the 
 knee to Baal were right over against the great mass of the people of 
 Israel. Athanasius versus mundum represented the truth, and the 
 world versus Athanasimn was in error during the ascendency of 
 Arianism. In the eighteenth century the Church, both Catholic and 
 Protestant, was under the power of infidelity, and true Christianity 
 had to take refuge in small communities. Augustine maintained that 
 one Council may correct another, and attain to a more perfect knowl- 
 edge of truth. Tlie liistory of the Church is unintelligible without the 
 theory of progressive development, which implies many obstructions 
 and temporary diseases. All the attributes of the Church are subject 
 to the law- of gradual expansion and growth, and will not be finally 
 complete till the second coming of our Lord. 
 
 The Infallibility of the Pojpe and Personal Besj>onsihility. 
 
 The Christian Church, as a divine institution, can never fail and 
 never lose the truth. Christ has pledged his Spirit and life-giving 
 presence to his people to the end of time, and even to two or three of 
 his humblest disciples assembled in his name ; yet they are not on 
 that account infallible. He gave authority in matters of discipline to 
 every local Church (Matt, xviii. 17) ; and yet no one claims infallibility 
 to every congregation. The Holy Spirit will always guide believers into 
 the truth, and the unerring Word of God can never perish. But local 
 churches, like individuals, may fall into error, and be utterly destroyed 
 from the face of the earth. The true Church of Christ always makes 
 progress, and will go on conquering and to conquer to the end of the 
 world. But the particular churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexan- 
 dria, Constantinople, Asia Minor, and North Africa, where once the 
 Apostles and St. Augustine taught, have disappeared, or crumbled into 
 ruin, or have been overrun by the false prophet. 
 
 The truth will ever be within the reach of the sincere inquirer 
 wherever the gospel is preached and the sacraments are rightly admin- 
 istered. God has revealed himself plainly enough for all purposes of 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 89 
 
 salvation ; and yet not so plainly as to supersede the necessity of faith, 
 and to resolve Christianity into a mathematical demonstration. He 
 has given us a rational mind to think and to judge, and a free will to 
 accept or to reject. Christian faith is no blind submission, hut an intel- 
 ligent assent. It implies anxiety to inquire as well as williugne.ss to 
 receive. We are expressly directed to 'prove all things, and to hold fast 
 that which is good ' (1 Thess. v. 21) ; to try the spirits whether they are 
 of God (1 John iv. 1), and to refuse obedience even to an angel from 
 heaven if he preach a different gospel (Gal. i. 8). The Beroean 
 Jews are commended as being more noble than those of Thessalonica^ 
 because they received the Word with all readiness of mind, and yet 
 searched the Scriptures daily, w^hether those things were so (Acts xvii. 
 11). It was from the infallible Scriptures alone, and not from tra- 
 dition, that Paul and Apollos reasoned, after the example of Christ, 
 who appeals to Moses and the Prophets, and speaks disparagingly of 
 the traditions of the elders as obscuring the Word of God or destroy- 
 ing its true effect.^ , 
 
 In opposition to all this the Vatican dogma requires a wholesale 
 slaughter of the intellect and will, and destroys the sense of personal 
 responsibility. The fundamental error, the wpioTov \pi\)dog of Rome is 
 that she identifies the true ideal Church of Christ with the empirical 
 Church, and the empirical Church with the Romish Church, and the 
 Romish Church with the Papacy, and the Papacy with the Pope, and 
 at last substitutes a mortal man for the living Christ, who is the only 
 and ever present head of the Church, 'which is his body, the fullness of 
 him who filleth all in all.' Christ needs no vicar, and the very idea 
 of a vicar implies the absence of the Master.^ 
 
 ^ It is remarkable that Christ always uses TrapaSocng in an unfavorable sense : see Matt. 
 XV. 2, 3, G; Mark vii. 3, 5, 8, 9, 13. So also Paul: Gal. i. 14; Col. ii. 8; while in 1 Cor. xi. 
 2, and 2 Thess. ii. 15 ; iii. 6, he uses the term in a good sense, as identical with the gospel he 
 preached. 
 
 2 I add here what Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, says on the Papal theory of Infallibility (System- 
 atic Theology, New York, 1872, Vol. I. pp. 130, 150) : ' There is something simple and grand in 
 this theory. It is wonderfully adapted to the tastes and wants of men. It relieves them of per- 
 sonal responsibility. Every thing is decided for them. Their salvation is secured by merely 
 submitting to be saved by an infiillible, sin-pardoning, and grace-imparting Church. Many 
 may be inclined to think that it would have been a great blessing had Christ left on earth a 
 visible representative of himself, clothed with his authority to teach and govern, and an order 
 of men dispersed through the world endowed with the gifts of the original Apostles — men 
 every where accessible, to whom we could resort in all times of difficulty and doubt, and whog« 
 
90 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 Papal Infallihillty tested hy Tradition, 
 
 The dogma of Papal Infallibility is mainly supported by an infer- 
 ential dogmatic argument derived from the Primacy of Peter, who, as 
 the Yicar of Cln-ist, must also share in his infallibility ; or from the 
 nature and aim of the Church, which is to teach men the way of salva- 
 tion, and must therefore be endowed with an infallible and ever avail- 
 able organ for that purpose, since God always provides tlie means to- 
 gether with an end. A full-blooded Infallibilist, whose piety consists 
 in absolute submission and devotion to his lord the Pope, is per- 
 fectly satisfied with this reasoning, and cares little or nothing for the 
 Bible and for history, except so far as they suit his pui'pose. If facts 
 disagree with his dogmas, all the worse for the facts. All you have to 
 do is to ignore or to deny them, or to force them, by unnatural inter- 
 pretations, into reluctant obedience to the dogmas.^ Bat after all, even 
 
 decisions could be safely received as the decisions of Christ himself. God's thoughts, how- 
 ever, are not as our thoughts. We know that when Christ was on earth men did not believe 
 or obey him. We know that when the Apostles were still living, and their authority was 
 still confirmed by signs, and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, the 
 Church was distracted by heresies and schisms. If any in their sluggishness are disposed to 
 think that a perpetual body of infallible teachers Avould be a blessing, all must admit that the 
 assumption of infallibility by the ignorant, the erring, and the wicked, must be an evil incon- 
 ceivably great. The Romish theory, if true, might be a blessing; if false, it must be an aw- 
 ful curse. That it is false may be demonstrated to the satisfaction of all who do not wish it 
 to be true, and who, unlike the Oxford tractarian, are not determined to believe it because 
 they love it. ... If the Church be infallible, its authority is no less absolute in the sphere of 
 social and political life. It is immoral to contract or to continue an unlawful marriage, to 
 keep an unlawful oath, to enact unjust laws, to obey a sovereign hostile to the Church. The 
 Church, therefore, has the right to dissolve marriages, to free men from the obligations of 
 their oaths, and citizens from their allegiance, to abrogate civil laws, and to depose sovereigns. 
 These prerogatives have not only been claimed, but time and again exercised by the Church 
 of Rome. They all of right belong to that Church, if it be infallible. As these claims aie 
 enforced by penalties involving the loss of the soul, they can not be resisted by those who ad- 
 mit the Church to be infallible. It is obvious, therefore, that where this doctrine is held there 
 can be no liberty of opinion, no freedom of conscience, no civil or political freedom. As the 
 recent oecumenical Council of the Vatican has decided that this infallibility is vested in the 
 Pope, it is henceforth a matter of faith with Romanists, that the Roman Pontitf is the abso- 
 lute sovereign of the world. All men are bound, on the penalty of eternal death, to believe 
 what he declares to be true, and to do whatever he decides is obligatory.' 
 
 ^ Archbishop Manning (III. p. 118) speaks of history as 'a wilderness without guide or path,' 
 and says : ' Whensoever any doctrine is contained in the divine revelation of the Church' 
 [the very point which can not be proved in the case before us], 'all difficulties from human 
 history are excluded, as Tertullian lays down, by prescription. The only source of revealed 
 truth is God ; the only channel of his revelation is the Church. No human history can de- 
 clare what is contained in that revelation. The Church alone can determine its limits, and 
 therefore its contente.' 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCII* 91 
 
 according to the Roman Catholic theory, Scripture and history or tra- 
 dition are the two indispensable tests of the truth of a dogma. It has 
 always been held that the Pope and tlie Bishops are not the creators 
 and judges, but the trustees and witnesses of the apostolic deposit of 
 faith, and that they can define and proclaim no dogma which is not 
 well founded in primitive tradition, written or unwritten. According 
 to the famous rule of Yincentius Lirinensis, a dogma must have three 
 marks of catholicity: the catholicity of time (semper), of space {uhique)^ 
 and of number {ah omnibus). The argument from tradition is abso- 
 lutely essential to orthodoxy in the Roman sense, and, as hitherto held, 
 more essential than Scripture proof.^ The difference between Roman- 
 ism and Protestantism on this point is this : Romanism requires proof 
 from tradition first, from Scripture next, and makes the former indis- 
 pensable, the latter simply desirable ; while Protestantism reverses the 
 order, and with its theory of the Bible as the only rule of faith and 
 practice, and as an inexhaustible mine of truth that yields precious ore 
 to every successive generation of miners, it may even dispense with 
 traditional testimony altogether, provided that a doctrine can be clearly 
 derived from the Word of God. 
 
 Now it can be conclusively proved that the dogma of Papal In- 
 fallibility, like the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, 
 lacks every one of the three marks of catholicity. It is a compara- 
 tively modern innovation. It was not dreamed of for more than a 
 thousand years, and is unknown to this day in the Greek Church, 
 the oldest in the world, and in matters of antiquity always an im- 
 portant witness. The whole history of Christianity w^ould have talien 
 a different course, if in all theological controversies an infallible tri- 
 bunal in Rome could have been invoked.^ Ancient Creeds, Councils, 
 
 * This Archbishop Kenrick, in his Concio, frankly admits : ^Irenceij TertuUiani^ Augustiniy 
 Vincentii Lirinensis exempla secutus, Jidei CatholiccB probationes ex iraditione potius quant 
 ex Scripturarum interpretatione qucerendas duxi; quce interpretation juxta Tertullianum ma- 
 gis apta est ad veritatem ohumbitandum quam demonstrandum.^ 
 
 ' ' Die ganze Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends der Kirche ware eine andere gewesen, wenn 
 in dem Bischofvon Rom das Beumsstsein, in der Kirche auch nur eine Ahnung davon geicesen 
 ware, dass dort ein Quell unfehlbarer Wahrheit fliesse. Statt all der bittern, verstlirendcn 
 Kdmpfe gegen wirkliche oder vermeintliche Haretiker, gegen die man Bucher schrieb und Si/- 
 noden aller Art versammelte, wUrden alle Wohlmeinende sich au/den un/ehlbaren Sj)ruch des 
 Papstes berufen haben, und mehr als einst das Orakel des Apollo zu Delphi wiirde das zu 
 Born befragt warden sein. Dagegen war ei injenen Jahrhunderten^ als alles Christenthum a.x{f 
 
92 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 Fathers, and Popes can be summoned as witnesses against the Vatican 
 dogma. 
 
 1. The four cecuinenical Creeds, the most authoritative expressions 
 of the old Catholic faith of the Eastern and Western Churches, contain 
 an article on the 'holy Catholic and Apostolic Church,' but not one 
 word about the Bishops of Korae, or any other local Church. How 
 easy and natural, yea, in view of the fundamental importance of the 
 Infallibility dogma, how necessary would have been the insertion of Bo- 
 ma/)i after the other predicates of the Church, or the addition of the 
 article : * The Pope of Rome, the successor of Peter and infallible vicar 
 of Christ.' If it had been believed then as now, it would certainly ap- 
 pear at least in the Eoman form of the Apostles' Creed ; but this is as 
 silent on this point as the Aquilejan, the African, the Galilean, and 
 other forms. 
 
 And this uniform silence of all the oecumenical Creeds is strength- 
 ened by the numerous local Creeds of the Nicene r.ge, and by the vari- 
 ous ante-Nicene rules of faith up to Tertullian and Irenaeus, not one of 
 which contains an allusion to such an article of faith. 
 
 2. The oecumenical Councils of the first eight centuries, which are 
 recognized by the Greek and Latin Churches alike, are equally silent 
 about, and positively inconsistent with. Papal Infallibility. They were 
 called by Greek Emperors, not by Popes ; they were predominantly, 
 and some of them exclusively, Oriental ; they issued their decrees in 
 their own name, and in the fullness of authority, without thinking of 
 submitting them to the approval of Rome ; they even claimed the right 
 of judging and condemning the Roman Pontiff, as well as any other 
 Bishop or Patriarch. 
 
 In the first Nicene Council there was but one representative of the 
 Latin Church (Hosius of Spain) ; and in the second and the fifth oecu- 
 menical Councils there was none at all. The second oecumenical Coun- 
 cil (381), in the third canon, put the Patriarch of Constantinople on a par 
 with the Bishop of Rome, assigning to the latter only a primacy of 
 honor; and the fourth oecumenical Council (451) confirmed this canon 
 in spite of the energetic protest of Pope Leo I. 
 
 die Spitze eines Dogmas gestellt wurde^ nichts unerhl}rtes,'dass auck ein Papst vor der sub- 
 tilen Bestimmung des siegenden Dogma zum Haretiker wurde,' Hase, Polemik, Buch I. 
 civ. p. 161, 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 93 
 
 But more than this : the sixth oecumenical Council, held 680, pro- 
 nounce^ the anathema on Honorius, ' the former Pope of old Rome,' 
 for teaching officially the Monothelite heresy; and this anathema was 
 signed by all the members of the Council, including the three delegates 
 of the Pope, and was several times repeated by the seventh and eighth 
 Councils, which were presided over by Papal delegates. But we must 
 return to this famous case again in another connection. 
 
 3. The Fathers, even those who unconsciously did most service to 
 Rome, and laid the foundation for its colossal pretensions, yet had no 
 idea of ascribing absolute supremacy and infallibility to the Pope. 
 
 Clement of Rome, the first Roman Bishop of whom we have any 
 authentic account, wrote a letter to the Church at Corinth — not in his 
 name, but in the name of the Roman Congregation ; not with an air 
 of superior authority, but as a brother to brethren — barely mentioning 
 Peter, but eulogizing Paul, and with a clear consciousness of the great 
 difference between an Apostle and a Bishop or Elder. 
 
 Ignatius of Antioch, who suffered martyrdom in Rome under Tra- 
 jan, highly as he extols Episcopacy and Church unity in his seven Epis- 
 tles, one of which is addressed to the Roman Christians, makes no dis- 
 tinction of rank among Bishops, but treats them as equals. 
 
 Irenceus of Lyons, the champion of the Catholic faith against the 
 Gnostic heresy at the close of the second century, and the author of 
 the famous and variously understood passage about the potentior pr in- 
 cipalitas {Trporda) ecclesice Itomance., sharply reproved Yictor of Rome 
 when he ventured to excommunicate the Asiatic Christians for their 
 different mode of celebrating Easter, and told him that it was contrary 
 .to Apostolic doctrine and practice to judge brethren on account of eat- 
 ing and drinking, feasts and new moons. Cyprian, likewise a saint and 
 a mar4;yr, in the middle of the third century, in his zeal for visible and 
 tangible unity against the schismatics of his diocese, first brought out 
 the fertile doctrine of the Roman See as the chair of Peter and the 
 centre of Catholic unity ; yet with all his Romanizing tendency he was 
 the great champion of the Episcopal solidarity and equality system, and 
 always addressed the Roman Bishop as his 'brother' and 'colleague;' 
 he even stoutly opposed Pope Stephen's view of the validity of heret- 
 ical baptism, charging him with error, obstinacy, and presumption. 
 He never yielded, and the African Bishops, at the third Council at 
 
94 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 Cartilage (256), empliatically indorsed liis opposition. Firmilian, 
 Bishop of Caesarea, and Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, likewise bit 
 terly condemned the doctrine and conduct of Stephen, and told him 
 that in excommnnicating others he only excommunicated himself. 
 
 Augustine is often quoted by Infallibilists on account of his famous 
 dictum, Roma lo&icta est, causa finita est} But he simply means that, 
 gince the Councils of Mileve and Carthage had spoken, and Pope Inno- 
 cent I. had acceded to their decision, the Pelagian controversy was 
 iinally settled (although it was, after all, not settled till after his death, 
 at the Council of Ephesus). Had he dreamed of the abuse made of 
 this utterance,^ he would have spoken very differently. For the same 
 Augustine apologized for Cyprian's opposition to Pope Stephen on the 
 ground that the controversy had then not yet been decided by a Coun- 
 cil, and maintained the view of the liability of Councils to correction 
 and improvement by subsequent Councils. He moreover himself op- 
 posed Pope Zosimus, when, deceived by Pelagius, he declared him 
 sound in the faith, although Pope Innocent I. had previously excom- 
 municated him as a dangerous heretic. And so determined were the 
 Africans, under the lead of Augustine (417 and 418), that Zosimus 
 finally saw proper to yield and to condemn Pelagianism in his ' Epis- 
 tola Tractoria} 
 
 Gregory I., or the Great, the last of the Latin Fathers, and the 
 first of the mediseval Popes (590-604), stoutly protested against the 
 assumption of the title cecumenical or universal Bishop on the part of 
 the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria, and denounced this 
 whole title and claim as hlasphemous, anti- Christian, and devilish, 
 since Christ alone was the Head and Bishop of the Church universal, 
 while Peter, Paul, Andrew, and John, were members under the same 
 Head, and heads only of single portions of the whole. Gregory would 
 rather call himself ' the servant of the servants of God,' which, in the 
 mouths of his successors, pretending to be Bishops of bishops and Lords 
 of lords, has become a shameless irony.^ 
 
 ' Or in a modified form: ' Causa finita est, utinam aliquando finiatur error!'' Serm. 131, 
 c. 10. See Janus, Rauscher, von Schulte versus Cardoni and Hergenrother, quoted by From- 
 mann, p. 424. 
 
 ^ As well as some other of his sententious sayings. His explanation of coge intrare was 
 made to justify religious persecutions, from which his heart would have shrunk in horror. 
 
 ^ The passages of Gregory on this subject are well known to every scholar. And yet the 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 95 
 
 As to the Greek Fathers, it would be useless to quote them, for the 
 entire Greek Church in her genuine testimonies has never accepted the 
 doctrine of Papal supremacy, much less of Papal Infallibility. 
 
 4. Heretical Poj)es. — We may readily admit the rock-like stability 
 of the Roman Church in the early controversies on the Trinity and the 
 Divinity of Christ, as compared with the motion and changeability of the 
 Greek churches during the same period, when the East was the chief 
 theatre of dogmatic controversy and progress. Without some founda- 
 tion in history, the Vatican dogma could not well have arisen. It would 
 be impossible to raise the claim of infallibility in behalf of the Patri- 
 archs of Jerusalem, or Antioch, or Alexandria, or Constantinople, among 
 whom were noted Arians, Nestorians, Monopliysites, Monothelites, and 
 other heretics. Yet tliere are not a few exceptions to the rule ; and as 
 many Popes, in their lives, flatly contradicted their title of holiness, so 
 many departed, in their views, from Catholic truth. That the Popes 
 after the Reformation condemned and cursed Protestant truths well 
 founded in the Scriptures, we leave here out of sight, and confine our 
 reasoning to facts within the limits of Roman Catholic orthodoxy. 
 
 Tlie canon law assumes throughout that a Pope may openly teach 
 heresy, or contumaciously contradict the Catholic doctrine ; for it de- 
 clares that, while he stands above all secular tribunals, yet he can be 
 judged and deposed for the crime of heresy.^ This assumption was so 
 interwoven in the faith of the Middle Ages that even the most power- 
 ful of all Popes, Innocent III. (d. 1216), gave expression to it when he 
 said that, though he w^as only responsible to God, he may sin against 
 the faith, and thus become subject to the judgment of the Church.'* 
 Innocent IV. (d.l254) speaks of heretical commands of the Pope, which 
 need not be obeyed. Wlien Boniface VIII. (d. 1303) declared that 
 every creature must obey tlie Pope at the loss of eternal salvation, he 
 was charged with having a devil, because he presumed to be infallible, 
 
 Vatican decree, in ch. iii., by omitting the principal part, makes him say almost the very 
 opposite. 
 
 ' Decret. Gratian. Dist. xl. c. C, in conformity with the sentence of Hadrian II.: ^Cunctos 
 ipsos judicaturus \_Papa'], a nemine est judicandus, nisi dkprehkndatcr a FIDE devius.' 
 k"'ee on this point especially von Schulte, Concilien, pp. 188 sqq. 
 
 ' Se7'm. II. de consecrat. Pontificis : ''In tantum mihi Jides necessaria est, cum de cateris 
 peccatis Deum Judicem haheam^ ut propter solum peccatum quod injidem committitur, possim 
 ab Ecclesia judicari.' 
 
96 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 which wag impossible without witchcraft. Even Hadrian YI., in the 
 • Tjixteenth century, expressed the view, which he did not recant as Pope, 
 that ' if by the Roman Church is understood its head, the Pope, it is 
 certain tliat he can err even in matters of faith.' 
 
 This old Catholic theory of the fallibility of the Pope is abundantly 
 borne out by actual facts, wliicli have been established again and again 
 by Catholic scholars of the liighest authority for learning and candor. 
 We need no better proofs than those furnished by them. 
 
 Zephyrinus (201-219) and Callistus (219-223) held and taught (ac- 
 cording to the 'Philosophumena' of Hippolytus, a martyr and saint) 
 tlie Patripassian heresy, that God the Father became incarnate and 
 suffered with the Son. 
 
 Pope Liberius, in 358, subscribed an Arian creed for the purpose of 
 regaining his episcopate, and condemned Athanasius, Uhe father of or- 
 tliodoxy,' who mentions tlie fact with indignation. 
 
 During the same period, his rival, Felix IL, was a decided Arian ; but 
 there is a dispute about his legitimacy; some regarding him as an anti- 
 Pope, althougli he has a place in the Romish Calendar of Saints, and 
 Gregory XIII. (1582) confirmed his claim to sanctity, against which 
 Baron ius protested. 
 
 In the Pelagian controversy. Pope Zosimus at first indorsed the or- 
 thodoxy of Pelagius and Celestins, whom his predecessor, Innocent I., 
 had condemned ; but he yielded afterwards to the firm protest of St. 
 Augustine and the African Bishops. 
 
 In the Three-Chapter controversy, Pope Vigilins (538-555) showed a 
 contemptible vacillation between two opinions: first indorsing; then, a 
 year afterwards, condemning (in obedience to the Emperor's wishes) the 
 Three Chapters (i. e., the writings of Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas) ; 
 then refusing the condemnation ; then, tired of exile, submitting to the 
 fifth oecumenical Council (553), which had broken off communion witli 
 -liim ; and confessing that he had unfortunately been the tool of Satan, 
 - who labors for the destruction of the Church. A long schism in the 
 West was the consequence. Pope Pelagius II. (585) significantly ex- 
 I cused this weakness by the inconsistency of St. Peter at Antioch. 
 
 John XXII. (d. 1334) maintained, in opposition to Nicholas III. and 
 Clement Y. (d. 1314), that the Apostles did not live in perfect pov- 
 erty, and branded the opposite doctrine of liis predecessors as heretical 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 97 
 
 and dangerous. He also held an opinion concerning the middle state 
 of the righteous, which was condemned as heresy by the University of 
 Paris. 
 
 Contradictory opinions were taught by different Popes on the sacra- 
 ments, on the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary (see p. 123), 
 on matrimony, and on the subjection of the temporal power to the 
 Church.i 
 
 But the most notorious case of an undeniably official indorsement of 
 heresy by a Pope is that of Honorius I. (625-638), which alone is suffi- 
 cient to disprove Papal Infallibility, according to the maxim: Falsus 
 in uno^ falsus in omnibus} This case has been sifted to the very bot- 
 tom before and during the Council, especially by Bishop Hefele and 
 P^re Gratry. The following decisive facts are established by the best 
 documentary evidence : 
 
 (1.) Honorius taught ex cathedra (in two letters to his heretical col- 
 league, Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople) the Monothelite heresy, 
 which was condemned by the sixth oecumenical Council, i. e., the doc- 
 trine that Christ had only que will, and not two (corresponding to his 
 two natures).^ 
 
 (2.) An oecumenical Council, universally acknowledged in the East 
 and in the West, held in Constantinople, 680, condemned and excom- 
 
 * See examples under this head in Janus^ pp. 54 sqq. {Irrthumer und Widerspriiche der 
 Papste), p. ~) I of the London ed. 
 
 " Or, as Perrone, himself an Infallibilist, who in his Dogmatic Theology characteristically 
 treats of the Pope before the Holy Scriptures and tradition, puts it : ' Si vel unicus ejvsmodi 
 error deprehenderetur, appareret omnei adductas prohationes in nihilum redactum iri.^ 
 
 ^ Honorius prescribed the technical temi of the Monothelites as a dogma to the Church 
 {dogma ecclesiasticum). In a reply to the Monothelite Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople, 
 which is still extant in Greek and Latin (Mansi, Coll. Condi. Tom. XI. pp. 538 sqq.), he ap- 
 proves of his heretical view, and says as clearly as words can make it : ' Therefore we confess 
 also one will (iV BiXij/xa) of our Lord Jesus Christ, since the Godhead has assumed our nature, 
 but not our guilt.' In a second letter to Sergius, of which we have two fragments (Mansi, 
 1. c. p. 579), Honorius rejects the orthodox term two energies (duo tvfpyeiai, duce operationes), 
 which is used alongside with Iwo wills (Svo SrsXijfiara, voluntates). Christ, he reasons, as- 
 sumed human nature as it was before the fall, when it had not a law in the members which 
 resists the law of the Spirit. He knew only a sinful human will. The Catholic Church re- 
 jects Monothelitism, or the doctrine of one will of Christ, as involving or necessarily leading 
 to Monophysitism, i. e, , the doctrine that Christ had but owe nature ; for will is an attribute 
 of nature, not of the person. The Godhead has three persons, but only one nature, and only 
 one will. Christ has two wills, because he has two natures. The compromise formula of Em- 
 peror Heraclius and Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople endeavored to reconcile the Mono- 
 physites with the orthodox Church by teaching that Christ had two natures, but only one 
 will and one energy. 
 
 G 
 
98 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL 
 
 municated Hoiiorius, ' the former Pope of Old Rome,' as a heretic, who 
 with the help of the old serpent had scattered deadly error.^ The sev- 
 enth oecumenical Council (787) and the eighth (869) repeated the anath- 
 ema of the sixth. 
 
 (3.) The succeeding Popes down to the eleventh century, in a solemn 
 oath at their accession, indorsed the sixth oecumenical Council, and pro- 
 nounced ^an eternal anathema' on the authors of the Monothelite her- 
 esy, together with Pope Honorius, because he had given aid and com- 
 fort to the perverse doctrines of the heretics.'^ The Popes themselves, 
 therefore, for more than three centuries, publicly recognized, first, that 
 an oecumenical Council may condemn a Pope for open heresy, and, 
 secondly, that Pope Honorius was justly condemned for heresy. Pope 
 Leo II., in a letter to the Emperor, strongly confirmed the decree of the 
 Council, and denounced his predecessor Honorius as one who ^endeav- 
 ored by profane treason to overthrow the immaculate faith of the Ro- 
 man Church.'^ The same Pope says, in a letter to the Spanish Bishops : 
 ' With eternal damnation have been punished Theodore, Cyrus, Ser- 
 gius — together with Honorius^ who did not extinguish at the very be- 
 ginning the flame of heretical doctrine, as was becoming to his apostolic 
 authority, but nursed it by his carelessness.'* 
 
 This case of Honorius is as clear and strong as any fact in Church 
 history.^ Infallibilists have been driven to desperate efforts. Some 
 pronounce the acts of the Council, which exist in Greek and Latin, 
 downright forgeries (Baronius) ; others, admitting the acts, declare the 
 
 ' Sessio XVI. : ''Sergio hceretico anathema^ Cijro* hccretico anathema^ Honorio hceretico 
 anathema.' . . . Sessio XVIII. : ''Honorius, qui fuit Papa antiquce Homce . . . non vaca- 
 vit . . . Ecclesice erroris scandalum suscitare unius voluntatis, et unius operationis in duahus 
 naturis unius Cliristi,' etc. See Mansi, Cone. Tom. XI. pp. 622, 635, 655, 666. 
 
 * ' Quia pravis hcereticorum assert ionibus /omentum impendit.' This Papal oath was proba- 
 bly prescribed by Gregory II. (at the beginning of the eighth century), and is found in the 
 Liber Uiurnus (the book of formularies of the Roman chancery from the fifth to the eleventh 
 century), edited by Eugene de Roziere, Paris, 1869, No. 84. .The Liber Pontijicalis agrees 
 with the Ziier Diurnus. Editions of the Roman Breviary down to the sixteenth century re- 
 iterated the charge against Honorius, since silently dropped. 
 
 ^ ''Nee non et Honorium [anathemaf.izamus\ qui hanc apostolicam ecclesiam non apostolicce 
 traditionis doctrina lustravit, sed profana proditione immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus 
 est.' Mansi,Tom. XL p. 731. 
 
 * 'Cum Honorio, qui flammam hceretici dogmatis, non ut decuit apostolicam auctoritqtem, 
 incipientem extinxit, sed negligendo con/ovit.' Mansi, p. 1052. 
 
 * Comp. especially the tract of Bishop Hefele, above quoted. The learned author of the 
 History of the Councils has proved the case as conclusively as a mathematical demonstration. 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 99 
 
 letters of Honorins forgeries, so that he was unjustly condemned by the 
 Council (Bellarmin) — both without a shadow of proof; still others, being 
 forced at last to acknowledge tlie genuineness of the letters and acts, 
 distort the former into an orthodox sense by a non-natural exegesis, and 
 thus unwillingly fasten upon oecumenical Councils and Popes the charge 
 of either dogmatic ignorance and stupidity, or malignant representa- 
 tion.^ Yet in every case the decisive fact remains that both Coimcils 
 and Popes for several hundred years believed in the fallibility of the 
 Pope, in flat contradiction to the Vatican Council. Such acts of vio- 
 lence upon history .remind one of King James's short method with 
 Dissenters : ' Only hang them, that's all.' 
 
 5. The idea of Papal absolutism and Infallibility, like that of the 
 sinlessness of Mary, can be traced to apocryphal origin. It is found 
 first, in the second -century, in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies, w^hich 
 contain a singular system of speculai;ive Ebionism, and represent James 
 of Jerusalem, the brother of the Lord, as the Bishop of Bishops, the 
 centre of Christendom, and the general Yicar of Christ ; he is the last 
 arbiter, from whom there is no appeal ; to him even Peter must give 
 an account of his labors, and to him the sermons of Peter were sent 
 for safe keeping.^ 
 
 In the Catholic Church the same idea, but transferred to the Bishop 
 of Rome, is first clearly expressed in the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, 
 that huge forgery of Papal letters, '\jrhich appeared in the middle of the 
 ninth century, and had for its, object the completion of the indepehd- 
 ence of the Episcopal hierarchy from the State, and the absolute power 
 of the Popes, as the legislators and judges of all Christendom. Here 
 the most extravagant claims are put into the mouths of the early Popes, 
 from Clement (91) to Damasus (384), in the barbarous French Latin of 
 the Middle Ages, and with such numerous and glaring anachronisms as 
 to force the conviction of fraud even upon- Poman Catholic scholaiu 
 
 ' So Perrone, in his Dogmatics, and Pennachi, in his Liber de Honorii I. Rom. Pont, causa, 
 1870, which is effectually disposed of by Hefele in an Appendix to the German edition of his 
 tract. Nevertheless, Archbishop Manning, sublimely ignoring all but Infallibilist authorities 
 on Honorius, has the face to assert (III. p. 223) that the case of Honorius is doubtful ; that he 
 defined no doctrine whatever ; and that his two epistles are entirely orthodox ! Is Manning 
 more infallible than the infallible Pope Leo 11. , who denounced Honorius ex cathedra as 
 a heretic? 
 
 ' .'#3e my Church History, Yo\. I. § 69, p. 219, and the tract of Lutterbeck above quoted. 
 
100 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 One of these sayings is : ' The Eoman Church remains to the end free 
 from stain of heresy.' Soon afterwards arose, in the same hierarchical 
 interest, the legend of the donation of Constantine and his baptism by 
 Pope Silvester, interpolations of the writings of the Fathers, especially 
 Cyprian and Augustine, and a variety of fictions embodied in the Gesta 
 Liberii and the Liber Poniijicalis, and sanctioned by Gratianus (about 
 1150) in his DeGretum^ or collection of canons, which (as the first part 
 of the Corpus juris canotiici) became the code of laws for the whole 
 Western Church, and exerted an extraordinary influence. By this 
 series of pious frauds the mediaeval Papacy, which was the growth of 
 ages, was represented to the faith of the Church as a primitive institu- 
 tion of Christ, clothed with absolute and perpetual authority. 
 
 The Popes since Nicholas I. (858-867), who exceeded all his prede- 
 cessors in the boldness of his designs, freely used what the spirit of a 
 hierarchical, superstitious, and uncritical age furnislied them. They 
 quoted the fictitious letters of their predecessors as genuine, the Sardican 
 canon on appeals as a canon of Mcaea, and the interpolated sixth canon 
 of Nicaea, ' the Homan Church always had the primacy,' of which there 
 is not a syllable in the original; and nobody doubted them. Papal 
 absolutism was in full vigor from Gregory YII. to Boniface YIII. 
 Scholastic divines, even Thomas Aquinas, deceived by these literary 
 forgeries, began to defend Papal absolutism over the whole Church, 
 and the Councils of Lyons (1274) a#id of Florence (1439) sanctioned it, 
 although the Greeks soon afterwards rejected the false union based 
 upon such assumption. 
 
 But absolute power, especially of a spiritual kind, is invariably intox- 
 icating and demoralizing to any mortal man who possesses it. God 
 Almighty alone can bear it, and even he allows freedom to his rational 
 creatures. The reminiscence of the monstrous period when the Papacy 
 was a football in the hands of bold and dissolute women (904-962), or 
 when mere boys, like Benedict IX. (1033), polluted the Papal crow^n 
 with the filth of unnatural vices, could not be quite foi'gotten. Tlic 
 scandal of the Papal schism (1378 to 1409), when two and even three 
 rival Popes excommunicated and cursed each other, and laid all West- 
 ern Christendom under the ban, excited the moral indignation of all 
 good men in Christendom, and called forth, in the beginning of the 
 fifteenth century, the three Councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 101 
 
 which loudly demanded a reformation of the Church, in the head as 
 well as in the members, and asserted the superiority of a Council over 
 the Pope. 
 
 The Council of Constance (1414-1418), the most numerous ever seen 
 in the West, deposed two Popes — John XXIII. (the infamous Baltliasai- 
 Cossa, who had been recognized by the majority of the Church), on the 
 charge of a series of crimes (May 29, 1415), and Benedict XIII., as a 
 heretic who sinned against the unity of the Church (July 26, 1417),^ 
 and elected a new Pope, Martin Y. (l!^ov. 11, 1517), wlio had given his 
 adhesion to the Council, though after his accession to power he found 
 ways and means to defeat its real object^, i. e., the reformation of the 
 Church. 
 
 This Council was a complete triumph of the Episcopal system, and 
 the Papal absolutists and Infallibilists are here forced to the logical di- 
 lemma of either admitting the validity of the Council, or invalidating 
 the election of Martin Y, and his successors. Either course is fatal to 
 their system. Hence there has never been an authoritative decision 
 on the cecumenicity of this Council, and the only subterfuge is to say 
 that the whole case is an extraordinary exception ; but this, after all, 
 involves the admission that there is a higher power in the Church over 
 the Papacy. 
 
 The Reformation shook the whole Papacy to its foundation, but 
 could not overthrow it. A powerful reaction followed, headed by the 
 Jesuits. Their General, Lainez, strongly advocated Papal Infallibility 
 in the Council of Trent, and declared that the Church could not err 
 only because the Pope could not err. But the Council left the question 
 undecided, and the Eoman Catechism ascribes infallibility simply to 
 'the Catholic Church,' without defining its seat. Bellarmin advocated 
 and formularized the doctrine, stating it as an almost general opinion 
 that the Pope could not publicly teach a heretical dogma, and as a 
 probable and pious opinion that Providence will guard him even 
 against private heresy. Yet the same Bellarmin was witness to the 
 innumerable blunders of the edition of the Latin Ynlgate prepared by 
 Sixtus Y., corrected by his own hand, and issued by him as the only true 
 and authentic text of the sacred Scriptures, with the stereotyped forms 
 
 The third anti-Pope, Gregory XII., resigned. 
 
102 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 of anatliema upon all who should venture to change a single word ; 
 and Bellarmin himself gave the advice that all copies should be called 
 in, and a new edition printed with a lying statement in the preface 
 making the printers the scape-goats for the errors of the Pope! This 
 whole business of the Yulgate is sufficient to explode Papal Infallibil- 
 ity ; for it touches the very source of divine revelation. Other Italian 
 divines, like Alphonsus Liguori, and Jesuitical text-books, unblushingly 
 use long-exploded mediaeval fictions and interpolations as a groundwork 
 of Papal absolutism and Infallibility. 
 
 It is not necessary to follow the progress of the controversy between 
 the Episcopal and the Papal systems during the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries. It is sufficient to say that the greatest Catholic 
 divines of France and Germany, including Bossuet and Mcihler, togeth- 
 er with many from other countries, down to the 88 protesting Bishops 
 in the Vatican Council, were anti-Infallibilists ; and that popular Cate- 
 chisms of the Koman Church, extensively used till 1870, expressly de- 
 nied the doctrine, which is now set up as an article of faith necessary 
 to eternal salvation.^ 
 
 Pcipal Infallihility and the Bible. 
 
 The Old Testament gives no tangible aid to the Infallibilists. The 
 Jewish Church existed as a divine institution, and served all its pur- 
 poses, from Abraham to John the Baptist, without an infallible tribu- 
 nal in Jerusalem, save the written law and testimony, made effective 
 from time to time by the living voice of inspired prophecy. Pious Israel- 
 ites found in the Scriptures the way of life, notwithstanding the con- 
 tradictory interpretations of rabbinical schools and carnal perversions 
 of Messianic prophecies, fostered by a corrupt hierarchy. The Urim 
 
 * So Overberg's ^afecAismtts, III. Hauptstuck, Fr. 349: ^Miissen loir auck glauben, dass 
 derPapst unfehlhar ist? Neix, dies ist kein Glaubexsartikel.' Keenan's Controversial 
 Catechism, in the editions before 1871, declared Papal Inf.illibilitv to be 'a Protestant inr 
 vention.' The Irish Bishops — Doyle, Murray, Kelly— affirmed under oath, before a Com- 
 mittee of the English Parliament in 1825, that the Papal authority is limited by Councils, 
 that it does not extend to civil affairs and the temporal rights of princes, and that Papal de- 
 crees are not binding on Catholics without the consent of the whole Church, either dispersed 
 or assembled in Council. See the original in the Appendix to Archbishop Kenrick's Con- 
 cio in Friedrich's Documenta, I. pp. 228-242. But the Irish Catholics, who almost believe 
 in the infallibility of their priests, can be very easily taught to believe in the infallibility of the 
 Pope. 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 103 
 
 and Thummim^ of the High-Priest has no doubt symbolical reference 
 to some kind of spiritual illumination or oracular consultation, but it 
 is of too uncertain interpretation to furnish an argument. 
 
 The passages of the New Testament which are used by Eoman di- 
 vines in support of the doctrine of Infallibility may be divided into 
 two classes : those which seem to favor the Episcopal or Galilean, and 
 those which are made to prove the Papal or Ultramontane theory. It 
 is characteristic that the Papal Infallibilists carefully avoid the former. 
 
 1. To the first class belong John xiv. 16 sq. ; xvi. 13-16, Avhere Christ 
 promises the Holy Ghost to his disciples that he may ' abide with them 
 forever,' teach them 'all things,' bring to their remembrance all he 
 had said to them,^ and guide them ' into the wliole truth ;' ^ John xx. 
 21 : 'As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you. . . . Receive ye 
 the Holy Ghost;'* Matt, xviii. 18: 'Whatever ye shall bind on earth 
 shall be bound in heaven,' etc. ; Matt, xxviii. 19, 20 : 'Go and disciple 
 all nations . . . and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of 
 the world.' 
 
 These passages, which are addressed to all Apostles alike, to doubt- 
 ing Thomas as well as to Peter, prove indeed the unbroken presence of 
 * Christ and the Holy Ghost in the Church to the end of time, which is one 
 of the most precious and glorious truths admitted by every true Chris- 
 tian. But, in the first place, the Church, which is here represented by 
 the Apostles, embraces all true believers, laymen as well as Bishops. 
 
 t 
 
 ' That is, on\o)fTiQ Kal d\f]'^sia, doctrina et uerj^as, Exod. xxviii. 15-30 ; Deiit, xxxiii. 8, 9 ; 
 1 Sam. xxviii. 6. The Urim and Thummim were inscribed on the garment of Aaron. Some 
 interpreters identify them with the twelve stones on which the names of the ti'ibes of Israel 
 were engraved ; others regard them as a plate of gold with the cacred name of Jehovah ; 
 still others as polished diamonds, in form like dice, which, being thrown on the table or Ark 
 of the Covenant, were consulted as an oracle. See the able article of Plumptre, in Smith's 
 Bible Dictionary, Vol. IV. pp. 335 S sqq. (Am. ed.). 
 
 ^ The TravTa implies a strong argument for the completeness of Christ's revelation in the 
 New Testament against the Romish doctrine of addition. 
 
 ^ The phrase e(q Trjv dXij^sLav iraaav (John xvi. 13), or, according to another reading, Iv 
 Ty dXriSreigi ttcwij (test. rec. tiq rrdaav rrjv dXq^tiav), expresses the truth as taught by Christ 
 in its completeness — the whole truth — and proves likewise the sufficiency of the Scriptures. 
 The A. V. and its predecessors (' into all truth '), also Luther (in alle Wahrheit, instead of 
 die ganze or voile Wahrheit), miss the true sense by omitting the article, and conveying the 
 false Idea that the Holy Ghost would impart to all the apostles a kind of omniscience. Comp. 
 my annotations to Lange's John on the passages (pp. 415, 478, etc.). 
 
 * Literally : ' Receive Holy Spirit' — \d(3tre irvtv^a uyiov. The absence of the article may 
 indicate a partial or preparatory inspiration as distinct from the full Pentecostal effusion. 
 
104 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 Secondly, the promise of Christ's presence implies no infallibility, for 
 the same promise is given even to the smallest number of true believ- 
 ers (Matt, xviii. 20). Thirdly, if the passages prove infallibility at all, 
 they would prove individual infallibility by continued inspiration rather 
 than corporate infallibility by official succession; for every Apostle 
 was inspired, and so far infallible; and this no Roman Catholic Bishop, 
 though claiming to be a successor of the Apostles, pretends to be. 
 
 2. The passages quoted by the advocates of the Papal theory are 
 three, viz., Luke xxii. 31 ; Matt. xvi. 18 ; John xxi. 15.^ 
 
 We admit, at the outset, that these passages in their obvious meaning, 
 which is confirmed by the history of the Apostolic Church, assign to 
 Peter a certain primacy among the Apostles : he was the leader and 
 spokesman of them, and the chief agent of Christ in laying the foun- 
 dations of his Church among the Jews and the Gentiles. This is signifi- 
 cantly prophesied in the new name of Peter given to him. The his- 
 tory of Pentecost (Acts ii.) and the conversion of Cornelius (Acts x.) 
 are the fulfillment of this prophecy, and furnish the key to the inter- 
 pretation of the passages in the Gospels. 
 
 This is the truth which underlies the colossal lie of the Papacy. For 
 there is no Romish error which does not derive its life and force from * 
 some truth.2 But beyond this w^e have no right to go. Tlie position 
 which Peter occupied no one can occupy after him. The foundation 
 of the Church, once laid, is laid for all time to come, and the gates of 
 Hades can not prevail against it. The New Testament is its own best 
 interpreter. It shows no single example of an exercise of jurisdiction 
 of Peter over the other Apostles, but the very reverse. He himself, in 
 his Epistles, disowns and prophetically warns his fellow-presbyters 
 against the hierarchical spirit; exhorting them, instead of being lords 
 over God's heritage, to be ensamples to his flock (1 Pet. v. 1-4). Paul 
 and John were perfectly independent of him, as the Acts and Epistles 
 prove. Paul even openly administered to him a rebuke at Antioch.^ 
 
 * Perrone and the Vatican decree on Infallibility confine themselves to these passages. 
 
 'Augustine says somewhere: *■ Nulla falsa doctrina est, quce non aliquid veri permi- 
 sceat,^ 
 
 ' This fact is so obnoxious to Papists that some of them doubt or deny that the Cephas 
 of Galatians ii. 11 was the Apostle Peter, although the New 'J'estament knows no other. So 
 Perrone, who also asserts, from his own preconceived theory, not from the text, that Paul 
 withstood Peter from respectful love as an inferior to a superior, but not as a superior to an 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 105 
 
 At the Council of Jerusalem James seems to have presided, at all 
 events he proposed the compromise which wsls adopted by the Apos- 
 tleSj Elders, and Brethren ; Peter was indeed one of the leading speakers, 
 but he significantly advocated the truly evangelical principle of salva- 
 tion by faith alone, and protested against human bondage (Acts xv. ; 
 comp. Gal. ii.). 
 
 The great error of the Papacy is that -it perverts a primacy of honor 
 into a supremacy of jurisdiction, a personal privilege into an official 
 prerogative, and a priority of time into a permanent superiority of 
 rank. And to make the above passages at all available for such pur- 
 pose, it must take for granted, as intervening links of the argument, 
 that which can not be proved from the New Testament nor from his- 
 tory, viz., that Peter was Bishop of Rome ; that he w^as there as Paul's 
 superior ; that he appointed a successor, and transferred to him his pre- 
 rogatives. 
 
 As to the passages separately considered, Matt, xvi., * Thou art rock,' 
 and John xxi., ^ Feed my flock,' could at best only prove Papal abso- 
 lutism, but not Papal Infallibility, of which they do not treat.^ The 
 former teaches the indestructibility of the Church in its totality (not of 
 any individual congregation), but this is a different idea. The Council 
 of Trent lays down ' tlie unanimous consent of the Fathers' as the norm 
 and rule of all orthodox interpretation, as if exegetical w^isdom had 
 begun and ended with the divines of the first six centuries. But of 
 the passage Matt, xvi., which is more frequently quoted by Popes and 
 Papists than any other passage in the Bible, there are no less than five 
 different patristic interpretations ; the rock on which Christ built his 
 Church being referred to Christ by sixteen Fathers (including Augus- 
 tine); to the faith or confession of Peter by forty-four (including 
 Chrysostom, Ambrose, Hilary, Jerome, and Augustine again) ; to Peter 
 professing the faith by seventeen ; to all the Aj)ostles, whom Peter 
 represented by his primacy, by eight ; to all the faithful, who, believ- 
 ing in Christ as the Son of God, are constituted the living stones of the 
 
 inferior ! Let any Bishop try the same experiment against the Pope, and he ^yill soon be 
 sent to perdition. 
 
 * For a full discussion of ITerjOoc and Trirpa, see my edition of Lange's Comm. on Matt. xvi. 
 18, pp. 203 sqq. ; and on the Komish perversion of the (Soctksiv and Troifxaiveiv rd dpviof 
 irpojiitTa and TrpofSdna into a KUTaKvpimiv, and even withdrawal of nourishment, see my ed. 
 of Lange on John, pp. 638 sqq. 
 
106 HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 Ghurch.i But not one of the Fathers finds Fapal Infallibility in this 
 passage, nor in John xxi. The ^unanimous consent of the Fathers' 
 is a pure fiction, except in the most general and fundamental prin- 
 ciples held by all Christians; and not to interpret the Bible except 
 according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, would strictly 
 mean not to intei'pret it at all.^ 
 
 There remains, then, only the passage recorded by Luke (xxii. 31, 32) 
 as at all bearing on the disputed question : 'Simon, Simon, behold, Satan 
 desired to have you (or, obtained you by asking), tliat he may sift you 
 as wheat ; but I prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not ; and thou, when 
 once thou art converted (or, hast turned again), strengthen tliy breth- 
 ren/ But even this does not prove infallibility, and has not been so 
 understood before Popes Leo I. and Agatho. For (1) the passage re- 
 fers, as the context shows, to the peculiar personal history of Peter 
 during the dark hour of passion, and is both a warning and a comfort 
 to him. So it is explained by the Fathers, who frequently quote it. 
 (2) Faith here, as nearly always in the Kew Testament, means personal 
 trust in, and attachment to, Christ, and not, as the Romish Church mis- 
 interprets it, orthodoxy, or intellectual assent to dogmas. (3) If the pas- 
 sage refers to the Popes at all, it would prove too much for them, viz., 
 that they, like Peter, denied the Saviour, were converted again, and 
 strengthened their brethren — which may be true enough of some, but 
 certainly not of all.^ 
 
 The constant appeal of the Roman Church to Peter suggests a sig- 
 nificant parallel. There is a spiritual Peter and a carnal Simon, wlio 
 
 * This patristic dissensus was brought out during the Council in the Questio distributed 
 by Bishop Ketteler with all the proofs ; see Friedrich, Docum., I. pp. 6 sqq. Kenrick in his 
 gpeech makes use of it. Comp. also my annotations to Lange's Comm. on Mattheiv in loco. 
 
 ' Even Kenrick confesses that it is doubtful whether any instance of that unanimous con^ 
 sent can be found (in his Concio, seeFriedr. Docum.. I. p. 195) : ^ Regula interpetrandi Scripturas 
 nobis imposita^ hcec est: eas contra unanimein Patrum consensum non interpetrari. Si un- 
 qnam detur consensus iste unanimis dubitari possit. £o tamen dejiciente^ regida ista videtur 
 7iobis legem iinponere rnajorem, qui ad unanimitatem accedere videretur, patrum numerum, in 
 suis Scripturce interpretationibus sequendi/ 
 
 ' This logical inference is also noticed by Archbishop Kenrick (Concioj in Friedrich 's 
 Docum. I. p. 200) : '■Prceterea singula verba in ista Christi ad Petrum allocutione de Petri 
 successoribus intelligi nequeunt, quin aliquid maxime absurdi exinde sequi videretur. " Tu 
 fiutem conversus" respiciunt certe conversionem Petri. Si prior a verba ; ^^orari pro te" et 
 posteriora: '■'' con firma fr aires tuos,'* ad successores Petri ccele'stem vim, et munus transiisse 
 probent, non videtur quarenam intermedia verba: ''''tu autem conversus,^^ ad eos etiam pertinerey 
 tt aliquali senau de eis intelligi, non debeant. ' 
 
HISTORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 107 
 
 are separated, indeed, by regeneration, yet, after all, not so completely 
 that the old nature does not occasionally re-appear in the new man. 
 
 It was the spiritual Peter who forsook all to follow Christ ; who first 
 confessed him as the Son of God, and hence was called Eock ; who after 
 his terrible fall wept bitterly; was re-instated and intrusted with the care 
 of Christ's sheep ; who on the birthday of the Church preached the first 
 missionary sermon, and gathered in the three thousand converts ; -who 
 in the Apostles' Council protested against the narrow bigotry of the 
 Judaizers, and stood up with Paul for the principle of salvation by 
 grace alone through faith in Christ; who, in his Epistles, warns all 
 ministers against hierarchical pride, and exhibits a wonderful meek- 
 ness, gentleness, and humility of spirit, showing that divine grace had 
 overruled and sanctified to him even his fall; and who followed at 
 last his Master to the cross of martyrdom. 
 
 It was the carnal Simon who presumed to divert his Lord from the 
 path of suffering, and drew on him the rebuke, ^ Get thee behind me, 
 Satan ; thou art a stumbling-block unto me, for thou mindest not the 
 things of God, but the things of men ;' the Simon, who in mistaken zeal 
 used the sword and cut off the ear of Malchus ; who proudly boasted 
 of his unswerving fidelity to his Master, and yet a few hours afterwards 
 denied him thrice before a servant- woman ; who even after the Pente- 
 costal illumination was overcome by his natural weakness, and, from 
 policy or fear of the Judaizing party, was untrue to his better convic- 
 tion, so as to draw on him the public rebuke of the younger Apostle 
 of the Gentiles- The Romish legend of Domine quo vadis makes him 
 relapse into his inconstancy even a day before his martyrdom, and 
 memorializes it in a chapel outside of Rome. 
 
 The reader may judge whether the history of the Popes reflects more 
 the character of the spiritual Peter or the carnal Simon. If the Apos- 
 tolic Church prophetically anticipates and foreshadows the whole 
 course of Christian history, the temporary collision of Peter, the Apos- 
 tle of the circumcision, and Paul, the Apostle of the uncircumcision, 
 at Antioch, is a significant type of the antagonism between Romanism ' 
 and Protestantism, between the Church of the binding law and the 
 Church of the free gospel. 
 
\ K « A ny* 
 .I'/ER8ITT 
 
 SYLLABUS ERRORUM. 
 
 [The Papal Syllabus of Eekoks. A.D. 1864.] 
 
 [This document, though issued by the sole authority of Pope Pius IX., Dec. 8, 1864, must he regarded 
 now as infallible and iireformable, even without the formal sanction of the Vatican Council. It is 
 purely negative, but indirectly it teaches and enjoins the very opposite of what it condemns as error.] 
 
 Syllabus complectens jprcecijouos j The Syllabus of the jprincipal er- 
 nostroB cetatis Errores qui notaii- \ rors of our time, which are stig- 
 tur in Allocutionibus Consisto- 
 
 rialibus, in Encyclicis, aliisque 
 Ajpostolicis Letteris Sanctissimi 
 Domini JVostri Pii PajxB IX. 
 
 § I. — PANTHEISMUS, NATUEALISMUS 
 ET EATIONALISMUS ABSOLUTUS. 
 
 1. Nullum su^remum, sajpien- 
 tissimum, jprovidentissimwnque 
 Numen divinum exsistit ab hac 
 reriim universitate distinctum, 
 et Dens idem est ac rerum na- 
 tura et iccirco immutationibus 
 obnoxius, Deusque reajpse fit in 
 homine et mundo, atque omnia 
 Deus stent et ijpsissimam Dei 
 habent substantiam ; ac %ina ea- 
 dentque res est Deus ciwi mun- 
 do, et jproinde sjpiritus own ma- 
 teria, necessitas cum libertate, 
 'veruni cum falso, bonum cum 
 malo, et justum cum injusto. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima qnidem 9 junii 18G2. | 
 
 2. Necjanda est oinnis Dei ac-\ 
 tio in homines et mundicm. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidern 9 junii 1862. 
 
 3. Humana ratio, nidlo jpror 
 
 matized in the Consistorial Al- 
 locutions, Encyclicals, and other 
 Apostolical Letters of our Most 
 Holy Father, Pojpe Pius IX. 
 
 § I. — PANTHEISM, NATURALISM, AND 
 ABSOLUTE RATIONALISM. 
 
 1. There exists no supreme, most 
 wise, and most provident divine 
 being distinct from the universe, 
 and God is none otlier than na- 
 ture, and is therefore subject to 
 change. In effect, God is pro- 
 duced in man and in the world, 
 and all things are God, and have 
 the very substance of God. God 
 is therefore one and the same thing 
 with the world, and thence spirit 
 is the same thing with matter, ne- 
 cessity with liberty, true with false, 
 good with evil, justice with injus- 
 tice. 
 
 Allocution Maxima quidem, 9th June, 1 862. 
 
 2. All action of God upon man 
 and the world is to be denied. 
 
 Allocution Maxima quidem, 9th June, 1 802. 
 
 3. Human reason, without any 
 
110 
 
 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OfI ERRORS. 
 
 sus Dei resjpectu hahito, unicus 
 est veri et falsi, boni et mail 
 arbiter, sibi ipsi est lex et natii- 
 ralibus stiis virihus ad hominum 
 ae j?qpulorum bonum curanditm 
 s^ifficit. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 4. Omnes religionis veritates 
 ex nativa humance rationis vi 
 derivant; hinc ratio est prin- 
 cess norma, qua homo cognotio- 
 nem omnium cujuscumque ge- 
 neris veritatum asseqtd jpossit 
 ac debeat. 
 
 Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus 9 novembris 
 1846. 
 
 Epist. encjcl. Singulari quidem 17 martii 
 1856. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 6. Divina revelatio est imper- 
 fecta et iccirco subjecta conti- 
 nuo et indefinito progressui, qui 
 humanoB rationis jprogressioni re- 
 spondeat. 
 
 Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus 9 novembris 
 18^6. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 6. Christi fides humaiioi refra- 
 gatur rationi; divinaque reve- 
 latio non solum, nihil prodest, 
 verum etiam , nocet hominis per- 
 fectioni. 
 
 Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus 9 novembris 
 1846. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 7. Provhetice et miracula iii 
 
 regard ti God, is the sole arbiter of 
 truth arid falsehood, of good and 
 evil ; it is its own law to itself, and 
 suffices by its natural force to se- 
 cure the welfare of men and of 
 nations. 
 
 Allocution Maxima quidem, 9th June, 1 862. 
 
 4. All the truths of religion are 
 derived from the native strengtli 
 of human reason; whence reason 
 is the master rule by which man 
 can and ought to arrive at the 
 knowledge of all truths of every 
 kind. 
 
 Encyclical Letters, Qui pluribus, 9th No- 
 vember, 1846. 
 
 Encyclical Letters, Singulari quidem, 17ih 
 March, 1856. 
 
 Allocution Maxima quidem, 9th June, 1862. 
 
 5. Divine revelation is imperfect, 
 and, therefore, subject to a contin- 
 ual and indefinite pi'ogress, which 
 corresponds with the progress of 
 human reason. 
 
 Encyclical Letters, Qui pluribus, 9th No- 
 vember, 1846. 
 
 Allocution Maxima quidem, 9th June, 1862. 
 
 6. Christian faith contradicts 
 human reason, and divine revela- 
 tion not only does not benefit, but 
 even injures the perfection of 
 man. 
 
 Encyclical Letters, Qui pluribus, 9th No- 
 vember, 1846. 
 
 Allocution ilfaxtTTja quidem., 9th June, 1862. 
 
 7. The prophecies and miracles 
 
THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Sacris Litteris exjoosita et narra- 
 ta sunt jpoetarum commenta, et 
 Christiance fidei mysteria jphilo- 
 sojpMcariiin investigatioymin sum- 
 ma ; et utriusque Testamenti 
 lihris mythica continentur in- 
 venta ; ipseque Jesus Christus 
 est mytliica fictio. 
 
 Epist. encycl. Ciid pluribus 9 novembris 
 1846. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidevi 9 junii 1862. 
 
 II. — EATIONALISMUS MODEEATUS. 
 
 8. Quum ratio humana ipsi 
 religioni cequijparetur, iccirco the- 
 ological disci/plince ^erinde ac phi- 
 losophiae tractaiidoe sunt. 
 
 Alloc. Singulari quadam perfusi 9 de- 
 cembris 1854. 
 
 9. Omnia indiscriminatim do- 
 gmata religionis Christiance stmt 
 objectwm naturalis scientioe seu 
 jphilosojphi(E ; et humana ratio 
 historice tantum exculta potest 
 ex suis naturalibus viinbus et 
 principiis ad veram de omnibus 
 etiam reconditioribus dogmatibus 
 scientiam pervenir^e, modo ha^c 
 dogmata ipsi rationi tamquam 
 objeotum proposita fiierint. 
 
 Epist. ad Archiep. I rising. Gravissimas 
 11 decembris 1862. 
 
 Epist. ad eumdem Tuas libenter 21 de- 
 cembris 1863. 
 
 10. Quum aliud sit philoso- 
 phus, aliud philosophia, ille jus 
 
 set forth and narrated in the Sa- 
 cred Scriptures are the fictions of po- 
 ets ; and the mysteries of the Chris- 
 tian faith are the result of philo- 
 sophical investigations. In the books 
 of both Testaments there are contain- 
 ed mythical inventions, and Jesus 
 Christ is him.self a mythical fiction. 
 
 Encyclical Letters, Qui pluribus, 9th No- 
 vember, 1846. 
 
 Allocution Jiaxma quldcm, 9th June, 1862. 
 
 § II. — MODERN KATIONALISM. 
 
 8. As human reason is placed on 
 a level with religion, so theological 
 matters must be treated in the same 
 manner as philosophical ones. 
 
 Allocution Singulari quadam perfusi, 9th 
 December, 1854. 
 
 9. All the dogmas of the Chris- 
 tian religion are, without excep- 
 tion, the object of scientific knowl- 
 edge or philosophy, and human 
 reason, instructed solely by his- 
 tory, is able, by its own natural 
 strength and principles, to arrive 
 at the true knowledge of even 
 the most abstruse dogmas: pro- 
 vided such dogmas be proposed as 
 subject-matter for human reason. 
 
 Letter ad Archiep. Frising. Gravissimas, 
 11th December, 1862. 
 
 To the same, Tuas libenter, 21st Deceja- 
 ber, 1863. 
 
 10. As the philosopher is one 
 thing, and philosopiiy is another, so 
 
112 
 
 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 et officiuin liabet se suhmittendi 
 auctoritatij quarn veram ijpse 
 jprohaverit ; at jphilosojpliia ne- 
 que jpotest^ neque debet ulli sese 
 siibmittere auctoritati. 
 
 Epist. ad Archiep. Erising. Gravissimas 
 H decembvis 1862. 
 
 Epist. ad eumdem Tuas libenter 21 de- 
 cembris 1803. 
 
 11. Ecclesia non solum 7ion 
 debet in 2^J^'^^oso2)hiam unqimm 
 animadvertere, veruin etiam de- 
 bet ipsius philosophicB tolerare 
 errores, eique relinquere ut ipsa 
 se corrigat. 
 
 Epist. ad Archiep. Erising. Gravissimas 
 11 decembris 1862. 
 
 12. ApostoliecB Sedis, Bomana- 
 rumqxie Congregatiomim deer eta 
 liber um scientice progressum im- 
 pediunt. 
 
 Epist. ad Archiep. Erising. Tuas libenter 
 «l decembris 1863. 
 
 13. Methodus etprincipia, quibus 
 antiqui Doctores scholastici Theo- 
 logiam excoluerunt, temporitm nos- 
 troriim necessitatibus scientiaru7)i- 
 que progressui minim e congriiunt. 
 
 Epist. ad Archiep. Erising. Tuas libenter 
 21 decembris 1863. 
 
 14. PhllosopJiia tractanda est^ 
 nulla supernaturalis revelationis 
 habita ratione, 
 
 Epist. ad Archiep. Erising. 7 was libenter 
 21 decembris 1863. 
 
 N.B. —Cwm rationalismi systemate cohoe- 
 
 it is the right and duty of the philos- 
 opher to submit to the authority 
 which lie shall have recognized as 
 true ; but philosophy neither can nor 
 ought to submit to any authority. 
 
 Letter ad Archiep. Prising. Gravissimas, 
 11th December, 1802. 
 
 To the same, Tuas libenter, 21st Decem- 
 ber, 1863. 
 
 11. The Church not only ought 
 never to animadvert upon philoso- 
 phy, but ought to tolerate the er- 
 rors of philosophy, leaving to phi- 
 losophy the care of their correc- 
 tion. 
 
 ' T>etter ad Archiep. Frisiiig. Gravissimas, 
 11th December, 1862. 
 
 12. The decrees of the Apostolic 
 See and of the Roman Congrega- 
 tions fetter the free progress of 
 science. 
 
 Letter ad Archiep. Frising. Tuas libenter, 
 21st December, 1803. 
 
 13. The method raid principles 
 by which the old scliolastic doctors 
 cultivated theology are no longer 
 suitable to the demands of the age 
 and tlie progress of science. 
 
 Letter rtc?^lrc//te/). Frising. Tuas libenter, 
 21st December, 180g. 
 
 14. Philosophy must be treated 
 of without any account being taken 
 of supernatural revelation. 
 
 Epist. ad Archie}). Frising. Tuas libenter, 
 21st December, 1863. 
 
 N. B. — To the rationalistic system belong, 
 
THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 113 
 
 rent maximam partem errores Antonii Gun- 
 ther, qui damnantur in Epist. ad Card. Ar- 
 chiep. Coloniensem Eximiam tuam 15 junii 
 1857, et in Epist. ad Episc. Wratislaviensem 
 Dolore baud mediocri 30 aprilis 1860. 
 
 §111. INDIFFERENTISMUS, LATITTT- 
 
 DINAIJISMUS. 
 
 15. Liber wn cuique homini est 
 eavi arrvplecti ac jprojiteri reli- 
 gionem, qxiam rationis lumine 
 quis ductus veram putaverit. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Multiplices inter 10 junii 
 1851. 
 
 Alloc, Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 16. Homines in cujxisvis religio- 
 nis cultu viam ceternce salutis re- 
 perire oeternamqiie salutem asse- 
 qui jpossunt. 
 
 Epist. encycl. dui plurihus 9 novembris 
 1846. 
 
 Alloc. XJhi primum 17 decembris 1847. 
 
 Epist. encycl. Singulari quidem 17 martii 
 1856. 
 
 17. Saltern bene speranditm est 
 de oeterna illoruin omnium salute^ 
 qui in vera Christi Ecclesia ne- 
 quaquam versantur. 
 
 Alloc. Singulari quadam 9 decembris 
 1854. 
 
 Epist. encycl. Qmnto conjiciamur 17 au- 
 gustii 1863. 
 
 18. Protestantismus non aliud 
 est quam diversa verce, ejusdem 
 Christianoe religionis forma, in 
 qua ceque ao in Ecclesia Ca- 
 
 in great part, the errors of Anthony GUnther, 
 condemned in the letter to the Cardinal Arch- 
 bishop of Cologne, Eximiam tuam, June 15, 
 1857, and in that to the Bishop of Breslau, 
 Dolore haud mediocri, April 30, 1860. 
 
 § III. — INDIFFEEENTISM, LATTTUDI- 
 NAEIANISM. 
 
 15. Every man is free to em- »> 
 brace and profess the religion he ' 
 shall believe true, guided by the 
 light of reason. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Multiplices inter, 10th 
 June, 1851. 
 
 Allocution ilifaarma quidem, 9th June, 1862. 
 
 16. Men may*in any religion .v 
 find the way of eternal salva- • 
 tion, and obtain eternal salva- 
 tion. 
 
 Encyclical Letters, Qui pluribus, 9th No- 
 vember, 1846. 
 
 Allocution Ubi primum, 17th December, 
 1847. 
 
 Encyclical Letters, Singulari quidem, 17th 
 March, 1856. 
 
 17. We may entertain at least a 
 well-founded hope for the eternal i 
 salvation of all those who are in } 
 no manner in the true Church of 
 Christ. ■ 
 
 Allocution Singulari quadam, 9th Decem- 
 ber, 1854. 
 
 Encyclical Letters, Quanto conjiciamur, 
 17th August, 1863. 
 
 18. Protestantism is nothing 
 more than another form' of the AM 
 same true Christian religion, in j ' 
 which it is possible to be equally 
 
114 
 
 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 tholica Deo jplacere datum 
 est. 
 
 Epist. encycl. Noscifis et Nobiscum 8 de- 
 cembris 1849. 
 
 § IV. — SOCIALISMUS, COMMUNISMIJS, 
 SOCIETATES CLANDESTINE, SOCIE- 
 TATES BIBLICE, BOCIETATES CLE- 
 KICO-LIBEEALES. 
 
 Ejusmodi jpestes scBjpe gravis- 
 simisque verhorum foninxdis re- 
 ^rohantur in Ejpist. encycl. Qui 
 pluribns 9 novemhr. 1846 ; in Al- 
 loc. Quibns quantisqne 20 a^ril. 
 1849 ; in Epist. encycl. Noscitis et 
 Nobiscum 8 dec. 1849; in Alloc. 
 Singulari quadam 9 dec. 1854 ; in 
 Epist. encycl. Quauto conficiamiir 
 moerore 10 augusti 1863. 
 
 § Y. — ERROKES DE ECCLESIA EJU.S- 
 QUE JURIBXJS. 
 
 19. Ecclesia non est vera jper- 
 fectaque societas plane libera, 
 nee jpollet suis jpropriis et con- 
 stantihus jurihus sihi a divino 
 suo fundatore collatis, sed civi- 
 lis jpotestatis est definlre qucB 
 sint EcclesicB jura ac Ihnites, 
 intra quos eadem jura exercere 
 queat. 
 
 Alloc. Singulari quadam 9 decembris 
 1854. 
 
 Alloc. Multis gravihusque 17 decembris 
 1860. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 20. Ecclesiastica jpotestas suam 
 
 pleasing to God as in the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 Encyclical Letters, Noscitis et Nobiscum, 
 8th December, 1849. 
 
 § IV. — SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM, SE- 
 CRET SOCIETIES, BIBLICAL SOCIE- 
 TIES, CLERICO-LIBERAL SOCIE- 
 TIES. 
 
 Pests of this description are fre- 
 quently rebuked in the severest 
 terms in the Encjc. Qtci pluri- 
 bus, Nov. 9, 1846; Alloc. Quibus 
 quantisqne, April 20, 1849; En- 
 cyc. IToscitis et Nobiscxim, Dec. 
 8, 1849; Alloc. Singulari qua- 
 dam, Dec. 9, 1854; Encyc. Quan- 
 to conficiamur inoerore, Aug. 10, 
 1863. 
 
 § (Y:^^ ERRORS CONCERNING THE 
 CHURCH AND HER EIGHTS. 
 
 19l The Church is not a true, and 
 perfect, and entirely free society, 
 nor does she enjoy peculiar and per- 
 petual rights conferred upon her by 
 her Divine Founder, but it apper- 
 tains to the civil power to define 
 what are the rights and limits with 
 which the tDliurch may exercise au- 
 thority. 
 
 Allocution Siiigidari quadam, 9th Decem- 
 ber, 1854. 
 
 Allocution Multis gravibusque, 17th De- 
 cember, 18G0. 
 
 Allocution Maxima quidem, 9th June, 1862. 
 
 20. The ecclesiastical power must 
 
THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 115 
 
 auctGritaiem exercere non debet 
 absqiLe civilis gubernii venia et 
 assensu. 
 
 Alloc. Meminit unusquisque 30 septembris 
 1861. 
 
 21. Ecclesia non hahet potesta- 
 tem dogmatice definiendi^ religio- 
 nem Caiholicm EcclesicB esse unice 
 veram religionem. 
 
 Litt. Apost. MultipUces inter 10 junii 
 1851. 
 
 22. Ohligatio, qua Catholici 
 magistri et scrijptores omnino ad- 
 stringuntur^ coarctatur in iistan- 
 tum, qiice ah infallihili EcclesicG 
 judicio veluti fidei dogmata ah 
 omnibus credenda projponuntur. 
 
 Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Tuas lihenter 
 21 decembris 1863. 
 
 23. Bomani Pontifices et Con- 
 cilia cecicmenica a limitihus suce 
 jpotestatis recesserunt^ jura prin- 
 eipum usiirparimt^ atgue etiam 
 in rebus fidei et morum definien- 
 dis errarunt. 
 
 Litt. Apost. MultipUces inter 10 junii 
 1851. 
 
 24. Ecclesia vis inferendoe pote- 
 statem. non habet, negue potesta- 
 tern nllam temporalem directam 
 vel indirectam, 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicce 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 25. ProBter potestatem Episco- 
 patui inhcerentem', alia est at- 
 tributa temporalis potestas a ci- 
 
 not exercise its authority without 
 the permission and assent of the 
 civil government. 
 
 Allocution Meminit unusquisque^ 30th Sep- 
 tember, 1861. 
 
 21. The Church has not the 
 power of defining dogmatically 
 that the religion of the Catholic 
 Church is the only true religion. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, MultipUces inter, lOth 
 June, 1851. 
 
 , 22.,The obligation which binds 
 Catholic teachers and authors ap- 
 plies only to those things which are 
 proposed for universal belief as 
 dogmas of the faith, by the infal- 
 lible judgment of the Church. 
 
 Ijetter ad Archiep. Frising. , Tuas libsnter, 
 21st December, 1863. 
 
 23. The Koman Pontiffs and 
 oecumenical Councils have exceed- 
 ed the limits of their power, have 
 usurped the rights of princes, and 
 have even committed errors in de- 
 fining matters of faith and morals. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, MultipUces inter, 10th 
 June, 1851. 
 
 (24.) The Church has not the 
 power of availing herself of force, 
 or any direct or indirect temporal 
 power. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostolicce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 25. In addition to the authority 
 inherent in the Episcopate, a fiir- 
 tlier and temporal power is granted 
 
116 
 
 THE PA]?AL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 vili imjperio vel expresse vel ta- 
 cite concessa, revocanda projpte- 
 rea, cum libiierit, a civili im- 
 ^erio. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicoe. 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 26. Ecclesia non habet nativum 
 ac legitimum jus acquirendi ac 
 jpossidendi. 
 
 Alloc. Nunquamfore 15 decembns 1856. 
 Epist. encycl. Incredihili 17 septembris 
 1863. 
 
 27. Sacri Ecclesice ministri Bo 
 mamtsque Pontifex ah omni re- 
 rum tenvporalium cura ac domi- 
 nio sunt omnino excludendi. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 28. EjpisGOjpis, sine gubernii 
 venia, fas non est vel ipsas 
 apostolicas litteras jpromul- 
 gare. 
 
 Alloc. Nunquam fore 15 decembris 1856. 
 
 29. Gratice a Bomano Ponti- 
 fice concessx existimari debent 
 tamquam irritce, nisi jper guber- 
 n iuni fuerint imjploratcB. 
 
 Alloc. Nunquamfore 15 decembris 1856. 
 
 30. Ecclesioe et personarum ec- 
 clesiasticarum immunitas a jure 
 civili ortum hdbuit. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Muhiplices inter 10 junii 
 1851. 
 
 31. EccUsiasticura forum pro 
 temjporalibus clericorum causis 
 sive civilibus sive criminalibus 
 omnino de medio tollendum est, 
 
 to it by the civil authority, either 
 expressly or tacitly, which power is 
 on that account also revocablehy the 
 civil authority whenever it jDleases. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostolicoe, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 26. The Church has not the in- 
 nate and legitimate right of acquis 
 sition and possession. 
 
 Allocution Nunquamfore, loth Dec, 1856. 
 Encyclical Letters, Incredihili, 17th Sep- 
 tember, 1863. 
 
 27. The ministers of the Church, 
 and the Eoman Pontiff, ought to be 
 absolutely excluded from all charge 
 and dominion over temporal affaii:s. 
 
 Allocution Maxima quidem, 9th June, 1862. 
 
 28. Bishops have not the right of 
 promulgating even their apostolical 
 letters, without the permission of 
 the government. 
 
 Allocution iVwBj«a»i /ore, 15th Dec, 1856. 
 
 29. Dispensations granted by the 
 Roman Pontiff must be considered 
 null, unless they have been asked 
 for by the civil government. 
 
 Allocution iVMwjMam/ore, 15th Dec, 1856. 
 
 30. The immunity of the Churcli 
 and of ecclesiastical persons derives 
 its origin from civil law. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Multiplices inter, 10th 
 June, 1851. 
 
 31. Ecclesiastical courts for tem- 
 poral causes, of the clergy, whether 
 civil or criminal, ought by all means 
 to be abolished, either without the 
 
THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 117 
 
 etiam inconsulta et reclamante 
 ApostoUca Sede. 
 
 Alloc. Acerhissimum 27 septembris 
 1852. 
 
 Alloc. Nunquam fore 15 decembris 
 1856. 
 
 32. Absque ulla naturalis juris 
 et cequitatis violatione jpotest ah- 
 rogari jpersonalis immunitas^ qua 
 clerici ah onere subeundce exercen- 
 dceque militioe eximuntur ; hanc 
 vero dbrogationein jpostulat civilis 
 jprogressus maxime in societate 
 ad formam liherioris regiminis 
 constituta. 
 
 Epist. ad Epistc. Montisregal. Singularis 
 Nohisque 29 septembris 1864. 
 
 33. I^on jpei'tinet wiice ad ec- 
 clesiastical jurisdictionis pote- 
 statem jprojprio ac nativo jure 
 dirigere theologicarum rerum 
 doctrinam. 
 
 Epist. ad Archiep. Erising. Tua& Uhenter 
 21 decembris 1863. 
 
 34. • Doctrina eom/parantium 
 Itomanwn Pontificem jprincijpi 
 lihero et agenti in universa Ec- 
 clesia doctrina est quae, medio oevo 
 jprcEvahiit. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicce 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 35. Nihil vetat, alicujus con- 
 cilii generalis sententia aut uni- 
 versorum jpojpulorum facto, sum- 
 mum Pontificatum ah Romano 
 Episcojpo atque Urhe ad alium 
 
 concurrence and against the pro- 
 test of the Holy See. 
 
 Allocution Acerhissimum, 27th September, 
 1852. 
 
 Allocution Nunquam fore, 15tli December, 
 1856. 
 
 32. The personal immunity exon- 
 erating the clergy from military 
 service may be abolished, with- 
 out violation either of natural 
 right or of equity. Its abolition 
 is called for by civil progress, 
 especially in a community consti- 
 tuted upon principles of liberal 
 government. 
 
 Letter to the Archbishop of Montreal, Sin- 
 gularis nohisque, 29th September, 1864. 
 
 33. It does not appertain exclu- 
 sively to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 
 by any right, proper and inherent, 
 to direct the teaching of theological 
 subjects. 
 
 Letter ad A rch iep. Frising. Tuas lihen ter, 
 21st December, 1863 
 
 34. The teaching of those wno 
 compare the sovereign Pontiff to a 
 free sovereign acting in the univer- 
 sal Church is a doctrine which pre- 
 vailed in the middle ages. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostolicce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 35. There would be no obstacle 
 to the sentence of a general coun- 
 cil, or the act of all the universal 
 peoples, transferring the pontifical 
 sovereignty from the Bishop and 
 
JNTV 
 118 
 
 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 Ejpiscopum aliamque civitatem, 
 transferri. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicce 22 augnsti 
 1851. 
 
 36. Nationalia consilii defiiiitio 
 nullam aliam admittit disputa- 
 tionem, civilisque administratio 
 rem ad hosce termmos exigere 
 jpotest. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostoUccB 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 37. Institui possunt nationales 
 Ecclesice ab auctoritate Roma- 
 ni Pontificis subductoe. jplaneque 
 
 divisor. 
 
 Alloc. Multis gravihusque 17 decembris 
 1860. 
 
 Alloc. Jamdudum cernitnus 18 martii 
 1861. 
 
 38. Divisiofii Ecclesice in ori- 
 entalem atque occidentalem nimia 
 RomanoTum Pontificum arbitria 
 contulerunt. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostoUcce 22 augusti 
 185L 
 
 § VI. — EEKOEES DE SOCIETATE CIVI- 
 LI TUM IN SE, TUM IN SUIS AD 
 ECCLESIAM RELATIONIBUS SPEC- 
 TATA. 
 
 39. ReijpuhliccB status, ut^ote 
 omnium jurium origo et fons, 
 jure quodam jpollet nullis circum- 
 scripto limitibus. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 40. Catholicce Ecclesia doctrina 
 
 City of Rome to some other bish- 
 opric and some other city. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostolicce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 36. The definition of a national 
 council does not admit of any sub- 
 sequent discussion, and the civil pow- 
 er can regard as settled an affair 
 decided by such national council. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostoUcce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 37. National churches can be 
 established, after being withdrawn 
 and plainly separated from the au- 
 thority of the Roman Pontiff. 
 
 Allocution Multis gravihusque, 17th De- 
 cember, 1860. 
 
 Allocution Jamdudum cernimus, 18th 
 March, 1861. 
 
 38. Roman Pontiffs have, by their 
 too arbitrary conduct, contributed 
 to the division of the Church into 
 eastern and western. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostoUcce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 § yi. — ERRORS ABOUT CIVIL SOCIE- 
 TY, C0NSIDEREI3 BOTH IN ITSELF 
 AND IN ITS RELATION TO THE 
 CHURCH. 
 
 39. The commonwealth is the 
 origin and source of all rights, and 
 possesses rights which are not cir- 
 cumscribed by any limits. 
 
 Allocution JI/axiTwa quidem, 9th June, 1862. 
 
 40. The teaching of the Catholic 
 
u 
 
 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF .ERRORS. 
 
 119 
 
 hamancB societatis hono et commo- 
 dis adversatur. 
 
 Epist. encycL Qui pluribus 9 novembris 
 1816. 
 
 Alloc. Quihus quantisque 20 aprilis 
 1849. 
 
 41. Civili jpotestati vel db in- 
 fideli imjperante exercitca com- 
 jpetit potestas indirecta nega- 
 tiva in sacra; eidem proinde 
 comjpetit nedum jus quod vocant 
 exequatur, sed etiam jus appel- 
 lationis, quam nuncitpa^it, ab 
 abusu. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostoltcce 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 42. I7i conflictu legum utrius- 
 que potestatis ju$ civile prceva- 
 let. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicce 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 43. Laica jpotestas auctorita- 
 tem hdbet rescindendi, declarandi 
 ac faciendi . irritas solemnes con- 
 ventiones {vulgo Concordata) su- 
 ])er usu jurium ad ecclesiasti- 
 cam immunitatem jpertinentium 
 cmn Sede Ajpostolica initas, si?ie 
 hujus consensic, immo et ea re- 
 clamante. 
 
 Alloc. In Consistoriali 1 novembris 1850. 
 Alloc. Multis gravihusque 17 decembris 
 1860. 
 
 44. Civilis auctoritas potest se 
 iminiscere rebus quce ad religio- 
 neni, inores et regimen spiritu- 
 
 Church is opposed to the well-being 
 and interests of society. 
 
 Enc}'clical Letters, Qui pluribus^ 9th No- 
 vember, 1846. 
 
 Allocution Quihus quantisque, 20th April, 
 1849. 
 
 41. The civil power, even when 
 exercised by an unbelieving sover- 
 eign, possesses an indirect and neg- 
 ative power over religious affairs. 
 It therefore possesses not only the 
 right called that of exequaticr, but 
 that of the (so-called) qppellatio 
 db abusu. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostoUcce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 42. In the case of conflicting 
 laws between the twO powers, the 
 civil law ought to prevail. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostolicce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 43. The civil power has a right 
 to break, and to declare and ren- 
 der null, the conventions (commonly 
 called Concordats) concluded with 
 the Apostolic See, relative to tlie' 
 use of rights appertaining to the 
 ecclesiastical immunity, without 
 the consent of the Holy See, and 
 even contrary to its protest. 
 
 Allocution In Consistoriali, 1st Nov., 1850. 
 Allocution Muhis gravibusque, 17th De- 
 cember, 1800. 
 
 44. The civil authority may in- 
 terfere in matters relating to re- 
 ligion, morality, and spiritual gov- 
 
120 
 
 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 ale jpertinent Hinc potest de 
 instructionibus judicare, quas 
 £cclesicB jpastores ad consdentia- 
 rum normavi jpro suo inunere 
 edunt^ quin etiam potest de di- 
 vinorum sacramentorum admi- 
 nistratione et dispositionibus ad 
 ea suscijpienda necessariis decer- 
 nere. 
 
 Alloc. In Consistoriali 1 novembris 1850. 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 45. Totum scholarum ^ublica- 
 rurri regimen^ in qiiibus juventus 
 Christianoe alicujus reijpublicoB 
 instituitur, ejpiscojpalihus dum- 
 taxat seminariis aliqua ratione 
 exc€j)tis, jpotest ac debet attribui 
 auctoritati civili, et ita quidem 
 attribui, xit nullam alii cuicum- 
 que auctoritati recognoscatitr jus 
 immiscendi se in discijplina scho- 
 lar um, in regimine studiorum, 
 in graduum collatione, in dilectu 
 aut ajpprohatione magistrorum. 
 
 Alloc. In Consistoriali 1 novembris 1850. 
 Alloc. Quibus luctuosissimis 5 septembris 
 1851. 
 
 46. Immo in ipsis clericorum 
 seminariis metliodus studiorura 
 adhihenda civili au<itoritati sub- 
 jicitiir. 
 
 Alloc. Nunquamfore 15 decembris 1856. 
 
 47. Postulat ojptima civilis so- 
 cietatis ratio, %it jpojpulares scholoe, 
 qucB patent omnibus cuj usque e 
 pojpulo classis pueris, ac jpublica 
 
 ernment Hence it has control 
 over the instructions for the guid- 
 ance of consciences issued, conform- 
 ably with their mission, by the pas- 
 tors of the Church. Further, it pos- 
 sesses power to decree, in the matter 
 of administering the divine sacra- 
 ments, as to the dispositions neces* 
 sary for their reception. 
 
 Allocution In Consistoriali, 1st Nov., 1850. 
 Allocution ilfazma quidem, 9th June, 1862. 
 
 45. The entire direction of pub- 
 lic schools, in whicli the youth of 
 Christian states are educated, ex- 
 cept (to a certain extent) in the case 
 of episcopal seminaries, may and 
 must appertain to the civil power, 
 and belong to it so far that no other 
 authority whatsoever shall be recog- 
 nized as having any right to inter- 
 fere in the discipline of the schools, 
 the arrangement of the studies, the 
 taking of degrees, or the choice and 
 approval of the teachers. 
 
 Allocution In Consistoriali, 1 st Nov. , 1 850. 
 Allocution Quibus luctuosissimis, 5th Sep- 
 tember, 1851. 
 
 46. Much more, even in clerical 
 seminaries, the method of study to 
 be adopted is subject to the civil 
 authority. 
 
 Allocution Nunquam fore^ 15 Dec, 1856. 
 
 47. The best theory of civil so- 
 ciety requires that popular schools 
 open to the children of all classes, 
 and, generally, all public institutes 
 
THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERROKS. 
 
 121 
 
 universim histituta, qucB litteris 
 severiorihusque diseipUnis traden- 
 dis et educationi jicventutis curan- 
 dcB sunt destinata, eximantur ah 
 07nni Ecclesioe auctoritate^ modera- 
 trice vi et ingerentia, ^lenoque ci- 
 vilis ao politiccB auctoritatis arhi- 
 trio subjiciantuT ad imperantium 
 jplacita et ad communium cetatis 
 ojpinionum amussim. 
 
 Epist. ad Archiep. Friburg. Qaum non 
 sine 14 julii 1864. 
 
 48. CatJwlicis mris jprohari 
 jpotest ea juventutis instituendce 
 ratio^ quoe sit a Catholica fide 
 et ah Ecclesioe jpotestate sejuncta, 
 quceque rerum dumtaxat natu- 
 ralium scientiam ac terrenod so- 
 cialis vitoe fines tantummo- 
 do vel saltern jprimario sjpec- 
 tet. 
 
 Epist. ad Archiep. Friburg. Quum non 
 sine 14 julii 1864. 
 
 49. Civilis auctoritas potest 
 impedire quo?7iinus sacrorum 
 antistites et fideles populi cum 
 Romano Pontifice libere ac mu- 
 tuo communicent. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 50. Laica auctoritas hahet per 
 se jus proesentandi episcopos 
 et potest ah illis exigere, ut 
 ineant dioecesium procuratio- 
 nem,, antequam ipsi canoni- 
 cam a S, Sede instltutio7ie?n 
 
 intended for instruction in letters 
 and philosophy, and for conduct- 
 ing the education of the young, 
 should be freed from all ecclesias- 
 tical authority, government, and in- 
 terference, and should be fully sub- 
 ject to the civil and political power, 
 in conformity with the will of rulers 
 and the prevalent opinions of the 
 age. - 
 
 Letter to the Archbishop of Fribourg, 
 Quum non sine, 14th July, 1864. 
 
 48. This system of instructins: 
 youth, which consists in separating 
 it from the Catholic faith and from 
 the power of the Church, and in 
 teaching exclusively, or at least pri- 
 marily, the knowledge of natural 
 things and the earthly ends of so- 
 cial life alone, may be approved by 
 Catholics. 
 
 Letter to- the Archbishop of Fribourg, 
 Quum non sine, 14th July, 1864. 
 
 49. The civil power has the right 
 to prevent ministers of religion, 
 and the faithful, from conimuni- 
 cating freely and mutually with 
 each other, and with the Roman 
 Pontiff. 
 
 Allocution il/axiwa quidem, 9th June, 1862. 
 
 60. The secular authority pos- 
 sesses, as inherent in itself, the right 
 of presenting bishops, and may re- 
 quire of them that they take pos- 
 session of their dioceses before 
 having received canonical institu^ 
 
122 
 
 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 et ajpostolicas litteras accijpi- 
 ant. 
 
 Alloc. Nunquam fore 15 decembris 1856. 
 
 51. Iinmo laicum guhernium 
 habet jus dejponendi db exer- 
 citio jpastoralis ministerii ejpis- 
 cojpos^ neqike tenetur obedire 
 Romano Pontifici in Us quce 
 episcojpatuuvi et ejpiscojporum re- 
 spiciimt institutionem. 
 
 Litt. Apost, Multiplices inter 10 junii 
 1851. 
 
 Alloc. Acerbissimum 27 septembris 1 852. 
 
 52. Gubemium jpotest suo jure 
 imm.utare cetatein ab Ecclesia 
 jprcesa'vpta7n jpro religiosa tarn 
 inulieruin qiiam mroruTn jpro- 
 fessione^ omnibusquB religiosis 
 Jxtmiliis indicere, ut neminem 
 sine suo jpermissu ad soleninia 
 vota nxmcxijpanda admittant. 
 
 Alloc. Nunquam fore 15 decembris 185G. 
 
 53. Abrogandoe, sunt leges qim 
 ad Teligiosarum familiarum sta- 
 tum tutandum, earumque jura 
 et officia pertinent; immo jpo- 
 test civile gubemium Us omni- 
 bus auxilium jpro^stare^ qui a 
 suscepto religioscB vitce instituto 
 deficere ac solemnia "vota f ran- 
 ger e velint ; pariterque potest 
 religiosas easdem familias jpe- 
 rinde ao coUegiatas Ecclesias^ 
 et henejicia simjplicia etiam ju- 
 ris patronatus jpenitus extingue- 
 re, illorumque bona et reditus 
 
 tion and the apostolic letters fi'om 
 the Holy See. 
 
 Allocution Nunquamfore, 15th Dec, 1850. 
 
 51. And, further, the secular gov- 
 ernment has the right of deposing- 
 bishops from their pastoral func- 
 tions, and it is not bound to obey 
 tlie Eoman Pontiff in those thinirs 
 which relate to episcopal sees and 
 the institution of bishops. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Multiplices inter, lOtli 
 June, 1851. 
 
 Allocution Acerbissimum, 27th Sept., 1852. 
 
 52. The government lias of it- 
 self the right to alter the age pre- 
 scribed by the Church for the re- 
 ligious profession, both of men and 
 women; and it may enjoin upon 
 all religious establisliments to ad- 
 mit no person to take solemn vows 
 without its permission. 
 
 Allocution Nunquam fore, 1 5th Dec. , 1850, • 
 
 53. Tlie laws for the protection 
 of reh'gious establishments, and 
 securing their rights and duties, 
 ought to be abolished : nay, more, 
 the civil government may lend its 
 assistance to all who desire to quit 
 the religious life they have un- 
 dertaken, and break their vows. ' 
 The government may also sup- 
 press religious orders, collegiate 
 churches, and simple benefices, 
 even those belonging to private 
 patronage, and submit their goods 
 and revenues to the adminis- 
 
THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 123 
 
 civilis potestatis administrationi 
 et arhitrio sicbjicere et vindicare. 
 
 Alloc. Acerhissimum 27 septembris 1852. 
 Alloc. Probe meinineritis 22 januarii 1855. 
 Alloc. Cum scepe 26 julii 1855. 
 
 64. lieges et jprincipes non so- 
 lum ah Ecclesice jurisdictione 
 exirnimtur, verum etiam in quot- 
 stionibus jurisdictionis dirimen- 
 dis siijperiores sunt Ecclesia. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Multiplices inter 10 junii 
 1851. 
 
 65. Ecclesia a Statu, Status- 
 que ah Ecclesia sejungendus 
 est. 
 
 Alloc. Acerhissimum 27 septembris 1852. 
 
 § VII. — EEEORES DE ETHICA NATU- 
 EALI ET CHRISTIANA. 
 
 66. Morum leges divina haud 
 egent sanctione, minhnegue ojpus 
 est ut humance, leges ad naturce 
 jus confirmentiir aut dhligandi 
 vim a Deo accijpiant. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 67. Philosojphicarum rerum 
 morumgue scientia, itemque ci- 
 viles leges jpossunt et dehent a 
 divina et ecclesiastica auctoritate 
 declinare. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 68. Alice vires 7ion sunt agno- 
 scendcB nisi illce qum in materia 
 joositce sunt, et omnis morum 
 discijplina honestasque coUocari 
 
 tration and disposal of the civil 
 power. 
 
 Allocution Acerhissimum, 27th Sept., 1852. 
 Allocution Prohe memineritis, 22d Jan., 1 855. 
 Allocution Cu7n scp/;e, 26th July, 1855. 
 
 64. Kings and princes ai*e not 
 only exempt from the jurisdiction 
 of the Church, but are superior to 
 the Church, in litigated questions 
 of jurisdiction. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Multiplices inter, 10th 
 Jun3, 1851. 
 
 *66. The Church ought to be sep- 
 arated from the State, and the State 
 from the Church. 
 
 Allocution Acerhissimum, 27th Sept., 1852. 
 
 § YII. — EKEOES CONCEENING NATU- 
 EAL AND CHEISTIAN ETHICS. 
 
 66. Moral laws do not stand in 
 need of the divine sanction, and 
 there is no necessity that human 
 laws should be conformable to the 
 law of nature, and receive their 
 sanction from God. 
 
 Allocution ilifaxma quidem, 9th June,! 862. 
 
 67. Knowledge of philosophical 
 things and morals, and also civil 
 laws, ma}^ and must depart from 
 divine and ecclesiastical author- 
 ity. 
 
 Allocution iUTaxma quidem, 9th June^ 1862. 
 
 68. No other forces are to be 
 recognized than those which reside 
 in matter ; and all moral teaching 
 and moral excellence ought to be 
 
124 
 
 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF EERORS. 
 
 dehet in, cumulandis et atcgen- 
 dis quovis modo divitiis ac in 
 voluptatihis explendis. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 18G2. 
 Epist. encycl. Quanta conjiciamur 10 au- 
 gust! 18G3. 
 
 59. Jus in materiali facto con- 
 sistit, et omnia hominum officia 
 sunt nomen inane, et omnia hu- 
 mana facta juris mm, hdbent. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 60. Auctoritas nihil aliud est 
 nisi numeri et materialium, viri- 
 um. summa. 
 
 Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 
 
 61. Fortunata factl injustitia 
 nullum, juris sanctitati detrimen- 
 tum affert. 
 
 Alloc. Jamdudum cernimus 18 martii 
 1861. 
 
 62. Proclamandum est et oh- 
 servandum jprincijpium quod vo- 
 cant de non-interventii. 
 
 Alloc. Novos et ante 28 septembris 1860. 
 
 63. Legitimis ^rincipihus ohe- 
 dientiam, detrectare, immo et re- 
 hellare licet. 
 
 Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus 9 novembris 
 1846. 
 
 Alloc. Quisque vestrum 4 octobris 1847. 
 
 Epist. encycl. Noscitis et Nobiscum 8 de- 
 cembris 1849. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Cum. catholica 26 martii 
 1860. 
 
 64. Turn cujusque sanctissimi 
 
 made to consist in the accumula- 
 tion and increase of riches by every 
 possible means, and in the enjoy- 
 ment of pleasure. 
 
 Allocution Maxima quidem, 9th June, 1862. 
 Encyclical Letters, Quanta conjiciamur, 
 10th August, 18G3. 
 
 59. Right consists in the mate- 
 rial fact, and all human duties are 
 but vain words, and all human acts 
 have the force of right. 
 
 AMocxxiioxi Maxima quidem, 9th June, 1862. 
 
 60. Authority is nothing else but 
 the result of numerical superiority 
 and material force. 
 
 Allocution Max? ///« quidem, 9th June, 1862. 
 
 61. An unjust act, being suc- 
 cessful, inflicts no injury upon the 
 sanctity of right. 
 
 Allocution Jamdudum cernimus, 18th 
 March, 1861. 
 
 * 62. The principle of non-inter- 
 vention, as it is called, ought to be 
 proclaimed and adhered to. 
 
 Allocution Novos et ante, 28th Sept., 1860. 
 
 63. It is allowable to refuse obe- 
 dience to legitimate princes: nay, 
 more, to rise in insurrection against 
 them. 
 
 Encyclical Letters, Qui pluribus, 9th No- 
 vember, 1846. 
 
 Allocution Quisque vestrum, 4th Oct., 1847. 
 
 Encyclical Letters, Noscitis et Nobiscum, 
 8th December, 1849. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Cum catholica, 26th 
 March, 1860. 
 
 • 64. The violation of a solemn 
 
THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 125 
 
 jurarnenti violatio, turn quoeli- 
 het scelesta flagitiosaque actio 
 semj)itern(B legi r&pugnans, non 
 solum hand est imjprobanda, ve- 
 rum etiam oranino licita, sum- 
 misgue laudibus efferenda, quan- 
 do id jpro jpatricB amove agatur. 
 
 Alloc. Quibus quantisque 20 aprilis 
 1849. 
 
 § VIII. — EEROEES DE MATEIMONIO 
 CHEISTIANO. 
 
 65. Nulla ratione ferri jpotest, 
 Christum evexisse matrim.oniur)% 
 ad dignitatem saoraiinenti, 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostolkcE. 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 ^Q. Matrimonii sacr amentum 
 non est nisi quid eontractui acces- 
 sorium ab eoque se^arahile, ipsum- 
 que sacramentum in una tantum 
 nuptiali henedictione situm est. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicce 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 67. Jure natu7'ce matrimonii 
 vinculum no7i est indissoluhile 
 et in variis casihus di'oortium 
 jprojprie dictum auctoritate ci~ 
 vili sanciri jpotest. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostoliccR 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 AYLoQ. Acerbissimum 27 septembris 1852. 
 
 QS. Ecclesia non hahet potesta- 
 tem imjpedimenta matrimonium 
 dirimentia inducendi^ sed ea jpo- 
 testas civili auctoritati comjpetit^ 
 
 oath, even every wicked and fla- 
 gitious action repugnant to the 
 eternal law, is not only not blam- 
 able, but quite lawful, and wor- 
 thy of the highest praise, when 
 done for the love of coun- 
 try. 
 
 Allocution Quibus quantisque, 20th April, 
 1849. 
 
 § YIII. — THE EEEOES CONCERNING 
 CHEISTIAN MAEEIAGE. 
 
 65. It can not be by any means 
 tolerated, to maintain that Christ 
 has raised marriage to the dignity 
 of a sacrament. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostolicce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 66. The sacrament of marriage 
 is only an adjunct of the contract, 
 and separable from it, and the sac- 
 rament itself consists in the nup- 
 tial benediction alone. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostolicce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 67. By the law of nature, the 
 marriage tie is not indissoluble, 
 and in many cases divorce, prop- 
 erly so called, may be pronounced 
 by the civil authority. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostolicce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 Allocution Acerbissimum, 27th Sept. 1852. 
 
 68. The Church has not the power 
 of laying down what are diriment 
 impediments to marriage. The 
 civil authority does possess such a 
 
126 
 
 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 a qua impedimenta existentia 
 tollenda sunt. 
 
 Litt. Apost. M^hipUces inter 10 junii 
 3851. 
 
 69. Ecclesia sequioi'ibus scecu- 
 lis dirimentia impedimenta in- 
 ducer e coepit, non jure propria , 
 sed illo jure usa^ quod a civili 
 potestate mutuata erat. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostolica 22 augnsti 
 1851. 
 
 70. Tridentini cdnones, qui 
 anathematis censuram illis in- 
 ferunt^ qui facidtatem impedi- 
 menta dirimentia inducendi Ec- 
 clesicB negare audeant, vel non 
 sunt dogmatici vel de Jiac 
 Tnutuata potestate intelligendi 
 sunt. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostoUcce 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 Yl. Tridentini forma siib in- 
 firraitatis poena non ohligat, uhi 
 lex civilis aliam formam prce- 
 stituat, et velit hac nova forma 
 interveniente matrimoniu7n va- 
 lere. 
 
 Litt, Apost. Ad apostoUccB 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 72. Bonifacius YIIL votum 
 castitatis in ordinatione emis- 
 sum nuptias nullas reddere pri- 
 mus asseruit. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostoUcce. 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 power, and can do away with exist. 
 ing impediments to marriage. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, MullipUces inter, 10th 
 June, 1851. 
 
 69. The Church only commenced 
 in later ages to bring in diriment 
 impediments, and then availing her- 
 self of a right not her own, hut 
 borrowed from the civil power. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostoUcce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 70. The canons of the Council 
 of Trent, which pronounce censure 
 of anathema against those who de- 
 ny to the Church the right of lay- 
 ing down what are diriment imped- 
 iments, either are not dogmatic, or 
 must be understood as referrinc: 
 only to such borrowed power. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostoUcce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 71. The form of solemnizing mar- 
 riage prescribed by the said Council, 
 under penalty of nullity, does not 
 bind in cr.Gcs vrhere the civil law has 
 appointed another form, and where 
 it decrees that this new form shall 
 effectuate a valid marriage. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostoUcce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 72. Boniface YIII. is the first 
 who declared that the vow of 
 chastity pronounced at ordination 
 annuls nuptials. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostoUcce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 127 
 
 73. Vi contractus mere civilis 
 potest inter Christianos constare 
 veri nominis matrimonmni ; 
 falsumque est, aut contractum 
 matrimonii inter Christianos 
 semper esse sacramentum, aut 
 nullum esse contractum, si sa- 
 cramentum excludatur. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostoliccE 22 augusti 
 18:>1. 
 
 Lettera di S. S. PIO IX. al Re di Sardeg- 
 na 9 setterabre 1852. 
 
 Alloc. Acerhissimum 27 septembris 1852. 
 
 Alloc. Multis gravihusque 17 decembris 
 1860. 
 
 74. CausscB matrimoniales et 
 sponsalia suapte natura ad fo- 
 rum civile pertinent. 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostolkcB 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 Alloc. Acerhissimum 27 septembris 1852. 
 
 N. B. — Hue facer e possunt duo alii errores 
 de clericorum ccelibatu aholendo et de statu 
 matrimonii statui virginitatis anteferendo. 
 (^Confodiuntur, prior in epist. encycl. Qui 
 pluribus 9 novemhris 184(5, posterior in 
 litteris apost. Multiplices inter 10 junii 
 1851.) 
 
 § IX.-^EEEORES DE CIVILI EOMANI 
 PONTIFICIS PRINCIPATU. 
 
 75. De temporalis regni cum 
 spirituali compatihilitate dispu- 
 tant inter se Christiance et Ca- 
 tJiollcce Ecclesim filii, 
 
 Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae. 22 augusti 
 1851. 
 
 73. A merely civil contract may, 
 among Christians, constitute a true 
 marriage ; and it is false, either 
 that the marriage contract be- 
 tween Christians is always a sac- 
 rament, or that the contract is 
 null if the sacrament be exclud- 
 ed. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostolicae., 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 Letter to the King of Sardinia, 9th Sep- 
 tember, 1852. 
 
 Allocution Acerhissimum, 27th Sept., 1852. 
 
 Allocution Multis gravihusque, 17th De- 
 cember, 1860. 
 
 74. Matrimonial causes and es- 
 pousals belong by their very nature 
 to civil jurisdiction. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostolicce, 22d Au- 
 gust, 1851. 
 
 Allocution Acerbissimu?n, 27th Sept., 1852. 
 
 N. B. — Tvvo other errors may tend in this 
 direction, those upon the abolition of the celib- 
 acy of priests, and the preference due to the 
 state of marriage over that of virginity. These 
 have been proscribed ; the first in the Ency- 
 clical Qui pluribus, Nov. 9, 1846; the second 
 in the Apostolic Letter Multiplices inter, 
 June 10th, 1851. 
 
 § IX. — ERRORS REGARDING THE CIVIL 
 POWER OF THE SOVEREIGN PONTIFF. 
 
 75. The children of the Christian 
 and Catholic Church are not agreed 
 upon the compatibility of the tem- 
 poial with the spiritual power. 
 
 Apostolic Letter, Ad apostolica, 22d Au- 
 gust, 185*1. 
 
128 
 
 THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 t6. Ahrogatio civilis imperii, 
 quo Ajpostolica Sedes jpotitur, ad 
 EcclesicB lihertatem felicitatem- 
 qice vel inaxime conduceret. 
 
 Alloc. 
 1849. 
 
 Quibus quantisque 20 aprilis 
 
 N. B. — Prceter hos errores expUcite nota- 
 tos, alii complures implicite reprobaniur, pro- 
 posita et asserta doctrina, quam Catkolici 
 ovines Jirmissime retinere debeant, de civili 
 Romani Pontijicis principatu. (^Ejusmodi 
 doctrina luculenter traditur in Alloc. Quibus 
 quantisque 20 aprilis 1849 ; in Alloc. Si semper 
 antea 20 maii 1850 ; in Litt. apost. Quum 
 Catholica Ecdesia 26 martii 18G0; in Alloc. 
 Novos 28 sept. 1860; in Alloc. Jamdudum 
 18 martii 1861; in Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 
 junii 1862. 
 
 § X. EKROEES QUI AD LIBERALIS- 
 
 MUM HODIEKNUM EEFERUNTUR. 
 
 V7. jEtate hac nostra non am- 
 jplius exjpedit, religionem Catho- 
 licam haheri tarnquarn unicam 
 Status religionem, ceteris ouihus- 
 cumque cultihus exclusis. 
 
 Alloc. Nemo vestrum 26 jalii 1855. 
 
 78. Ilinc laudabiliter in qui- 
 husdam Catholici nomhiis regio- 
 nibus lege cautum est, ut ho- 
 minihus illuc immigrantibus li- 
 ceat publicum jprojprii cujusque 
 cultus exercitium habere. 
 
 Alloc. AcerUssimum 27 septembris 1 852. 
 
 79. Enimvero falsum est, civi- 
 lem cujusque cultus liber tat em, 
 
 76. The abolition of the tempo- 
 ral power, of which the Apostolic / 
 
 I 
 
 See is possessed, would contribute 
 in the greatest degree to the liberty 
 and prosperity of the Church. ^ 
 
 Allocution Quibus quantisque, 20th April, 
 1849. 
 
 N.B. — Besides these errors, explicitly noted, 
 many others are impliedly rebuked by the pro- 
 posed and asserted doctrine, which all Cath- 
 olics are bound most firmly to hold, touching 
 the temporal sovereignty of the Roman Pon- 
 tiff. These doctrines are clearly stated in the 
 Allocutions Quibus quantisque, 20th April, 
 1 849, and Si semper antea, 20th May, 1850 ; 
 Apost. Letter Q^mm Catholica Ecdesia, 20th 
 March, 1860 ; Allocutions Novos, 28th Sept., 
 1860; Jamdudum, 18th March, 1861; and 
 Maxima quidem, 9th June, 1862. 
 
 § X. — ERRORS HAVING REFERENCE 
 TO MODERN LIBERALISM. 
 
 78. In the present day, it is no if 
 longer expedient that the Catliolicji 
 religion shall be held as the only 
 religion of the State, to the exclu- 
 sion of all other modes of worship. 
 
 Allocution Nemo vestrum, 26th July, 1855. 
 
 78. Whence it has been wisely 
 provided by law, in some countries 
 called Catholic, that persons corfi- 
 ing to reside therein shall enjOy 
 the public exercise of their own 
 worship. 
 
 AWocMiion AcerUssimum, 27th Sept., 1852. 
 
 79. Moreover, it is false that tlie 
 civil liberty of every mode of wor- 
 
THE PAPAL SYLLABUS OF ERRORS. 
 
 129 
 
 itemque jplenam jpotestatem om- 
 nibus attributam qiiaslibet ojpi- 
 niones cogitationesque jpalam jpu- 
 bliceque manifestandl conducere 
 ad jpojpuloTum mores aniinosque 
 facilius corrumjpendos ao in- 
 differentismi jpestem jprojpogan- 
 dam. 
 
 Alloc. Nunq^iiam fore 15 decembris 185G. 
 
 80. Bomanus Pontifix potest 
 ao debet cum jprogressu^ cum li- 
 ber cdismo et cum recenii civili- 
 tate sese reconciliare et comjpo- 
 ncrc. 
 
 Alloc. Jamdudum cernimus 18 martii 
 1861. 
 
 sliip, and the full power given to 
 all of overtly and publicly mani- 
 festing their opinions and their 
 ideas, of all kinds whatsoever, con- 
 duce more easily to corrupt the 
 morals and minds of the people, 
 and to the propagation of the pest 
 of indifferentism. 
 
 Allocution Nunquamfore, 15th Dec, 185G. 
 
 • 80. The Eoman Pontiff can and 
 ought to reconcile himself to, and 
 agree with, progress, liberalism, 
 and civilization as lately intro- 
 duced. 
 
 Allocution Jamdudum cernimvs, 18tli 
 March, 1861. 
 
DECRETi DOGMATICA CONCILTI YATICANI DE FIDE 
 CATHOLICA ET DE ECCLESIA CHRISTI. 
 
 [The D0GMA.TIC Decrees of the Yatican Council concerning the 
 Catholic Faith and the Chuech of Christ. A.D. 1870.] 
 
 [The Latin text from Acta et Decreta sacrosancti et cecumenici Concilii Vaticani, etc., ctim permissione 
 superiorum, Fribnrgi Brisgoviae, 1871, Fasc. II. pp. 170-1T9, aud 181-187. The Englif^h translation from- 
 Archbishop Manning : Petri Privilegium, London, 1871, Part HI. pp. 192-203, and 211-219. On the Vati- 
 can Council, see the preceding history.] 
 
 constitutio dogmatica de fide 
 Catholica. 
 
 Sessio IIL Ilabita die 24 Aprilis 
 
 1870. 
 
 PIUS EPISCOPUS, SERVUS SERVORUM 
 DEI, SACRO APPEOBANTE CONCILIO, 
 AD PERPETUAM REI MEMORIAM. 
 
 J)ei Films et generis humani 
 Bedemjptor, Dominus Noster Je- 
 sus Christus, ad Patrem coele- 
 stern redituricSj cum Ecclesia 
 sua in terris inilitante omni- 
 hus diehus %isque ad consumma- 
 tionem scBCuU futurum se esse 
 jpTomisit. Quare dilectm sjpon- 
 scB prcesto esse, adsistere docenti, 
 oj^eranti henedicere, jpericlitanti 
 oj^em ferre nullo unquatn tem- 
 j^ore destitit. Hcec vero salu- 
 taris ejus providentia, cum ex 
 aliis heneficiis innumeris conti- 
 nenter apj)artdt, tuvi iis mani- 
 festissime comjperta est fructi- 
 bus, qui orbi Cliristiano e Con- 
 ciliis cecumenicis. ac nominatim 
 
 Dogmatic Constitution on the 
 Cathplic Faith. 
 
 Puhlished in the Third Session, 
 held April 24, 1870. 
 
 PIUS, BISHOP, SERVANT OF THE SERV- 
 ANTS OF GOD, WITH THE APPROVAL 
 OF THE SACRED COUNCIL, FOR PER- 
 PETUAL REMEMBRANCE. 
 
 Onr Lord Jesus Christ, the Son 
 of God, ^nd Eedeemer of Man- 
 kind, before returning to his heav- 
 enly Father, promised that he would 
 be with the Church Militant on 
 earth all days, even to the consum- 
 mation of the world. Therefore, 
 he has never ceased to be present 
 with his beloved Spouse, to assist 
 her when teaching, to bless her when 
 at work, and to aid her when in 
 danger. And this his salutary prov- 
 idence, which has been constantly 
 displayed by other innumerable 
 benefits, has been most manifestly 
 proved by the abundant good re- 
 sults which Christendom has de- 
 rived from oecumenical Councils, 
 
132 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 e TridentinOj iniquis licet tempo- 
 rihus celebrato, amjplissimi j)ro- 
 venerunt. Hinc enim sanctissi- 
 ma 7'eligionis dogmata pressius 
 definita uberiusque exjjosita, er- 
 rores damnati atque coliihiti ; 
 tiiiiG ecclesiastica disciplina re- 
 stituta firmiiisqiie sancita, jpro- 
 motum in clero scientice et pie- 
 tatis studium, joarata adolescen- 
 tibus ad sacram 'militiam edu- 
 candis collegia^ Christiaiii de- 
 nique populi 'mores et accu- 
 rat tore fidelium eruditione et 
 freguentiore sacramentorum usu 
 instaurati, Ilino jproeterea arc- 
 tior inemhroriim cum msihili 
 Cajpite communio, universogue 
 ■covpori Christi 7nystico additus 
 vigor y' hinc religiosce multi/pli- 
 catce famiVm aliague ChristiancB 
 jpietatis instituta; hinc ille etl- 
 am assiduus et usque ad san- 
 guinis effusionem constans ardor 
 in Christi regno late jper orbem 
 jprojpagando. 
 
 Yerumtamen hcec aliaque in- 
 signia emolumenta^ quce per 
 ultimam . maxime cecumenicam. 
 Synodum divina dementia Ec- 
 desice largita est, dum grato^ quo 
 par . est, animo recolimus, acer- 
 hum compescere haud possumus 
 dolor em oh mala gravissima, inde 
 
 and particularly from that of Trent, 
 altliongh it was held in evil times. 
 For, as a consequence, the sacred 
 doctrines of the faith have been de- 
 fined more closely, and set forth 
 more fully, errors have been con- 
 demned and restrained, ecclesiasti- 
 cal discipline has been restored and 
 more firmly secured, the love of 
 learning and of piety has been pro- 
 moted among the clergy, colleges 
 have been established to educate 
 youth for the sacred warfare, and 
 the morals of the Christian world 
 have been renewed by the more ac- 
 curate training of the faithful, and 
 by the more frequent use of the sac- 
 raments. Moreover, there has re- 
 sulted a closer communion of the 
 members with the visible head, an 
 increase of vigor in the whole mys- 
 tical body of Christ, the multipli- 
 cation of religious congregations, 
 and of other institutions of Chris- 
 tian piety, and such ardor in extend- 
 ing the kiugclom of Christ through- 
 out the world as constantly endures, 
 even to the sacrifice of life itself. 
 
 But while we recall with due 
 thankfulness these and other sig- 
 nal benefits which the divine 
 mercy has bestowed on the 
 Church, especially by the last 
 oecumenical Council, we can not 
 restrain our bitter sorrow for 
 the grave evils, which are prin- 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 133 
 
 2)otlssimuvi orta, quod ejusdem 
 ^ac/osanctod Synodi ajpud jper- 
 inultos vel auctoritas conteirvpta, 
 vel sajpientissima negleda fueve 
 deer eta, 
 
 Nem,o enim ignorat, Itc^reses^ 
 quas Tridentini P aires proscrijp- 
 serunt^ ditm, rejecto divino Ec- 
 clesice magisterio^ res ad religio- 
 n€7n sjpectantcs j>rivati cujusvis 
 judicio permittereiitiir^ in sec- 
 tas jpaidlatim dissolutas esse 
 midiiplices, quihus inter se dis- 
 sentientibus et concertantihus^ 
 omnis tandem in Christuin Jides 
 aypud non jpaucos labefactata est. 
 Itaqxie ipsa Sacra Bihlia^ quoe 
 antea Christians doctrince uni- 
 ces fans et judex asserebantur^ 
 jam non pro divinis haleri, imo 
 mytJiicis commentls accenseri coe- 
 jpevunt. 
 
 Turn nata est et late nimis 
 per orhem vagata ilia rationa- 
 lismi seic naturalismi doctrina, 
 quce religioni Christiance utpote 
 supernaturali instituto per oin- 
 nia adversans, sxtmnio studio 
 inolitur, ut Christo^ qui solus 
 DoTninus et Salvator noster est, 
 a mentibus humanis, a vita et 
 morihus populorum excluso, me- 
 r(E quod vocant rationis vel na- 
 titrce regnum stabiliatur. JRe- 
 licta autem projectaque Christi- 
 ana religione, negato vero Deo 
 
 cipally due to the fact that 
 the authority of that sacred 
 Synod has been contemned, or 
 its wise decrees neglected, by 
 many. 
 
 No one is ignorant that the here- 
 sies proscribed by the Fathers of 
 Trent, by which the divine magis- 
 terium of the Church was rejected, 
 and all matters regarding religj^on 
 were surrendered to the judgment 
 of each individual, gradually be- 
 came dissolved into many sects, 
 which disagreed and contended 
 with one another, until at length 
 not a few lost all faith in Christ. 
 Even the Holy Scriptures, which 
 had previously been declared the 
 sole source and judge of Christian 
 doctrine, began to be held no longer 
 as divine, but to be ranked among 
 the fictions of mythology. 
 
 Then there arose, and too widely 
 overspread the world, that doctrine 
 of rationalism, or naturalism, which 
 opposes itself in every way to the 
 Christian religion as a supernatural 
 institution, and works with the ut- 
 most zfeal in order that, after Christ, 
 our sole Lord and Saviour, has been 
 excluded from the minds of nlen, 
 and from the life and moral acts of 
 nations, the reign of what they call 
 pure reason of nature may be estab- 
 lished. And after forsaking and re- 
 jecting the Christian religion, and 
 
134 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 et Christo ejus, prolapsa tandem 
 est inultoTum mens in Pantlie- 
 ismi, Mate7'ialismi, Atheismi ha- 
 rathrum, ut jam ipsam rationa- 
 leni naturam, omnemque justi 
 rectique normam negantes, ima 
 humanoe societatis fundamenta 
 diruere connitantiir. 
 
 Ilac j^ovro impietate circum- 
 qicaque grassante, infelid^er con- 
 tigit, ut plures etiam e Catho- 
 licce EcclesicB filiis a via veroe 
 jpietatis aberrarent, in Usque, 
 diminutis paullaiim veritatibus, 
 sensus Catholicus attenuaretur. 
 Variis enim ac peregrinis doc- 
 trinis dbducti, naturam et gra- 
 tiam, scientiam humanam et 
 fidem divinam joerperam com- 
 miscentes, genuinuTn senswn dog- 
 matuni, quern tenet ac docet 
 sancta mater Ecclesia, depra- 
 vare, integritatemque et sinceri- 
 tatem fidei in periculum addii- 
 cere comperiuntur. 
 
 Qiiibus omnibus perspectis, fie- 
 ri qui potest, ut non commove- 
 antur intima Ecclesim- viscera? 
 Quemadmoduin enim Deus vult 
 omnes homines salvos fieri, et 
 ad agnitionem veritatis venire; 
 quemadmodum Christus venit, 
 ut salvum faceret, quod perie- 
 rat, et filios Dei, qui erant dis- 
 persi^ Gongregaret in unum : 
 ita Ecclesia, a Deo populorum 
 
 denying the true God and his Christ, 
 the minds of many have sunk into 
 the abyss of Pantheism, Material- 
 ism, and Atheism, until, denying 
 rational nature itself, and every 
 sound rule of right, they labor to 
 destroy the deepest foundations of 
 human society. 
 
 Unhappily, it has yet further 
 come to pass that, while this im- 
 piety prevailed on every side, many 
 even of the children of the Catho- 
 lic Church have strayed from the 
 path of true4)iety, and by the grad- 
 ual diminution of the truths they 
 held, the Catholic sense became 
 weakened in them. For, led away 
 by various and strange doctrines, 
 utterly confusing nature and grace, 
 human science and divine faith, 
 they are found to deprave the true 
 sense of the doctrines w^hich our 
 holy Mother Cliurch holds and 
 teaches, and endanger the integrity 
 and the soundness of the faitli. 
 
 Considering these things, how can 
 the Church fail to be deeply stirred? 
 For, even as God wills all men to 
 be saved, and to arrive at the knowl- 
 edge of the truth, even as Christ 
 came to save what had perished, 
 and to gather together the children 
 of God who had been dispersed, 
 so the Church, constituted by God 
 the mother and teacher of nations, 
 knows its own office as debtor to all, 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 135 
 
 mater et magistra constituta, om- 
 nibus debitricem se novit, ac lajpsos 
 erigere, labantes sustinei'e, rever- 
 tentes amplecti, confirinare honos et 
 ad meliora jprovehere jjarata sem- 
 per et intenta est, Quajprojpter mil- 
 lo tempore a Dei veritate, quce sa- 
 nat omnia^ testanda et prcedicanda 
 qiciescere protest, sihi dicticm esse 
 non ignorans : Bpiritus meiis^ qui 
 est hi te^ et verba mea, quoiposui in 
 ore tub, non recedent de ore tuo 
 amodo et usque in semjnternum, 
 Wos itaque, iyiJioirentes prm- 
 decessorum nostroriim vestigiis^ 
 pro supremo nostro Apostolico 
 onunere veritatem Catholicam do- 
 cere ac tueri perversasque doa- 
 trinas reprobare nunquam in- 
 term.issimus. Nunc autem, se- 
 dentibus nobiscum et judicanti- 
 bus universi orbis Episcopis, in 
 liano oecumenicam Synodum auc- 
 toritate nostra in Spiritio Sancto 
 congregatis, innixi Dei verbo 
 scripto et tradito, prout ab Ec- 
 clesia CatJiolica sancte custodi- 
 tum et genuhie expositum accepi- 
 mics, ex hac Petri Cathedra, in 
 consjjectu omniuQii, salutarem 
 Christi doctrinam profiteri et 
 dcclarare constitaimics, adversis 
 erroribus potestate nobis a Deo 
 tradita proscriptis atque dam- 
 natis. 
 
 and is ever ready and watchful to 
 raise the fallen, to support those 
 who are falling, to embrace those 
 who return, to confirm the good and 
 to carry them on to better things. 
 Hence, it can never forbear from 
 witnessing to and proclaiming the 
 truth of God, which lieals all things, 
 knowing the words addressed to it : 
 ^ My Spirit that is in thee, and my 
 words that I have put in thy mouth, 
 shall not depart out of thy mouth, 
 from henceforth and forever.' ^ 
 
 We, tlieref ore, following the foot- 
 steps of our predecessors, have never 
 ceased, as becomes our supreme 
 Apostolic office, from teaching and 
 defending Catholic truth, and con- 
 domning doctrines of error. And 
 now", with the Bishops of the whole 
 world assembled round us, and judg- 
 ing with us, congregated by our au- 
 thority, and in the Holy Spirit, in 
 this oecumenical Council, we, sup- 
 ported by the Word of God written 
 and handed down as w^e received it 
 from the Catholic Church, preserved 
 with sacredness and set forth ac- 
 cording to truth, have determined 
 to profess and declare the salutary 
 teaching of Christ from this Chair 
 of Peter, and in sight of all, pro- 
 scribing and condemning, by the 
 power given to us of God, all er 
 rors contrary thereto. 
 
 Isaiah lix. 21. 
 
136 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 Caput I. 
 De Deo rerum omnium Creatore. 
 
 Sancta CathoUca Apostolica 
 Bomana Ecclesia credit et con- 
 fitetur, imum esse Dexim verum 
 et vivum, Creatorem ac Domi- 
 nitm coeli et terrce, omnijpoten- 
 tem^ cetermtm^ i?7i7nensu7n, in- 
 coniprehensibilem, intellectu ac 
 voluntate omnique perfectione 
 infinitum j qui cion sit una sin- 
 gular is, simjplex omnino et in- 
 commutahilis substantia spiritu- 
 alise jprmdicandus est re et essen- 
 tia a munio distinctus, in se et 
 ex se heatissimits, et super omnia, 
 qu(B proiter ipsum sunt et con- 
 cipi possunt, ineffdbillter excelsus. 
 
 Hie solus verus Deus honitate 
 sua et omnipotenti virtute non 
 ad augendam suam heatitudi- 
 nem, nee ad acquirendani, sed ad 
 manifestandam perfectioneni su- 
 am per bona, qucB crcaturis im- 
 pertitur, liherrimo consilio si- 
 mul ah initio temporis utram- 
 que de niliilo condidit creatu- 
 ram, spiritualem et coiporalem, 
 angelieam videlicet et munda- 
 nam, ac deinde hu7nanani quasi 
 communem ex spiritu et corpore 
 constitutam. 
 
 Universa vero, quce condidit, 
 Deus procidentia sua tuetur at- 
 que gubernat, attingens a Sne 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Of God, the Creator of all Things. 
 
 The holy Catholic Apostolic Ro- 
 man Cluirch believes and confesses 
 that there is one true and livinsr 
 God, Creator and Lord of heaven 
 and earth, almighty, eternal, im- 
 mense, incomprehensi])le, infinite 
 in intelligence, in will, and in all 
 perfection, who, as being one, sole, 
 absolutely simple and immutable 
 spiritual substance, is to be de- 
 clared as really and essentially dis- 
 tinct from the world, of supreme 
 beatitude in and from himself, and 
 ineffably exalted above all things 
 which exist, or ai-e conceivable, ex- 
 cept himself. 
 
 This one only true God, of his 
 own goodness and almighty powder, 
 not for the increase or acquirement 
 
 , of his own happiness, but to mani- 
 fest his perfection by the blessings 
 which he bestows on creatures, and 
 with absolute freedom of counsel, 
 created put of nothing, from the 
 very first beginning of time, both 
 the spiritual and the corporeal creat- 
 ure, to wit, the angelical and the 
 mundane, and afterwards the hu- 
 man creature, as partaking, in a 
 sense, of botli, consisting of spirit 
 and of body. 
 
 God protects and governs by his 
 providence all things which he hath 
 
 J made, ^reaching from end to end 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL^ 
 
 137 
 
 usque ad finem foHitei\ et dis- 
 jponens omnia siiaviter. Omnia 
 enim nuda et a^erta sunt oculis 
 ejuSj ea etiam, quot libera crea- 
 turarum actione futura sunt. 
 
 Caput II. 
 De Revelatione. 
 
 Eadem sancta mater Ecclesia 
 tenet et docet, Deum, reriiin om- 
 nium princijpium et finem ^ na- 
 turali humanoe rationis luniine 
 e rebus creatis certo cognosci 
 posse; invisibilia enim ipsius, 
 a creatura onundi, jper ea quoe 
 facta siint^ intellecta, conspici- 
 untur : attamen jplacuisse ejus 
 sapientice et honitati, alia, eaque 
 sujpernaturali via se ijpsum ac 
 ceterna voluntatis siice decreta 
 hutnano generi revelare, dlcente 
 Ajpostolo : Midtifariam, onidtis- 
 que tnodis olim Deus loquens 
 jpatribus in Projphetis : novis- 
 sirne, diebus istis locutus est no- 
 bis in Filio. 
 
 IIuiG divincE revelationi tri- 
 buendum quidem est, ut ea, quoe 
 in rebus divinis humance ratio- 
 ni per se hnpervia non s-unt, in 
 prccsenti quoque generis humani 
 conditione ab omnibus expedite, 
 finna certitudine et nullo ad- 
 mixto errore cognosci possint. 
 
 mightily, and ordering all things 
 sweetly.'^ For ' all things are bare 
 and open to his eyes/^ even those 
 wliicli are yet to be by the free 
 action of creatures. 
 
 Chapter II. 
 0/ Revelation. 
 
 The same holy Mother Church 
 holds and teaches that God, the be- 
 ginning and end of all things, may 
 be certainly known by the natural 
 light of human reason, by means of 
 created things; 'for the invisible 
 things of him from the creation of 
 the world are clearly seen, being 
 understood by the things that are 
 made,' ^ but that it pleased his wis- 
 dom and bounty, to reveal himself, 
 and the eternal decrees of his will, 
 to mankind by another and a super- 
 natural way : as the Apostle says, 
 ' God, having spoken on divers oc- 
 casions, and many ways, in times 
 past, to the Fathers by the Prophets ; 
 last of all, in these ciays, hath spoken 
 to us by his Son.'* 
 
 It is to be ascribed to this divine 
 revelation, that such truths among 
 thincjs divine as of themselves are 
 not beyond human reason, can, 
 even in the present condition of 
 mankind, be known by every one 
 witli facility, with firm assurance, 
 and with no admixture of error. 
 
 * Wisd. viii. 1. 
 
 2 Heb. iv. 13. 
 
 Kom. i. 20. 
 
 * Heb. i. 1,2. 
 
138 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 Non hac tamen de causa revela- 
 tlo absolute necessaria dicenda 
 est, sed quia Deus ex infinita 
 honitate sua ordinavit hominem 
 ad finem sujpernaturaletn, ad 
 jpartici^anda scilicet bona divi- 
 7ia, quae humaiice mentis intelli- 
 (jentiam omnino sujperant ; si- 
 quidem oculus non vidit, nee 
 auris avdivit, nee in cor homi- 
 nis ascendit, quoe jprc^jparavit 
 Deus iis, qui diligunt ilium. 
 
 Ilcec porro supernaturalis re- 
 velatioy secundum universalis Ec- 
 clesice fidem, a sancta Triden-. 
 tlna Synodo declaratam, conti- 
 netur in libris scriptis et sine 
 scrij^to traditionihus, quce ip- 
 sius Christi ore ah Apostolis 
 acceptcB^ aut db ipsis Apostolis 
 Spiritu Sancto dictante quasi 
 jper manus tradita\ ad nos us- 
 que pervenerunt. Qui quidem 
 veteris et Novi Testamenti libri 
 integri curri omnibus suis jpar- 
 tlbus, prout in ejusdem Concilii 
 decreto recensentur, et in veteri 
 vulgata latina editione habentur. 
 pro sacris et canonicis suscipi- 
 endi sunt. Eos vero Ecclesia 
 pro sacris et canonicis habet, 
 non ideo, quod sola humana 
 industria concinnati, sua deinde 
 
 This, however, is not the reason why 
 revelation is to be called absolutely 
 necessary; but because God of his 
 infinite goodness has ordained man 
 to a supernatural end, viz., to be a 
 sharer of divine blessings, which 
 utterly exceed the intelligence of 
 the human mind ; for ' eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it 
 entered into tlie heart of man, what 
 things God hath prepared for them 
 that love him.' ^ 
 
 Further, this supernatural reve- 
 lation, according to the universal 
 belief of the Church, declared by 
 the sacred Synod of Trent, is con- 
 tained in the WTitten books and un- 
 written traditions which have come 
 down to us, having been received 
 by the Apostles from the mouth of 
 Christ himself; or from the Apos- 
 tles themselves, by the dictation of 
 the Holy Spirit, have been trans- 
 mitted, as it were, from hand to 
 hand.2 And these books of the Old 
 and New Testament are to be re- 
 ceived as sacred and canonical, in 
 their integrity, with all their parts, 
 as they are enumerated in the de- 
 cree of the said Council, and are 
 contained in the ancient Latin edi- 
 tion of the Yulgate. These the 
 Church holds to be sacred and 
 
 » I Cor. ii. 0. 
 
 ' Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Session the Fourth. Decree concerning the 
 Canonical Scriptures. 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 139 
 
 auctoritate sint ajpjprobati ; nee 
 ideo dumtaxat, quod revelatio- 
 7iem sine errore contineant, sed 
 jyrojHerea, qitod Sjpivitu Sancto 
 insj)irante conscrijpti Deum ha- 
 hent auctorem, atqiie %it tales 
 ijpsi EcclesicB traditi sunt. 
 
 Quoniam "oero^ qiiCB sancta 
 Tridentina Synodus de inter- 
 jpretatione divince ScrvpturcB ad 
 coercenda jpetulantia ingenia sa- 
 lubriter deorevit^ a qicibitsdam 
 hominihus jprave expo7iuntur, 
 nos, idem decretum renovantes, 
 hanc illius mentem esse declara- 
 Quus, ut in rebus fidei et mo- 
 Tum^ ad cedificationem doctrincB 
 ChristianoB pertinentiiim, is jpro 
 i^ero sensio sacroe Scri/ptiiroe. ha- 
 bendus sit, quern tenuit ao tenet 
 sancta mater Ecclesia, ciijus est 
 judicare de vero sensu et inter- 
 jpretatione Scrij)turaruin sancta- 
 rum; atqiie ideo nemiiii licere 
 contra hunc sen sum aut etiam 
 contra unaniniem consensuni Pa- 
 trum ipsam Scripturam sacram 
 interjpretavL 
 
 Caput III. 
 De Fide. 
 
 Quum homo a Deo tamqicam 
 Creatore et Domino suo totus 
 
 canonical, not because, having been 
 carefully composed by mere human 
 industry, they were afterwards ap- 
 proved by her authority, nor merely 
 because they contain revelation,with 
 no admixture of error; but because, 
 having been written by the inspira- 
 tion of the Holy Ghost, they have God 
 for their author, and have been de- 
 livered as such to the Church herself. 
 And as the things which the holy 
 Synod of Trent decreed for the good 
 of souls concerning the interpreta- 
 tion of Divine Scripture, in order 
 to curb rebellious spirits, have been 
 wrongly explained by some, we, re- 
 newing the said decree, declare this 
 to be their sense, that, in matters of 
 faith and morals, appertaining to 
 the building up of Christian doc- 
 trine, that is to be held as the true 
 sense of Holy Scripture wliich our 
 holy Mother Church liath held and 
 holds, to whom it belongs to judge 
 of the true sense and interpreta- 
 tion of the Holy Scripture; and 
 therefore that it is permitted to no 
 one to interpret tlie Sacred Scripture 
 contrary to this sense, nor, likewise, 
 contrary to the unanimous consent 
 of the Fathers. 
 
 Chapter III. 
 On Faith. 
 
 Man being wholly dependent 
 upon God, as upon his Creator and 
 
140 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 depciideat, et ratio creata incre- 
 atce veritati penitus suhjecta sit, 
 jplenum revelanti Deo intellec- 
 tus et voluntatis ohsequium fide 
 jproestare tenemur. Hanc vero 
 fidern, quce humance, sahitis ini- 
 tium est, Ecdesia CatJiolica jpro- 
 fitetuT, virtutem esse sujpernatu- 
 ralem, qua, Dei asjpirante et ad- 
 juvante gratia, ah eo revelata 
 vera esse (yredimus, non j)rojpter 
 intrinsecam rerimi veritatem na- 
 turali rationis lumine joersjpec- 
 tam, sed jprojpter auctoritatem 
 ijpsius Dei revelaiitis, qui nee 
 falli nee fallere jpotest. Est 
 enim fides, testante Ajpostolo, 
 sperandaruin sicbstantia rerum, 
 argumentum non ajpjyarentium. 
 
 Ut nihilominus fidei nostrcE 
 ohsequium rationi consentaneum 
 esset, voluit Dens cum internis 
 Spiritus Sancti auxiliis externa 
 jungi revelationis sum argu- 
 menta, facta scilicet divina, at- 
 que imprimis miracula et pro- 
 phetias, quce cum Dei omnipo- 
 tentiam et infinitam scientiam 
 lucideiiter commonstrent, divince 
 revelationis signa sunt certissi- 
 ina et omnium intelligentioe 
 accommodata. Quare turn Moy- 
 ses et Prophetce, turn ipse ma- 
 
 Lord, and created reason being ab- 
 solutely subject to uncreated truth, 
 we are bound to yield to God, by 
 faith in his' revelation, the full obe- 
 dience of our intelligence and wilL 
 And the Catholic Church teaches 
 that this faith, which is the begin- 
 ning of man's salvation, is a super- 
 natural virtue, whereby, inspired 
 and assisted by the grace of God, 
 we believe that the things which 
 he has revealed are true; not be- 
 cause of the intrinsic truth of the 
 tilings, viewed by the natural liglit 
 of reason, but because of the au- 
 thority of God himself, who reveals 
 them, and who can neither be de- 
 ceived nor deceive. For faith, as 
 the Apostle testifies, is 'the sub- 
 stance of things hoped for, the con- 
 viction of things that appear not.'^ 
 Nevertheless, in oider that tlie 
 obedience of our faith might be in 
 harmony with reason, God willed 
 that to the interior help of the Holy 
 Spirit there should be joined exte- 
 rior proofs of his revelation; to 
 wit, divine facts, and especially 
 miracles and prophecies, which, as 
 they manifestly display the omnip- 
 otence and infinite knowledge of 
 God, are most certain proofs of his 
 divine revelation, adapted to the 
 intelligence of all men. Wherefore, 
 both Moses and the Pi-ophets, and, 
 
 »IIeb.i. 11. 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 141 
 
 xlme Christus Dominus multa 
 et manifestissima miracula et 
 2)rojphetias edidevunt; et de 
 Ajpostolis legimus : llli autem 
 ^rofecti ^rcedicaverunt ubique^ 
 Domino coojperante et sermo- 
 nem confirmante sequentibics si- 
 gnis. Et rurswm scrljotum est : 
 Ilabemus firmiorem jprojpheticum 
 sermonem^ cui bene facitis at- 
 tendentes quasi lucernce lucenti 
 in caliginoso loco. 
 
 Licet autem fidei assensus ne- 
 qiio.qxiam sit mottcs animi cob- 
 cus : nemo tamen evangeliccB 
 jprmdicationi consentire jpotest^ 
 sicut ojportet ad salutem, conse- 
 qtiendqm, absque illuminatione 
 et insjpiratione Sjpiritus Sanctis 
 qui dat omnibus suavitatem in 
 consentiendo et credendo veri- 
 tati. Quare fides ijpsa i7i se, 
 etiamsi jper caritatem non ojpe- 
 retur^ donum Dei est, et actus 
 ejus est opus ad salutem jperti- 
 nens, quo homo liberam jprmstat 
 i/psi Deo obedientiam, gratim 
 ejus, cui resistere jposset, consen- 
 tiendo et coojperando. 
 
 Porro fide divina et Catho- 
 lica ea omnia credenda sunt, 
 quoe in verbo Dei scripto 'vel 
 tradito continent ur, et ab EcqIc- 
 
 most especially, Christ our Lord 
 himself, showed forth many and 
 most evident miracles and prophe- 
 cies ; and of the Apostles we read : 
 'But they going forth preached 
 every where, the Lord working with- 
 al, and confirming the word with 
 signs that followed.'^ And again, 
 it is written : ' We have the more 
 firm prophetical word, whereunto 
 you do well to attend, as to a light 
 shining in a dark place.' ^ 
 
 But though the assent of faith is 
 by no means a blind action of the 
 mind, still no man can assent to 
 the Gospel teaching, as is necessary 
 to obtain salvation, without the il- 
 lumination and inspiration of the 
 Holy Spirit, who gives to all men 
 sweetness in assenting to and believ- 
 ing in the truth.^ Wherefore, faith 
 itself, even when it does not work 
 by charity, is in itself a gift of God, 
 and the act of faith is a work ap- 
 pertaining to salvation, by which 
 man yields voluntary obedience to 
 God himself, by assenting to and 
 co-operating with his grace, which 
 he is able to resist. 
 
 Further, all those things are to 
 be believed with divine and Catho- 
 lic faith which are contained in the 
 Word of God, written or handed 
 
 iMarkxvi. 20. » 2 Peter i. 19. 
 
 3 Canons of the Second Council of Orange, confirmed by Pope Boniface II., A.D. 529, 
 against the SemipelagianSj Canon VII. See Denzinger's Enchiridion Si/mbolorvm^ p. 53 
 CWiirzburg, 1865). 
 
142 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 sia sive solemni judicio sive 
 ordinario et iiniversali magis- 
 tet'io tamqxiam divinitus reve- 
 lata credenda ^roponuntur. 
 
 Quoniain vero sine fide im- 
 possibile est placere Deo, et ad 
 filiorutifh ejus consortium joerve- 
 nire j ideo nemini unquam sine 
 ilia contigit justification nee ul- 
 lus, nisi in ea perseveraverit 
 bisque in finem, mtam ceternam 
 asseguetur. Ut autem officio ve- 
 ram fidem amplectendi, in eague 
 constanter jperseverandi satisfa- 
 cere j^ossemus, Deiis jper Filiuni 
 suum unigenitum Ecclesiam in- 
 stituit, suceque institutio7iis ma- 
 nifestis notis instruxit, %it ea 
 tamquam custos et magistra ver- 
 hi revelati ah omnibus posset 
 agnosci. Ad solam enim Catho- 
 licam Ecclesiam ea pertinent 
 omnia, quce ad evidentem fidei 
 Christiance credihilitatem tam 
 multa et tam mira divinitus 
 sunt disposita. Quin etiam Ec- 
 clesia per se ipsa, oh suam nempe 
 admirahilem propagationem, exi- 
 miam. sanctitatem et inexhaustam 
 in omnihus honis foecunditatem, 
 oh Catholicam unitatem^ invictam- 
 que stahilitatem, magnum quod- 
 dam et perpetiium est motivum 
 credihilitatis et divince suce lega- 
 tionis testimonium ivTefragdbile. 
 
 down, and which the Church, either 
 by a solemn judgment, or by her 
 ordinary and univei-sal magisteri- 
 um, proposes for belief as having 
 been divinely revealed. 
 
 And since, without faith, it is 
 impossible to please God, and to 
 attain to the fellowship of his chil- 
 dren, therefore without faith no one 
 has ever attained justification, nor 
 will any one obtain eternal life 
 unless he shall have persevered in 
 faith unto the end. And, that we 
 may be able to satisfy the obliga- 
 tion of embracing the true faith, 
 and of constantly persevering in 
 it, God has instituted the Church 
 through his only-begotten Son, and 
 has bestowed on it manifest notes 
 of that institution, that it may be 
 recognized by all men as the guard- 
 ian and teacher of the revealed 
 Word ; for to the Catholic Church 
 alone belong all those many and 
 admirable tokens which have been 
 divinely established for the evident 
 credibility of the Christian faith. 
 Nay, more, the Church by itself, 
 with its marvelous extension, its 
 eminent holiness, and its inexhaust- 
 ible fruitfulness in every good 
 thing, with its Catholic unity and 
 its invincible stability, is a great 
 and perpetual motive of credibilitj^, • 
 and an irrefutable witness of its 
 own divine mission. 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 143 
 
 Quo fit^ ut ipsa veluti si- 
 gnum levatum in nationes^ et 
 ad se invitet, qui nonditm credi- 
 derunt, et filios suos certiores 
 faciat, firmissimo niti funda- 
 mento fidem^ quam jpvofitentur. 
 Qui quidern testimonio efficax 
 suhsidium accedit ex sux^erna 
 virtute. Eteniin henignissiinus 
 Dominus et crrantes gratia sua 
 excitat atque adjuvat, ut ad ag- 
 nitio7iem veritatis venire jpos- 
 sint^ et eoSy quos de tenebris 
 transtulit in admirabile lumen 
 suwn, in hoc eodem lumine ut 
 perseverent, gratia sua confir- 
 mat, non deserens, nisi desera- 
 tur. Quoeirca minime par est 
 conditio eorum, qui per cceleste 
 fidei donum CatholiccB veritati ad- 
 hceserunt^ atque eorum^ qui ducti 
 opinionihus humanis, falsam re- 
 ligionem sectantur; illi enim, qui 
 fidem sub Ecclesice magisterio sus- 
 ceperunt^ nullam unquam habere 
 possunt justarn causam 'mutandis 
 aut in dubium fidem eamdem re- 
 vocandi. Quae, cum ita sint, gra- 
 tias agent es Deo PatH, qui dignos 
 nos fecit in partem sortis sancto- 
 rum in lumine^ tantam ne negli- 
 gamus salutem, sed aspicientes in 
 auctorem fidei et consummatorem 
 Jesum, teneamus spei nostrce con- 
 fessionem indeclinabilem. 
 
 And thus, like a standard set up a 
 unto the nations,^ it both invites to \ 
 itself those who do not yet believe, 
 and assures its children that the 
 faith which they profess rests on 
 the most firm foundation. And its 
 testimony is efficaciously supported 
 by a power from on high. For our 
 most merciful Lord gives his grace 
 to stir up and to aid those who are 
 astray, that they may come to a 
 knowledge of the truth; and to 
 those wliom he has brought out of 
 darkness into his own admirable 
 light he gives his grace to strength- 
 en them to persevere in that light, 
 deserting none who desert not him. 
 Therefore there is no parity be- 
 tween the condition of those who 
 have adhered to the Catholic truth 
 by the heavenly gift of faith, and 
 of those who, led by human opin- 
 ions, follow a false reb'gion ; for 
 those who have received the faith 
 under the magisterium of the 
 Church can never have any just 
 cause for changing or doubting that 
 faith. Therefore, giving thanks to 
 God the Father who has made us 
 worthy to be partakers of the lot of 
 the Saints in light, let us not neglect 
 so great salvation, but with our eyes 
 fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher 
 of our f aith,letus hold fast the confes- 
 sion of our hope without wavering.^ 
 
 * Isaiah xi. 12. 
 
 » Heb. xii. 2, and x. 23. 
 
144 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 Caput IV. 
 s , . De Fide et Ratione. 
 
 Hoc quoque ^erjpetuus Eccle- 
 sice Catholicce consensus tenuit et 
 tenet, duplicem esse ordinem co- 
 gnitionis, non solum- princij^io, 
 sed ohjecto etiam distinctum : 
 ^rincipio quidem, quia in alter o 
 naturali ratione, in altero fide 
 divina cognoscimus j ohjecto au- 
 tem, quia jprcBter ea, ad quoe na- 
 turalis ratio jpertingere jootest, 
 credenda nobis jprojponuntwr my- 
 steria in Deo alscondita, quoe, 
 nisi revelata divinities, innote- 
 scere non jpossunt. Quocirca 
 Ajpostolus, qui a gentihus Deum 
 jper ea, quoe facta sunt, cogni- 
 tuin esse testatur, disserens ta- 
 Qnen de gratia et veritate, qitoe 
 Jper Jesum Christum facta est, 
 ^ronunciat : Loquimur Dei sa- 
 jpientiam in mysterio, quoa db- 
 scondita est, quam jprcedestinavit 
 Deus ante scxcula in gloriam 
 nostram, quam nemo principimn 
 hujus scECuli cognovit : nobis au- 
 tem revelavit Deu$ jper Spiritum 
 suum : Sjpiritus enim omnia 
 scrutatur, etiam. jprofunda Dei. 
 Et ijpse Unigenitus confitetxir 
 Patri, quia ahscondit hcec a sa- 
 jpieritibus et jprxidentibus, et re- 
 velavit ea jparvulis. 
 *Ac ratio quidera,fide illustrata, 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 On Faith and Reason. 
 
 The Catholic Church, with one 
 consent, has also ever held and does 
 hold that there is a twofold order 
 of knowledge distinct both in prin- 
 ciple and also in object; in princig 
 pie, because our knowledge in the 
 one is by natural reason, and in the 
 other by divine faith; in object, 
 because, besides those tilings to 
 which natural reason can attain, 
 there are proposed to our belief 
 mysteries hidden in God, which, 
 unless divinely revealed, can not 
 be known. Wherefore, the Apos- 
 tle, who testifies that God is known 
 by the Gentiles through created 
 things, still, when discoursing of 
 the grace and truth which come by 
 Jesus Christ,^ says : ' We speak the 
 wisdom of God in a mystery, a wis- 
 dom wliich is hidden, which God 
 ordained before the world unto our 
 glory ; which none of the princes of 
 this world knew . . . but to us God 
 hath revealed them by his Spirit. 
 For the Spirit searcheth all things, 
 yea, the deep things of God.'^ And 
 the only-begotten Son himself gives 
 thanks to the Father, because he has 
 hid these things from the vvise and 
 prudent, and has revealed them to 
 little ones.^ 
 
 Reason, indeed, enlightened by 
 
 » John i. 17, 
 
 « 1 Cor. ii. 7-9. 
 
 5 Matt. xi. 25. 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 145 
 
 cum sedido, pie et sobrie quce- 
 rit, aliquam, Deo dante, myste- 
 riorum intelligentiam eamque 
 fructuosissimam assequitur, twn 
 ex eorum^ qicce naturaliter cogno- 
 scit, analogiay turn e mysterio- 
 rum ipsoritm nexu inter se et 
 cum fine hominis ultimo ; nun- 
 guam tamen idonea redditur 
 ad ea jperspicieiida instar veri- 
 tatum, quce jpropTium ijpsius 
 ohjectum constituunt. Divina 
 enim. mysteria suajpte natura 
 intellectum creatum sic exce- 
 dant, ut etiam revelatione tra- 
 dita et fide suscepta, ipsius 
 tamen fidei velamine contecta et 
 quadam quasi caligine dbvoluta 
 tnaneant, quamdiu in hac mor- 
 tali vita jperegrinamur a Domi- 
 no : per fidem enitn ambula- 
 raus^ et non per speciem. 
 
 Verum etsi fides sit supra 
 rationem^ nulla tamen unquam 
 inter fidem et rationem vera dis- 
 sensio esse potest : cum idem 
 Deiis, qui mysteria revelat et 
 fidem infimdit, animo humano 
 rationis lumen indiderit; Deus 
 autem negare seipsum non pos- 
 sit, nee verum vero unquam con- 
 tradicere. Inanis autem hujus 
 contradictionis species inde po- 
 tissimum oritur, quod vel fidei 
 
 f aitli, when it seeks earnestly, pious- 
 ly, and calmly, attains by a gift 
 from God some, and that a very 
 fruitful, understanding of myster- 
 ies; partly from the analogy of 
 those things which it naturally 
 knows, partly from the relations 
 which the mysteries bear to one 
 another and to the last end of man ; 
 but reason never becomes capable 
 of apprehending mysteries as it 
 does those truths which constitute 
 its proper object. For the divine 
 mysteries by their own nature so 
 far transcend the created intelli- 
 gence that, even when delivered 
 by revelation and received by faith, 
 they remain covered with the veil 
 of faith itself, and shrouded in a 
 certain degree of darkness, so long 
 as we are pilgrims in this mortal 
 life, not yet with God; ^for we 
 walk by faith and not by sight.' ^ 
 
 But although faith is above rea- 
 son, there can never be any real 
 discrepancy between faith and rea- 
 son, since the same God who re- 
 veals mysteries and infuses faith 
 has bestowed the light of reason on 
 the human mind ; and God can noj 
 deny himself, nor can truth ever 
 contradict truth. The false ap- 
 pearance of such a contradiction is 
 mainly due, either to the dogmas 
 of faith not having been understood 
 
 * 2 Cor. V. 7. 
 K 
 
146 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 dogmata ad inienterri EcclesicE 
 ihtellecta et exjposita non fae- 
 rint, vel qpinionum commenia 
 pro rationis effatis habeantur. 
 Oninem igitur assertionem veri- 
 tati illwninatcB jidei contrariam 
 omnino falsam esse definimus. 
 Porro Ecclesia, qiice una cuvi 
 ajpostolico inunere docendi, man- 
 datum accejpit fidei dejpositum 
 custodiendi, jus etiain et offici- 
 um divinitus habet falsi 7i07ni- 
 nis scientiam jprosorihendl^ ne 
 quis decipiatur per philosophi- 
 am et inanem, fallaciam^. Qua- 
 propter omnes Cliristiani fideles 
 hitjusmodi opiniones^ qucQ jidei 
 doctrinoi contraries esse cogno- 
 sciintur, maxim e si ah Ecclesia 
 reprohatcE fuerint, non solum 
 prohihentur tanquam legitimas 
 scientice conclusiones dfendere^ 
 sed pro errorihus potius, qui 
 fallacem veritatis speciem prce se 
 fera?it, habere tenentur omnino. 
 
 Neque solum fides et ratio in- 
 ter se dissidere nunquam pos- 
 sunt, sed opem, quoque sibi mu- 
 tuam ferunt, cum recta ratio 
 ^fldei fandamenta ■demonstret, 
 ejusque lumine illustrata rerum 
 dimnarum scientiam excolat ; 
 fides vero rationem ah errorihus 
 
 and expounded according to the 
 mind of the Church, or to the in- 
 ventions of opinion having been 
 taken for the verdicts of reason. 
 We define, therefore, tliat every 
 assertion contrary to a truth of en- 
 lightened faith is utterly false.^ 
 Further, the Church, which, to- 
 gether with the Apostolic office of 
 teaching, has received a charge to 
 guard the deposit of faith, derives 
 from God the right and the duty 
 of proscribing false science, lest 
 any should be deceived by jDliiloso- 
 phy and vain fallacy .^ Therefore 
 all faithful Christians are not only 
 forbidden to defend, as legitimate 
 conclusions of science, such opin- 
 ions as are known to be contrary to . 
 the doctrines of faith, especially if ' 
 they have been condemned by the ' 
 Church, but are altogether bound 
 to account them as errors which 
 put on the fallacious appearance 
 of truth. 
 
 And not only can faith and rea- 
 son never be opposed to one an- 
 other, but they are of mutual aid 
 one to the other; for right reason 
 demonstrates the foundations of 
 faith, and, enlightened by its light, 
 cultivates the science of things di- 
 vine ; while faith frees and guards 
 
 * From the Bull of Pope Leo X., Apostolici regiminis, read in the Eiglith Session of the 
 Fifth Lateran Council, A.D. 1513. See Labbe's Councils, Vol. XIX. p. 842 (Venice, 1732). 
 ' Coloss. ii. 8. 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 147 
 
 liheret ac tueatur^ eamque mul- 
 tipUci cognitione instruat. Qua- 
 jorojjter tantum abest^ ut Eccle- 
 sia humanarum artrnm et disci- 
 jplinarum cuUutcb obsistat, ut 
 hano midtis modis juvet atqiie 
 jpromoveat. Non enini commo- 
 da ah iis ad hominum mtarn 
 dimanantia aut ignorat aut de- 
 sjoicit ; fatetur imo, eas, que- 
 madmodum a Deo, scientiarum 
 Domino, jprofectm sunt, ita si 
 rite jpertractentur, ad Deum, ju- 
 vante ejus gratia, jpcrducere. 
 Neo sane ijpsa vetat, ne hujus- 
 modi discijplinoe in suo qucBgue 
 ambit u jprojpriis tttanticr jprind- 
 jpiis et jpro^ria 'inethodo ; sed 
 justam hano libertatem. agno- 
 scens, id sedulo cavet, ne divincB 
 doctrince rejpugnando errores in 
 se suscijpiant, aut fines ^TOjprios 
 transgressce, ea, quce sunt fidei, 
 occujpent et jperturbent. 
 
 Neque enim fidei doctrina, 
 quam Deus revelavit, velut jpJii- 
 losojphicwn inventum jorojposita 
 est humanis ingeniis jperficienda, 
 sed tanquam divinum dejposi- 
 turn Christi Sponsce tradita, fide- 
 liter custodienda et infallibiliter 
 declaranda. Ilinc sacroruni quo- 
 que dogmatum is sensus jperjpe- 
 tuo est retinendus, quern semel 
 declaravit sancta mater Eccle- 
 sia, nee unquam ab eo sensu, 
 
 reason from errors, and furnishes 
 it with manifold knowledge. So 
 far, therefore, is the Church from 
 opposing the cultivation of hnnian 
 arts and sciences, that it in many 
 ways helps and promotes it. For 
 the Church neither ignores nor de- 
 spises the benefits of human life 
 which result from the arts and sci- 
 ences, but confesses that, as they 
 came from God, the Lord of all 
 science, so, if they be rightly used, 
 they lead to God by the help of his 
 grace. Nor does the Church for- 
 bid that each of these sciences in its 
 sphere should make use of its own 
 principles and its own method ; but, 
 while recognizing this just liberty, 
 it stands watchfully on guard, lest 
 sciences, setting themselves against 
 the divine teaching, or trans- 
 gressing their own limits, should 
 invade and disturb the domain of 
 faith. 
 
 For the doctrine of faith which 
 God hath revealed has not been 
 proposed, like a philosophical in- 
 vention, to be perfected by human 
 ingenuity, but has been delivered 
 as a divine deposit to the Spouse ^ 
 of Christ, to be faithfully kept and 
 infallibly declared. Hence, also, 
 that meaning of the sacred dogmas 
 is perpetually to be retained which 
 our holy motlier the Church has 
 once declared ; nor is that meaning 
 
148 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 altioris intelligenticB specie et 
 nomine^ reeedendum. Crescat 
 igitur et multum vehementerque 
 jprqficiat, tarn singidoriim, qxiam 
 omnium^ tain unius hominis, 
 quam totius Ecclesioe, cetatem ac 
 scecidorum gradihus, intelligen- \ 
 tia, scientia, sapientia ; sed in 
 suo dumtaxat genere, in eodem 
 scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu, 
 eademgiie sententia. 
 
 Canones. 
 I. 
 
 De Deo rerum omnium Cr eater e. 
 
 1. Si qiiis unum verwn Deum 
 msibiliinn et invisihilium Crea- 
 torem et Dominum negaverit : 
 anathema sit. 
 
 2. Si quis prceter materiam 
 nihil esse affirmare non erubue- 
 rit : anathema sit. 
 
 3. Si quis dixerit^ unam ean- 
 demque esse Dei et rerum omni- 
 um substantiam, vel essentiam: 
 anathema sit. 
 
 4. Si quis dixerit^ res finitas^ 
 turn, corjporeas turn sjpirituales 
 aut saltern sjpirituales, e divina 
 substantia emanasse ; aut divi- 
 nam essentiam sui manifesta- 
 tione vel evolutione fieri omnia ^ 
 aut denique Deum esse ens uni- 
 
 ever to be departed from, under 
 the pretense or pretext of a deeper 
 comprehension of them. Let, then, 
 the intelligence, science, and wis- 
 dom of each and all, of individuals 
 and of the whole Church, in all 
 ages and all times, increase and 
 flourish in abundance and vigfor: 
 but simply in its own proper kind, 
 that is to say, in one and the same 
 doctrine, one and the same sense, 
 one and the same judgment.^ 
 
 Canons. 
 I- 
 
 Of Godj the Creator of all things. 
 
 1. If any one shall deny one true 
 God, Creator and Lord of things 
 visible and invisible: let him be 
 anathema. 
 
 2. If any one shall not be 
 ashamdd to affirm that, except 
 matter, nothing exists : let him be 
 anathema. 
 
 3. If any one shall say that the 
 substance and essence of God and 
 of all things is one and the same : 
 let him be anathema. 
 
 4. If any one shall say that finite 
 things, both corporeal and spiritual, 
 or at least spiritual, have emanated 
 from the divine substance ; or that 
 the divine essence by the manifesta- 
 tion and evolution of itself becomes 
 all things; or, lastly, that God is 
 
 * Vincent, of Lerins, Common, n. 28. 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 149 
 
 versale seu indefinitum, quod sese 
 deterynirmndo constituat rerum 
 universitatem in genera, species 
 et individua dlstinctmn : anathe- 
 ma sit. 
 
 5. Si quis non C07ifiteatur, 
 niundum, resque omnes, qucB in 
 eo continentur, et sjpirituales et 
 Tnateriales, secundum totam su- 
 am sudstantiam a Deo ex nihilo 
 esse productas ; aut Deum^ di- 
 xerit non voluntate ah omni ne- 
 cessitate libera, sed tarn neces- 
 sario creasse, quam necessario 
 amat seipsum; aut 7nundum ad 
 Dei gloriam conditum esse ne- 
 gaverit : anathema sit. 
 
 II. 
 
 De Revelatione. 
 
 1. Si quis dixerit, Deum imuni 
 et verum, Creatorem et Dominum 
 nostrum, per ea, quoe facta sunt, 
 naturali rationis humance lumine 
 certo cognosci non posse : anathe- 
 ma sit. 
 
 2. Si quis dixerit, fieri non 
 posse, aut non expedire ut per 
 revelationem divinam homo de 
 Deo cultuque ei exhibendo edo- 
 ceatur : anathema sit. 
 
 3. Si quis dixerit, homhiem 
 ad cognitionem et perfectionem^ 
 quce naturalem superet, divini- 
 tus evehi non posse, sed ex seipso 
 
 universal or indefinite being, which 
 by determining itself constitutes the 
 universality of things, distinct ac- 
 cording to genera, species, and in- 
 dividuals : let him be anathema. 
 
 5. If any one confess not that 
 the world, and all things which are 
 contained in it, both spiritual and 
 material, have been, in their whole 
 substance, produced by God out of 
 nothing ; or shall say tliat God cre- 
 ated, not by his will, free from all 
 necessity, but by a necessity equal 
 to the necessity whereby he loves 
 himself; or shall deny that the 
 world was made for the glory of 
 God : let him be anathema. 
 
 n. 
 
 Of Revelation. 
 
 1. If any one shall say that the 
 one true God, our Creator and Lord, 
 can not be certainly known by the 
 natural light of human reason 
 through created things: let him 
 be anathema. 
 
 2. If any one shall say that it is 
 impossible or inexpedient that man 
 should be taught by divine revela- 
 tion concerning God and the wor- 
 ship to be paid to him : let him be 
 anathema. 
 
 3. If any one shall say that man 
 can not be raised by divine power 
 to a higher than natural knowledge 
 and perfection, but can and ought, 
 
150 
 
 DJoMATlC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 ad omnis tandem veri et honi 
 possessionem jagi jprofectu per- 
 tingere ^osse et debere : anathe- 
 ma sit. 
 
 4. Si quis sacroB ScftnpturcB II- 
 hros integros cum omnibus suis 
 jpartihus^ jproxd illos sancta Tri- 
 dentina Synodus recensuit, jpro 
 sacris et canonicis non suscepe- 
 ritj aut eos divinitus insjpirdtos 
 esse negaverit : anathema sit. 
 
 III. 
 
 De Fide. 
 
 1. Si qiiis dixerit, rationem 
 humanam ita indejpendentem 
 esse, lit fides ei a Deo imperari 
 non jpossit : anathema sit. 
 
 2. Si quis dixerit, fidem divi- 
 nam a naturali de Deo et rebus 
 moralibus scientia non distin- 
 giH, ac jpTojpterea ad fidem divi- 
 nam non reqiiiri, iit revelata 
 Veritas projpter auctoritatem Dei 
 revelantis credatur : anathema 
 sit. 
 
 3. Si quis dixerit, revelatio- 
 nem divinam externis signis cre- 
 dihilem fieri non 2>osse, ideoque 
 sola interna cxijusque experien- 
 tia aut insjpiratione jprivata ho- 
 mines ad fidem moveri debere : 
 anathema sit. 
 
 4. Si quis dixerit, miracula 
 nulla fieri jposse, jproindeque 
 omnes de iis narrajtiones^ etiam 
 
 by a continuous progress, to arrive 
 at length, of himself, to the posses- 
 sion of all that is true and good: 
 let him be anathema. 
 
 4. If any one shall not receive 
 as sacred and canonical the books 
 of Holy Scripture, entire witli all 
 their parts, as the holy Synod of 
 Trent has enumerated them, or shall 
 deny that they have been divinely 
 inspired : let him be anathema. 
 
 III. 
 
 On Faith. 
 
 1. If any one shall say that hu- 
 man reason is so independent that 
 faith can not be enjoined upon it 
 by God : let him be anathema. 
 
 2. If any one shall say that "di- 
 vine faith is not distinguished from 
 natural knowledge of God and of 
 moral truths, and therefore that it 
 is not requisite for divine faith that 
 revealed truth be believed because 
 of the authority of God, who re- 
 veals it: let him be anathema. 
 
 3. If any one shall say that divine 
 revelation can not be made credible 
 by outward signs, and therefore tliat 
 men ought to be moved to faith 
 solely by the internal experience 
 of each, or by private inspiration : 
 let him be anathema. 
 
 4. If any one shall say that mira- 
 cles are impossible, and therefore 
 that all the accounts regarding 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 151 
 
 in sacra Scrijpticra contentas^ i7i- 
 ter fabulas vet mythos ablegan- 
 das esse; aut miracula certo 
 cognosci nunqtiatn jposse, nee iis 
 divinam religionis Christia^ice 
 originem rite jprohan^i : anathe- 
 ma sit, 
 
 5. Si quis dlxerit, assensum 
 fidei Christianoi 7ion esse libe- 
 runi, sed argumentis humance 
 rationis necessario jproduci ; aut 
 ad solain fidem vivam, quce per 
 caritatem operatur^ gratiam Dei 
 necessariam esse : anathema sit. 
 
 6. Si quis dixerit, jparem esse 
 conditioneni fidelimn atque eo- 
 rurn, qui ad fidem unice veram 
 nondum pervenerunt, ita xit Ca- 
 tholici justam causam habere 
 possint, fidem ^ quam sub Eccle- 
 si(B magisterio jam susceperunt, 
 assensu suspenso in dubium vo- 
 candi, donee demonstrationhn 
 scientificain eredibilitatis et xe- 
 ritatis fidei suce absolverint : 
 anathema sit. 
 
 IV. 
 
 De Fide et Ratione. 
 
 1. Si quis dixeritj in revela- 
 tione divina nulla vera et pro- 
 prie dieta mysteria contineri^ 
 sed imiversa fidei dogmata posse 
 per rationem rite excultam e na- 
 turalibus principiis intelUgi et 
 demonstrari : anathema sit. 
 
 them, even those contained in Holy 
 Scripture, are to be dismissed as 
 fabulous or mythical ; or that mira- 
 cles can never be known with cer- 
 tainty, and tliat the divine origin 
 of Christianity can not be proved 
 by them : let him be anathema. 
 
 5. If any one shall say that the 
 assent of Christian faith is not a 
 free act, but inevitably produced by 
 the arguments of human reason ; or 
 that the grace of God is necessary 
 for thatlivingfaith only which work- 
 eth by charity : let him be anathema. 
 
 6. If any one shall say that the 
 condition of the faithful, and of 
 those who have not yet attained to 
 the only true faith, is on a par, so 
 til at Catholics may have just cause 
 for doubting, with suspended assent, 
 the faith which they have already 
 received under the magisterinm of 
 the Church, until they shall have 
 obtained a scientific demonstration 
 of the credibility and truth of their 
 faith : let him be anathema. 
 
 IV. 
 
 On Faith and Reason. 
 
 1. If any one shall say that in di- 
 vine revelation there are no myster- 
 ies, truly and properly so called, but 
 that all the doctrines of faith can be 
 understood and demonstrated from 
 natural principles, by properly culti- 
 vated reason : let him be anathema. 
 
152 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 2. Si quis dixerit, disciplinas 
 humanas ea cum libertate trac- 
 tandas esse, ut earum assertiones, 
 etsi doctrinoe revelatce adversen- 
 tur, tanquam verce retineri, neque 
 ah JEcclesia jproscribi j^ossint : 
 anatheina sit. 
 
 3. Si quis dixerit, fieri jposse, 
 ut dog7natlhus ah Ecdesia jpro- 
 jpositis, aliquando secundum jpro- 
 gressum scientice sensus trihuen- 
 dus sit alius ah eo, quern intel- 
 lexit et intelligit Ecdesia : anathe- 
 ma sit. 
 
 Itaque sujpremi jpastoralis Nos- 
 tri officii debitum exequentes, 
 omnes Christi fideles, maxime 
 vero eos, qui jprcusunt vel docen- 
 di tnunere funguntur, per visce- 
 ra Jesu Christi ohtestamur, nec- 
 non ejusdem Dei et Salvatovis 
 nostri auctoritate juhemus, ut 
 ad has err ores a Sancta Ecdesia 
 arcendos et eliminandos, atque 
 jpurissiraoR fidei lucem jpanden- 
 dam studium et ojperam confe- 
 rant. 
 
 Quoniam vero satis non est, 
 hcereticam jpravitatem devitare, 
 nisi a quoque errores diligenter 
 fugiantur, qui ad illam plus 
 minusve accedunt ; omnes officii 
 monemus, servandi etiam Consti- 
 tutiones et Deer eta, quihus pra- 
 vce ejusmodi opiniones, quae isthic 
 
 2. If any one shall say that human 
 sciences are to be so freely treated 
 that their assertions, althoiigli op- 
 posed to revealed doctrine, are to 
 be held as true, and can not be con- 
 demned by the Church : let him be 
 anathema. 
 
 3. If any one shall assert it to be 
 possible that sometimes, according 
 to the progress of science, a sense 
 is to be given to doctrines propound- 
 ed by the Church different from that 
 which the Church has understood and 
 understands : let him be anathema^ 
 
 Therefore, we, fulfilling the duty 
 of our supreme pastoral office, en- 
 treat, by the mercies of Jesus Christ, 
 and, by the authority of the same, 
 our God and Saviour, we command, 
 all the faithful of Christ, and espe- 
 cially those who are set over others, 
 or are charged with the office of in- 
 struction, that they earnestly and 
 diligently apply themselves to ward 
 off and eliminate these errors from 
 holy Church, and to spread the light 
 of pure faith. 
 
 And since it is not sufficient to 
 shun heretical pravity, unless those 
 errors also be diligently avoided 
 which more or less nearly approach 
 it, we admonish all men of the fur. 
 ther duty of observing those consti 
 tutions and decrees by w^hich such 
 erroneous opinions as are not here 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 153 
 
 diserte non enumerantur, ah hac 
 Sancta Sede ^oscrijptoe et jpro- 
 hibitce sunt. 
 
 Datum Romce in j>ubl^ca Ses- 
 sione in Vaticana Basilica so- 
 lemniter celehrata, anno Incarna- 
 tionis DominiccB millesimo octin- 
 gentesimo septuagesimo^ die vige- 
 sima quarta Aprilis. Pontifica- 
 tus Nostri anno vigesimo qiiarto. 
 
 CONSTITUTIO DOGMATICA PeIMA DE 
 ECCLESIA ChKISTI. 
 
 JEdita in Sessions Quarta Sacro- 
 saricti (Ecumenici Concilii Va- 
 ticani. 
 
 PIUS EPISCOPUS, SERVUS SERVORUM 
 DEI SACRO APPROBANTE CONCI- 
 LIO AD PERPETUAM REI MEMORI- 
 AM. 
 
 Pastor ceternus et Episcopus 
 animarum nostrarum^ ut salu- 
 tlferum Pedemptionis opus 'pe- 
 renne redderet, sanctam (jedifi- 
 care Ecclesiam decrevit, in qua 
 veluti in domo Dei viventis 
 fideles omnes unins fidei et cain- 
 tatis vi7icido continerentur. Qua- 
 proptevy priusquam darificare- 
 tur, rogavit Patrem non pro 
 Apostolis tantum^ sed et pro eis, 
 qui credituri erant per verhum 
 eoruni in ij?su7ny ut omnes immn 
 
 specifically enumerated, have been 
 proscribed and condemned by this 
 Holy See. 
 
 Given at Rome in public Session 
 solemnly held in the Vatican Basil- 
 ica in the year of our Lord one 
 thousand eight hundred and sev- 
 enty, on the twenty-fourth day of 
 April, in the twenty-fourth year of 
 our Pontificate. 
 
 First Dogmatic Constitution on 
 THE Church of Christ. 
 
 Published in the Fourth Session 
 of the holy (Ecumenical Council 
 of the Vatican. 
 
 PIUS bishop, servant of the serv- 
 
 EVERLASTING REME:^IBRANCE. 
 
 The eternal Pastor and Bisliop 
 of our souls, in order to continue 
 for all time the life-giving work 
 of his Pedemption, determined to 
 build up the holy Church, where- 
 in, as in the house of che living 
 God, all who believe might be 
 united in the bond of one faith 
 and one charity. Wherefore, be- 
 fore he entered into his glory, he 
 prayed unto the Father, not for the 
 Apostles only, but for tliose also 
 who through their preaching should 
 
154 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 e^ssent, sicut ipse Filius et Pa- 
 ter uniiTTi sunt. Quemadmodum 
 ig'itur Aj)ostolos, qiios sibi de 
 mundo elegerat^ misit, sicut ipse 
 missus erat a Patre : ita hi 
 Ecclesia sua jpastores et docto- 
 res usqice ad consummationem 
 sceculi esse voluit. Tit vero ej[)i- 
 scojpatus ipse unus et indivisus 
 esset, et jper cohcBrerites sibi in- 
 mcem sacerdotes credentium mul- 
 titudo universa in fdei et com- 
 munionis unitate conservaretu't\ 
 heatum Petrum cceteris Ajposto- 
 lis j[)7'cepo7iens in i2Jso instltuit 
 jperjpetuxun ittriusque iinitatis 
 ^rincipiwni ac visihile fanda- 
 mentum, sujper cujus fortitudi- 
 nem (Sternum exstrueretur tern- 
 jplum^ et EcclesicB coelo infer en- 
 da sublimitas in hujus fidei 
 firmitate consurgeret. Et quo- 
 niam portae inferi ad everten- 
 dam, si fieri posset, Ecclesiam, 
 contra ejus fandamentuTn di- 
 t'initus positum majori in dies 
 odio undique insurgunt, Wos\ 
 ad Catholici gregis custodiam, ! 
 incolumitateni, augmeritum, ne- 1 
 cessarium esse judicamUs, sacro 
 approhante Concilio, doctrinam 
 de institutione, perpetuitate, ac 
 
 come to believe in him, that all 
 might be one even as he the Son 
 and the Father are one.^ As then 
 he sent the Apostles whom he had 
 chosen to himself from the world, 
 as he himself had been sent by 
 the Father : so he willed that there 
 should ever be pastors and teachers 
 in his Church to the end of the 
 world. And in order that the Epis- 
 copate also might be one and undi- 
 vided, and that by means of a close- 
 ly united priesthood the multitude 
 of the faithful might be kept secure 
 in the oneness of faith and commu- 
 nion, he set blessed Peter over the 
 rest of the Apostles, and fixed in 
 him the abiding principle of this 
 twofold unity, and its visible foun- 
 dation, in the strength of which the 
 everlasting temple should arise, and 
 the Church in the firmness of that 
 faith should lift her majestic front 
 to Heaven.^ And seeing that the 
 gates of hell, with daily increase of 
 hatred, are gatliering their strength 
 on every side to upheave the foun- 
 dation laid by God's own hand, and 
 so, if that might be, to overthrow 
 the Church : we, therefore, for the 
 preservation, safe-keeping, and in- 
 crease of the Catholic flock, with 
 
 * John xvii. 21. 
 
 ' From Sermon IV. chap. ii. of St. Leo the Great, A.D. 440, Vol. I. p. 17 of edition of 
 Ballerini, Venice, 1753 ; read in the eighth lectiou on the Feast of St. Peter's Chair at Aa- 
 tioch, February 22. 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 155 
 
 natura sacri Apostolici jprima- 
 tus, in quo totius Ecclesice vis 
 ac soliditas consistif, cimciis 
 fidelihus credendam et tenen- 
 dam, secundum antiqiiam atque 
 constantem universalis Ecclesia^ 
 Jldem, jprojponere^ atque contra- 
 rios, dominico gregi adeo jperni- 
 closos, errores ^proscrihere et con- 
 demnare. 
 
 Caput I. 
 
 De Apostolici Primatus in beato Petro in- 
 stilutione. 
 
 Docemus itaque et declaramus, 
 juxta Evangelii testimonia jpri- 
 matum jurisdictionis in univer- 
 sam Dei Ecclesiam immediate 
 et directe heato Petro Ajpostolo 
 jpromissum atque collatum a 
 Christo Domino fuisse. Unum. 
 enim Simonem, cid jam 'pridem 
 dixerat : Tu vocaheris Cephas, 
 postquann ille suam edidit con- 
 fessionem inquiens : Tu es 
 Christus, Filius Dei vivi, solem- 
 nihus his verbis allocutus est 
 Dominus : Meatus es, Simon 
 Bar-Jona, quia caro et sanguis 
 non revelavit tibi, sed Pater 
 mens, qui in coelis est : et ego 
 
 the approval of the sacred Coun- 
 cil, do judge it to be necessary to 
 propose to the belief and accept- 
 ance of all the faithful, in accord- 
 ance with the ancient and constant 
 faith of the universal Church, the 
 doctrine touching the institution, 
 perpetuity, and nature of the sacred 
 Apostolic Primacy, in which is 
 found the strength and solidity of 
 the entire Church, and at the same 
 time to proscribe and condemn the 
 contrary errors, so hurtful to the 
 flock of Christ. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Of the Institution of the Apostolic Primacy 
 in blessed Peter. 
 
 We therefore teach and declare 
 that, according to the testimony of 
 the Gospel, the primacy of juris- 
 diction over the universal Church 
 of God was immediately and di- 
 rectly promised and given to blessed 
 Peter the Apostle by Christ the 
 Lord. For it was to Simon alone, 
 to whom he had already said : ^ Thou 
 shalt be called Cephas,' ^ that the 
 Lord after the confession made by 
 him, saying: 'Thou art the Christ, 
 the Son of the living God,' addressed 
 these solemn words: 'Blessed art 
 thon, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh 
 and blood have not revealed it to 
 thee, but my Father who is in heaven. 
 
 » John i. 42, 
 
156 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 dico tibi, quia tu es Petrus, et 
 super hano Petram cedificaho 
 Ecdesiam meam, et jportcR in- 
 feri non jprcBvalehunt adversus 
 earn : et tlhi dabo claves regni 
 coelorum : et quodcuinque liga- 
 veris super terram^ erit ligatuin 
 et in coelis : et quodcumque sol- 
 veris super terram^ erit solutum 
 et in codis. Atque uni Simoni 
 Petro contulit Jesus jpost suarn 
 Tesurrectionem summi jpastoris 
 et Tectoris jurisdictioiiem in to- 
 tum suum ovile dicens : Pasce 
 agnos Qneos : Pasce oves tneas. 
 II'uiG tarn manifestcB sacrarum 
 Scripturarum doctrince, iit ah 
 Ecclesia Catholica semper intel- 
 lecta est, aperte opponuntur 
 pravcB ^ eo7'um sententice, qui, 
 constitutam a Christo Domino 
 in sua Ecclesia regiminis for- 
 mam pervertentes, negant, so- 
 lum Petrwn prat ceteris Apo- 
 stolis, sive seorsum singulis 
 sive omnibus simul, vero pro- 
 prioque jurisdictionis primatu 
 fuisse a Christo instructum ; 
 aut qui affirmant, eundem pri- 
 matum non immediate directe- 
 que ipsi beato Petro, sed Ec- 
 clesice, et per hanc illi ut ip- 
 sius Ecclesice ministro delatum 
 fuisse. 
 
 Si quis igitur dixerit, beatum 
 
 And I say to thee that thou art 
 Peter ; and npon this rock I will 
 build my Church, and the gates of 
 hell shall not prevail against it. 
 And I will give to thee the keys of 
 the kingdom of heaven. And what- 
 soever thou shalt bind on earth, 
 it shall be bound also in heaven ; 
 and whatsoever thou shalt loose on 
 earth, it shall be loosed also in 
 heaven.'^ And it was upon Simon 
 alone that Jesus after his resurrec- 
 tion bestowed the jurisdiction of 
 chief pastor and ruler" over all his 
 fold in the words : ' Feed my lambs; 
 feed my sheep.'' ^ At open variance 
 with this clear doctrine of Holy 
 Scripture as it has been ever under- 
 stood by the Catholic Church are 
 the perverse opinions of those who, 
 while they distort the form of gov- 
 ernment established by Christ the 
 Lord in his Church, deny that Pe- 
 ter in his single person, preferably 
 to all the other Apostles, whether 
 taken separately or together, was 
 endowed by Christ with a true and 
 proper primacy of jurisdiction ; or 
 of those who assert that the same 
 primacy was not bestowed immedi- 
 ately and directly upon blessed Pe- 
 ter himself, but upon the Church, 
 and through the Church on Peter 
 as her minister. 
 
 If any one, therefore, shall say 
 
 Matt, xvi. 16-19. 
 
 'John xxi. 15-17. 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 157 
 
 Petrum Apostolum non esse a 
 Christo Domino constitutum 
 AjpostoloTum omniiivi j)ri7ici- 
 pem et totius Ecclesice militan- 
 iis visibile caput; vel eimdem 
 honoris tantum, non autem verce 
 jpropri que jicrisdictionis j>ri- 
 matuin ah eodem Domino nos- 
 tro Jesio Christo directe et im- 
 mediate accepisse : anathema sit. 
 
 Caput II. 
 
 De perpetuitate Primatus heati Petri in 
 Romanis Pontijicibus. 
 
 Quod autem in heato Aposto- 
 lo Petro jprincejps pastorum et 
 pastor 7nagnus ovium Dominus 
 Christus Jesus in perpetuam sa- 
 hUem ao perenne bonur/i Eccle- 
 sice instituit, id eodem auctore 
 in Ecclesice J quoe fundata super 
 petram ad Jinem soeculorum 
 usque firma stahit, jugiter du- 
 rare necesse est. Ntdli sane du- 
 liic7n^ imo sceculis omnibus no- 
 tum est, quod sanctus heatissi- 
 mus<jiie Petrus, Apostolorum 
 princeps et cajmt fideique co- 
 lumnar et Ecclesice Catholicce 
 fundamentum, a Domino nos- 
 tro Jesu Christo, Salvatore hu- 
 mani generis ac Pedemptore, 
 claves regni accepit : qui ad 
 hoc xisque tempus et semper in 
 suis successor ibus, episcopis sanc- 
 tce PomancB Sedis, ab ipso fun- 
 
 that blessed Peter the Apostle was 
 not appointed the Prince of all the 
 Apostles and the Yisible Head of 
 the whole Church Militant; or that 
 the same directly and immediately 
 received from the same our Lord 
 Jesus Christ a primacy of honor 
 only, and not of true and proper 
 jurisdiction: let him be anathe- 
 ma. * 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 On the Perpetuity of the Primacy of blessed 
 Peter in the Roman Pontiffs. 
 
 That which the Prince of Shep- 
 herds and great Shepherd of the 
 sheep, Jesus Christ. our Lord, estab- 
 lished in the person of the blessed 
 Apostle Peter to secure the peq3et- 
 ual welfare and lasting good of the 
 Church, must, by the same institu- 
 tion, necessarily remain unceasing- 
 ly in the Church; which, being 
 founded upon the Hock, will stand 
 firm to the end of the world. For 
 none can doubt, and it is known to 
 all ages, that the holy and blessed 
 Peter, the Prince and Chief of the 
 Apostles, the pillar of the faith and 
 foundation of the Catholic Church, 
 received the keys of the kingdom 
 from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Sav- 
 iour and Kedeemer of mankind, and 
 lives, presides, and judges, to this 
 day and always, in his successoi-s 
 the Bishops of the Holy See of 
 
158 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 daioEy ejusque consecratoe san- 
 guine, vlvit et ^roesidet et judi- 
 cium exercet. Unde qxdcwnqxie 
 in hao Cathedra Petro succe- 
 dit, is secundum Christi ipsius 
 institutionem jprimatum Petri 
 in universam Ecclesiam obtinet. 
 Manet ergo dhjpositio veritatis, 
 et heatus Petrus, in accejpta for- 
 titudine jpetroR ^erseverans, sus- 
 cejpta Ecclesioe guhernacula non 
 reliquit. Ilac de causa ad Po- 
 manain Ecclesiam jpropter jpo- 
 tentiorem jprincijpalitatem necesse 
 semjper fuii omnem co?ivenire 
 Ecclesiam, hoc est, eos, qui sunt 
 undique fideles, ut in ea Sede, 
 e qua venerandm communionis 
 jura in omnes dimanant, tara- 
 quam membra in cajpite conso- 
 ciata, in imam corjporis comjpa- 
 gem codlescerent. 
 
 Si quis ergo dixerit, non esse 
 ex ipsius Christi Domini insti- 
 txitione, seic jure divino, lit hea- 
 tus Petrus in jprimatu super 
 universam Ecclesiam habeat jper- 
 
 Eome, which was founded by him, 
 and consecrated by his blood.^ 
 Whence, whosoever succeeds to Pe- 
 ter in this See, does by the institu- 
 tion of Christ himself obtain the 
 Primacy of Peter over the whole 
 Church. The disposition made by 
 Incarnate Truth therefore remains, 
 and blessed Peter, abiding through 
 the strength of the Eock in the 
 power that lie received, has not 
 abandoned the direction of the 
 Church.2 Wherefore it has at all 
 times been necessary that every 
 particular Church — that is to say, 
 the faithful throughout the world 
 — should agree with the Roman 
 Church, on account of the greater 
 authority of the princedom which 
 this has received; that all being 
 associated in the unity of that See 
 whence the rights of communion 
 spread to all, might grow together 
 as members of one Head in the 
 compact unity of tb.c body.^ 
 
 If, then, any should deny that it 
 is by the institution of Christ the 
 Lord, or by divine i ight,that blessed 
 Peter should have a perpetual line 
 of successors in the Primacy over 
 
 ' From the Acts (Session Third) of the Third General Council of Ephesus, A.D, 431, Labbe's 
 Councils, Vol. III. p. 1154, Venice edition of 1728. See also letter of St. Peter Chrysologus 
 to Kutjches, in life prefixed to his works, p. 13, Venice, 1750. 
 
 =" From Sermon III. chap. iii. of St. Leo the Great, Vol. I. p. 1 2. 
 
 ^ From St. Irenaus against Heresies, Book III. cap. iii. p. 175, Benedictine edition, Venice, 
 1734; and Acts of Synod of Aquileja, A.D. 381,Labbe's Councils, Vol. II. p. 1185, Venice, 
 1728. 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 159 
 
 petuos successores; aut Roma- 
 niun Pontificem non esse heati 
 Petri in eodem primatu sucees- 
 sorem : anathema sit. 
 
 Caput III. 
 
 De vi et ratione Primatus Romani Ponti- 
 Jicis. 
 
 Quaprojpter ajpertis innixi sa- 
 crarum litteraruin testimoniis, et 
 inhcerentes turn Proedecessoricm 
 JSfostrorwn, Pomanorum Ponti- 
 ficum^ turn Conciliorum gensra- 
 lium distvtis jperspicidsque de- 
 cretis, innovamus mcumenici Con- 
 cilii Florentini definitionem^ qua 
 credendum ah omnibus Christi 
 fidelihus est, sanctam Apostoli- 
 cam Sedem, et Pomanum Ponti- 
 ficem in xmiverswn oxhern tenere 
 primatnm,, ct ipsuTn Pontificem 
 Pomannm successorem esse heaii 
 Petri, jprinci/pis Apostolorum, et 
 verum Christi Vicariwn, totius- 
 qiie Ecclesice caput, et omnium 
 Christianorum patrem ac dobto- 
 reni existere ; et ipsi in heato Pe- 
 tro pascendi, regendi ac guber- 
 nayidi universalenn Ecclesiam a 
 Domino nostro Jesu Christo ple- 
 nam potestatem traditam esse ; 
 quemadmodum etiam in gestis 
 cecumenicorum Conciliorum et sa- 
 cris canonibus continetur. 
 
 Docemus proinde et declara- 
 mus, Ecclesiam Pomanam, dis- 
 
 the universal Church, or that the 
 Roman Pontiff is the successor of 
 blessed Peter in this primacy: let 
 him be anathema. 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 On the Power and Nature of the Primacy of 
 the Roman Pontiff. 
 
 Wherefore, resting on plain tes- 
 timonies of the Sacred Writings, 
 and adhering to the plain and ex- 
 press decrees both of oar predeces- 
 sors, the Roman Pontiffs, and of 
 the General Councils, we renew 
 the definition of the oecumenical 
 Council of Florence, in virtue of 
 whicli all the faithful of Christ 
 must believe that the holy Apos- 
 tolic See and the Roman Pontiff 
 possesses the primacy over the 
 whole world, and that the Roman 
 Pontiff is the successor of blessed 
 Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and 
 is true vicar of Christ, and head 
 of the whole Church, and father 
 and teacher of all Christians; 
 and tliat full power was given to 
 him in blessed Peter to rule, feed, 
 and govern the universal Church 
 by Jesus Christ our Lord; as is 
 also contained in tlie acts of tlie 
 General Councils and in the sa- 
 cred Canons. 
 
 Hence we teach and declare that 
 by the appointment of our Lord the 
 
160 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 jponente Domino, super omnes 
 alias ordinaries. • jpotestatis ohti- 
 ne7'e principatum, et hanc Ro- 
 mani Pontijicis jurisdictionis 
 potestatem, quce, vere episcopalis 
 est, immediatam esse : erga quam 
 cujuscumque ritus et dignitatis 
 pastores atque fideles, tarn seor- 
 sum singuli quam simul omnes, 
 officio hierarchiccB sichordinatio- 
 nis verceque ohedientice obstrin- 
 guntur, non solum in rebus, quoe 
 ad jidem et mores, sed etiam in 
 Us, qiice ad disciplinam et regi- 
 men Ecclesi(2 per totum orhem 
 diffuson pertinent; it a tit, cus- 
 todita cum Romano Pontifice 
 tarn communionis, quam ejusdem 
 jldei professionis imitate, Eccle- 
 sicB Christi sit unus grex sub 
 tmo summo pastore. Hoec est 
 Catholicce veritatis doctrina, a 
 qua deviare salva fide atque sa- 
 lute nemo potest. 
 
 Tantum autem. dbest, ut hoec 
 Summi Pontificis potestas offi- 
 ciat ordinaricE ac immediatce illi 
 episcopalis jurisdictionis pote- 
 stati, qua Episcopi, qui positi a 
 Spiritu Sancto in Apostoloriim 
 locum successerunt, tamquam ve- 
 ri pastores assignatos sibi greges, 
 singuli singidos, pascunt et re- 
 gunt, ut eadem a supremo et 
 
 Eoman Church possesses a superi- 
 ority of ordinary power over all 
 other churches, and that tliis power 
 of jurisdiction of the Eoman Pon- 
 tiff, which is truly episcopal, is im- 
 mediate ; to which all, of whatever 
 rite and dignity, both pastors and 
 faithful, both individually and col- 
 lectively, are bound, by their duty 
 of hierarchical subordination and 
 true obedience, to submit not only 
 in matters which belong to faith 
 and iporals, but also in those that 
 appertain to the discipline and gov- 
 ernment of the Church throughout 
 the w^orld, so that the Church of 
 Christ may be one flock under one 
 supreme pastor through the preser- 
 vation of unity both of communion 
 and of profession of the same faith 
 with the Eoman Pontiff. This is 
 the teaching of Catholic truth, from 
 which no one can deviate without 
 loss of faith and of salvation. 
 
 But so far is this powder of the 
 Supreme Pontiff from being any 
 prejudice to the ordinary and im- 
 mediate power of episcopal juris- 
 diction, by which Bishops, who 
 have been set by the Holy Ghost 
 to succeed and hold the place of the 
 Apostles,^ feed and govern, each his 
 own flock, as true pastors, that this 
 their episcopal authority is really 
 
 ' From chap. iv. of Twenty-third Session of Council of Trent, 'Of the Ecclesiastical Hie- 
 rarchy.' 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 161 
 
 .universali Pastor e asseratur, to- 
 horetur ac vindicetur, secundum 
 illud sancti Gregorii Magiii : 
 Meus honor est honor universa- 
 lis Ecclesice. Meus honor est 
 fratrum meorum solidus vigor. 
 Turn ego vere honoratus sum^ 
 cum singidis quibusgue honor 
 debitics non negatar. 
 
 Porro ex sv/prema ilia Poma- 
 ni Pontificis ^otestate guhernan- 
 di universam Ecdesiam jus ei- 
 dem esse conseqidtur, in hujus 
 stci muneris exercitio libere com- 
 municandi cum jpastorihus et 
 gregihus totius Ecdesice^ ut iidem 
 ab i^so in via salutis doceri ac 
 regi possint. Quare damnamus 
 ac rejprobamus illorum senter^- 
 tias, qui hanc siipremi capitis 
 cum pastoribus et gregibus com- 
 Tnunicationem licite impediri 
 posse dicunt, aut eandem red- 
 dunt sceculari potestati obnoxi- 
 am, ita iit contendant, quce ab 
 Apostolica Sede vet ejus aucto- 
 ritate ad regimen Ecclesice con- 
 ^tituuntur, vim ac valorem non 
 habere, nisi, potestatis soecularis 
 placito confirmentur. 
 
 Et quoniam divino Apostolici 
 primatus jure Pomanus Ponti- 
 fex universcB Ecclesice proeest, 
 
 asserted, strengthened, and protect- 
 ed by the supreme and universal 
 Pastor; in accordance with the 
 words of St. Gregory the Great: 
 'My honor is the honor of the 
 whole Church. My honor is the 
 firm strength of my brethren. 1 
 am truly honored when the honor 
 due to each and all is not withheld.^ 
 
 Further, from this supreme pow- 
 er possessed by the Koman Pontiff 
 of governing the universal Church, 
 it follows that he has the right of 
 free communication with the pas- 
 tors of the whole Church, and with 
 their flocks, that these may be taught 
 and ruled by him in the way of sal- 
 vation. Wherefore we condemn 
 and reject the opinions of those 
 who hold that the communication 
 between this supreme head and 
 the pastors and their flocks can 
 lawfully be impeded ; or who make 
 this communication subject to the 
 will of the secular power, so as to 
 maintain that whatever is done by 
 the Apostolic See, or by its au- 
 thority, for the government of the 
 Church, can not have force or value 
 unless it be confirmed by the as- 
 sent of the secular power. 
 
 And since by the divine right 
 of Apostolic primacy- the Koman 
 Pontiff is placed over the universal 
 
 * From the letters of St. Gregory the Great, Book VIII. 30, Vol.lI. p. 919, Benedictine 
 edition, Paris, 1 705. 
 
162 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCII/. 
 
 docemus etiam et declaramus, 
 emn essejudicem supremiwi fide- 
 lium, et in omnibus causis ad 
 exatnen ecclesiasticum sjpectanti- 
 hus ad ipsius jposse judicium 
 recurri j Sedis vero Apostolicce, 
 cujus audoritate major non est, 
 judicium a nemine fore retrac- 
 tandum, neqxie cuiquam de ejits 
 licere jiidicare judicio. Quare 
 a recto veritatis tramite aber- 
 rant, qui affirmant, licere ab ju- 
 diciis BomanoTum Pontijicum 
 ad cecicmenicum Concilium tam- 
 quam ad auctoritate7)i Romano 
 Pontifice suj)eriore7n appellare. 
 
 Si quis itaque dixerit, Roma- 
 num Pontificem habere tantum- 
 inodo officium, inspectio7iis vel 
 dh'ectionis, non autem jplenam 
 et su/premam potestatem jitris- 
 dictionis in universam Ecclesi- 
 am, non solum in rebus, quce 
 ad fidem et mores, sed etiam in 
 lis, qu(z ad disciplinam et regi- 
 men EcclesicB jper totum orbem 
 diffusoe jpertinent ; aut eum ha- 
 bere tantum jpotiores partes, non 
 vero totam jplenitudinem hujus 
 sujpremce jpotestatis ; aut hanc 
 ejus potestatem non esse ordina- 
 riam et immediatam sive in om- 
 
 Church, we further teach and de- 
 clare that he is the supreme judge 
 of the faithful,^ and that in all 
 causes, the decision of which be- 
 longs to the Church, recourse may 
 be had to his tribunal,^ and that 
 none may re-open the judgment of 
 the Apostolic See, than whose au- 
 thority there is no greater, nor can 
 any lawfully -review its judgment.^ 
 Wherefore they err from the right 
 course who assert that it is lawful 
 to appeal from the judgments of 
 the Koman Pontiffs to an oecumen- 
 ical Council, as to an authority high- 
 er than that of tlie Koman Pontiff. 
 If, then, any shall say that the 
 Roman Pontiff has the office mere- 
 ly of inspection or direction, and 
 not full and supreme power of 
 jurisdiction over the universal 
 Church, not only in things which 
 belong to faith and morals, but 
 also in those which relate to the 
 discipline and government of the 
 Church spread throughout the 
 world; or assert that he possesses 
 merely the principal part, and not 
 all the fullness of this supreme 
 power; or that this power which 
 he enjoys is not ordinary and im- 
 mediate, both over each and all the 
 
 * From a Brief of Pius VI. Super soliditate, of Nov. 28, 1786. 
 
 ^ From the Acts of the Fourteenth General Council of Lyons, A.D. 1274 (Labbe's Coun- 
 cils, Vol. XIV. p. 512), 
 
 ' From Letter VIII. of Pope Nicholas I., A.D. 858, to the Emperor Michael (Labbe's 
 Councils, Vol. IX. pp. 1339 and 1570). 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 163 
 
 nes ac smgulas ecdesias, sive in 
 omnes et singulos pastores et 
 fideles : anathema sit. 
 
 Caput IV. 
 
 De Romani Pvitijicis wfalUhill magiste- 
 rio. 
 
 Ipso autem Ajpostolico pvima- 
 tu, qiiein Homanus Pontifex, 
 tamquam Petri jprinci/pis Ajpo- 
 stoloruin successor^ in univer- 
 sam Ecdesiam ohtinet, supre- 
 mam quoque magisterii potesta- 
 tem comprehendi, hceo Sancta 
 Sedes semper tenuity perpetuus 
 Ecdesim usus comprohat, ipsa- 
 que oscumenica Concilia, ea im- 
 primis, in quihus Oriens cum 
 Occidente in fidei caritatisqite 
 %inionem conveniehat, declarave- 
 runt. Patres enitn Concilii 
 Constantinopolitani quarti, ma- 
 joriim vestigiis inhoerentes, Jianc 
 solemnem ediderunt professio- 
 nem : Prima salus est, rectce 
 fidei . regulam custodire. Et 
 quia non potest Domini nostri 
 Jesu Christi prcetermitti senten- 
 tia dicentis : Tu es Petrus, et 
 super hanc petram cedificaho 
 Ecdesiam meam, hcBC, quce dicta 
 sunt, rerum prohantur effectibus, 
 quia in Sede Apostolica imma- 
 culata est semper CatJiolica reser- 
 vata religio, et sancta celebrata 
 
 churches, and over each and all the 
 pastors and the faithful: let him 
 be anathema. 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Concerning the Infallible Teaching of the 
 Roman Pontiff. 
 
 Moreover, that the supreme pow- 
 er of teaching is also included in 
 the Apostolic primacy, which the 
 Roman Pontiff, as the successor of 
 Peter, Prince of the Apostles, pos- 
 sesses over the whole Church, this 
 Holy See lias always held, the per- 
 petual practice of the Church con- 
 firms, and oecumenical Councils also 
 have declared, especially those in 
 which the East with the West met 
 in the union of faith and charity. 
 For the Fathers of the Fourth Conn- 
 cil of Constantinople, following in 
 the footsteps of their predecessors, 
 gave forth this solemn profession : 
 The first condition of salvation is 
 to keep the rule of the true faith. 
 And because the sentence of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ can not be passed 
 by, who said: 'Thou art Peter, 
 and upon this rock I will build 
 my Church,'^ these things which 
 have been said are approved by 
 events, because in the Apostolic 
 See the Catholic religion and her 
 holy and well-known doctrine has 
 always been kept undefiled. De- 
 
 Matt. xvi. 18. 
 
164 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 doctrina. Ah hujus ergo fide et 
 doctrina separari Tnijiime citpi- 
 entes, sjperarrnts, ut in una corn- 
 micnione, qiiavn Sedes Apostolica 
 pnedicat, esse mereamicr, in qua 
 est integro.' et vera Christiance 
 religionis soliditas. Ajpjprobante 
 vero Lugdiinensi Concilio sccun- 
 do, Grc^ci jprofessi sunt : Sanc- 
 tam Eomanam Ecclesicnn sum- 
 mum et plenum jprimatum et 
 jprincijpatum su/per U7iiversam 
 Ecdesiam Catholicam ohtinere, 
 qnem se ah ipso Domino in 
 heato Petro, Ajpostolorum jprin- 
 cijpe sive vertice, cujus Bomanus 
 Pontifex est successor, cum po- 
 testatis jplenitudiiie recepisse ve- 
 raciter et humiliter recognoscit ; 
 et sicut pros, cceteris tenetur fidei 
 mritatem defender e, sic et, si 
 quce de fide suhortce fuerint 
 qucestiones, suo debent judicio 
 definiri. Florentimim denique 
 Concilium definivit : Pontificem 
 Pomanum, verum Christi Vi- 
 carium, totiusque Ecclesice caput 
 et omnium Christianorum pa- 
 trem ac doctorem existere ; et 
 ipsi in heato Petro pascendi, re- 
 gendi ac guhernandl universalem 
 
 siring, therefore, not to be in the> 
 least degree separated from the 
 faith and doctrine of that See, we 
 hope that we may deserve to be in 
 the one communion, which the 
 Apostolic See preaches, in which 
 is the entire and trne solidity; of the 
 Christian religion.^ And, with the 
 approval of the Second Council of 
 Lyons, the Greeks professed that 
 the holy Roman Church enjoys su- 
 preme and full primacy and pre- 
 eminence over the whole Catholic 
 Church, which it truly and humbly 
 acknowledges that it has received 
 with the plenitude of power from 
 our Lord himself in the person of 
 blessed Pete^*, Prince or Head of the 
 Apostles, whose successor the Ro- 
 man Pontiff is; and as the Apos- 
 tolic See is bound before all othere 
 to defend the truth of faith, so also, 
 if any questions regarding faitli 
 shall arise, they must be defined by 
 its judgment.^ Finally, the Coun- 
 cil of Florence defined:^ That the 
 Roman Pontiff is the true vicar of 
 Christ, and the head of the whole 
 Church, and the father and teacher 
 of all Christians ; and that to him 
 in blessed Peter was delivered by 
 
 * From the Formula of St. Hovmisdas, subscribed by the Fathers of the Eighth General 
 Council (Fourth of Constantinople), A.D. 869 (Labbe's Councils, Vol. V. pp. .583, 622). 
 
 ^ From the Acts of the Fourteenth General Council (Second of Lyons), A.D. 1274 (Labbe, 
 Vol. XIV. p. 51 2). 
 
 ^ From the Acts of the Seventeenth General Council of Floi'ence, A.D. 1438 (Labbe, 
 Vol.XVIILp.526). 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 165 
 
 Ecclesiam a Domino nostro Jesic 
 Christo jplenam jpotestatem tradi- 
 tam esse. 
 
 Iluic ;pastorali muneri ut sa- 
 ii^facereftt, Frcedecessores JVostri 
 indefessam semper operam dede- 
 riint^ ut salictaris Christi doctri- 
 na apud omnes terrce jpovulos 
 projpagaretur^ jparique cur a vigi- 
 lariont, ut, xibi recepta esset, sin- 
 cera et jpura conservaretur. Quo- 
 circa totius orhis AntistiteSy nunc 
 singulis nunc in Synodis congre- 
 gatiy longam ecclesiarum consue- 
 tudinem et antigucB regulcB for- 
 mam sequentes, ea prmsertim pe- 
 ricula, quce in negotiis fidei emer- 
 gehant, ad hanc Sedeni Ajpostoli- 
 cam retulerunf, ut ihi jpotissi- 
 mitm resarcirentur damna fidei, 
 ubi fides non potest sentire de- 
 fectum. Homani autem Ponti- 
 ficis, prout temporum et rerum 
 conditio suadehat, nunc convoca- 
 tis oecumenicis Conciliis aut ex- 
 plorata Ecclesice per orhem dis- 
 perscB sententia, nunc per Syno- 
 dos particulares, nunc aliis, quce 
 dlvina suppeditdbat provide7itia, 
 adhibitis auxiliis, ea tenenda de- 
 
 oiir Lord Jesns Christ the full 
 power of feeding, ruling, and gov- 
 erning the whole Church.^ 
 
 To satisfy this pastoral duty, oar 
 predecessors ever made unwearied 
 efforts that the salutary doctrine of 
 Christ might J^e propagated among 
 all the nations of the earth, and 
 with equal care watched that it 
 might be preserved genuine and 
 pure where it had been received. 
 Therefore the Bishops of the whole 
 world, now singly, now assembled 
 in Synod, following the long-estab- 
 lished custom of churclies,^ and 
 the form of the ancient rule,^ sent 
 word to this Apostolic See of those 
 dangers especially which sprang up 
 in matters of faith, that there the 
 losses of faith might be most effect- 
 ually repaired w^here the faith can 
 not fail.* And the Roman Pontiffs, 
 according to the exigencies of times 
 and circumstances, sometimes as- 
 sembling oecumenical Councils, or 
 asking for the mind of the Church 
 scattered throughout the world, 
 sometimes by particular Synods, 
 sometimes using otlier helps which 
 Divine Providence supplied, de- 
 
 ^ John xxi. 15-17. 
 
 " From a letter of St. Cyril of Alexandria to Pope St. Celestine I., A.D. 422 (Vol. VI. 
 Part II. p. 3G, Paris edition of 1638). 
 
 ^ From a Kescript of St. Innocent I. to tlie Council of Milevis, A.D. 402 (Labbe, Vol. III. 
 p. 47). 4 
 
 * From a letter of St. Bernard to Pope Innocent II. A.D. 1130 (Epist. 191, Vol. IV. p. 433, 
 Paris edition of 1742). 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 finiverxmt^ qucE sacris Bcrijpturis 
 et apostolicis traditionihus con- 
 sentanea, Deo adjutore, cognove- 
 rant. Neqxic enim Petri succes- 
 sorihus Bjpiritus 8anctus joromis- 
 siis esf,^ xit €0 revelante novam 
 doctrinam jpatefacerent, sed \it, 
 eo assist ente^ traditam jper Ajoos- 
 tolos revelationem seu fidei de- 
 jpositum sancte custodirent et 
 fideliter exporter ent. Quorum 
 quidevi a/postolicam doctrinam 
 omnes xenerahiles Patres am- 
 jplexi et sancti doctores ortho- 
 doxi renerati atqite secuti sunt ; 
 jplenissime scientes^ hanc sancti 
 Petri Sedem ah 07nni semjper 
 err ore illibatain jpermanere^ se- 
 cundum Domini Salvatoris nos- 
 tri divinam jyollicitationem di- 
 scipulorxim suorum _7^r^?^c^^^ fac- 
 tam : Ego rogavi jpro te, ut non 
 dejiciat fides tua, et tu ali- 
 quando conversus confirma fra- 
 ires tuos. 
 
 HoC' igitur veritatis et fidei 
 numquam deficientis charisma 
 Petro ej usque' in hac Cathedra 
 successorihus divinitus collatum 
 est, ut excelso sua munere in om- 
 nium salutem fungerentur, ut 
 universus Christi grex per eos 
 ah erroris venenosa esca aversus, 
 ccelestjs doctrincB pahulo nutri- 
 
 fined as to be held those things 
 which with the help of God they 
 had recognized as conformable with 
 the sacred Scriptures and Apos- 
 tolic traditions. For the Ilblj Spirit 
 was not promised to the successors 
 of Peter, that by his revelation they 
 might make known new doctrine ; 
 but that by his assistance they might 
 inviolably keep and faithfully ex- 
 pound the revelation or deposit of 
 faith delivered through the Apos- h 
 ties. And, indeed, all the venerable 
 Fathers have embraced, and the 
 holy orthodox doctore have vener- 
 ated and followed, their Apostolic 
 doctrine ; knowing most fully that 
 this See of holy Peter remains ever 
 free from all blemish of error ac- 
 cording to the divine promise of 
 the Lord our Saviour made to the 
 Prince of his disciples: 'I have 
 prjiyed for thee that thy faith fail 
 not, and, when thou art converted, 
 confirm thy brethren.' ^ 
 
 Tliis gift, then, of truth and 
 never-failing faith was conferred . 
 by heaven upon Peter and his suc- 
 cessors in this chair, that they miglit 
 perform their high office for the 
 salvation of all; that the whole 
 flock of Christ, kept away by them 
 from the poisonous food of error, 
 might be nourished with the pas- 
 
 ^ Luke xxii. 32. See also the Acts of the Sixth General Council, A.D. 080 (Labbe, Vol. 
 VII. p. 659). 
 
DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 167 
 
 Tetw\ ut, suhlata schismatis oc- 
 casioned Ecclesia iota una con- 
 servaretur, atque sua fund amen 
 to innixa, firma adversus inferi 
 jportas consisteret. 
 
 At vero cum hac ijpsa oetate, 
 qua salutifera A^ostolici mime- 
 ris efficacia vel maxime requiri 
 tur, nan ^auci inveniantur^ qui 
 illius auctoritati ohtrectant ; ne- 
 cessai'ium omnino esse censemus, 
 jprcerogativam, quam imigenitus 
 Dei Filius cum summo jpasto- 
 rali officio conjungere dignatus 
 est, solemniter asserere, 
 
 Itaque Nos traditioni a fidei 
 Christianm exordio jperceptoe fide- 
 liter inhcerendo, ad Dei Salva- 
 to7'is nostri gloriam, religionis 
 CatJiolicoe. exaltationem et Chris- 
 tianoTum, poj)ulorum salutem, 
 sacro ajpprohante Concilio, doce- 
 mus et divinitus revelatum do- 
 gm.a esse definimus : JRomanum. 
 Pontificem, cum- ex Cathedra lo- 
 quitur, id est, cum omnium 
 Christianorum ^astoris et docto- 
 ris Tnunere fungens jpro supre- 
 ma sua Ajpostolica auctoritate 
 doctrinam de fide vel moribus 
 ah imiversa Ecclesia tenendam 
 definit, jper assistentiam divi- 
 nam, ipsi i?i heato Petro jpro- 
 missam, ea infallihilitate jpol- 
 lere, qua divhius Redemjptor 
 
 ture of heavenly doctrine ; that the 
 occasion of schism being removed, 
 the whole Church might be kept 
 one, and, resting on its foundation, 
 might stand firm against the gates 
 of hell. 
 
 But since in this very age, in 
 which the salutary eflBcacy of the 
 Apostolic office is most of all re- ' 
 quired, not a few are found who \ 
 take away from its authority, we 
 judge it altogether necessary sol- 
 emnly to assert the prerogative 
 which the only-begotten Son of 
 God vouchsafed to join with the 
 supreme pastoral office. 
 
 Therefore faithfully adhering to 
 the tradition received from the be- 
 ginning of the Christian faith, for 
 the glory of God our Saviour, the 
 exaltation of the Catholic religion, 
 and the salvation of Christian peo- 
 ple, the sacred Council approving, 
 we teach and define that it is a 
 dogma divinely revealed : that the 
 Roman PontifP, when he speaks ex 
 cathedra, thi. " is, when in discharge 
 of the office oi pastor and doctor 
 of all Christians, by virtue of his 
 supreme Apostolic authority, he 
 defines a doctrine regarding faith 
 or morals to be held by the uni- 
 versal Church, by the divine assist- 
 ance promised to him in blessed 
 Peter, is possessed of that infalli- 
 bility with which the divine Ee- 
 
les 
 
 DOGMATIC DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 
 
 Ecclesiam suam in definienda 
 doctrina de fide vel moribus in- 
 structam esse voluit ; ideoque 
 ejusmodi Romani Pontificis de- 
 finitio7ies ex sese, non aiUem ex 
 consensu Ecclesice, irreformahiles 
 esse. 
 
 Si qitis autem huic Nostroe, 
 definitioni contradicere, quod 
 Deus avertat, jpvoisumjpsevit : 
 anathema sit. 
 
 Datum Bomce, in jpiihlica Ses- 
 sione in Vaticana Basilica so- 
 lemniter celehrata^ anno Incarna- 
 tio7iis DominiccB millesimo octin- 
 gentesimo sejptuagesimo^ die de- 
 cima octava Julii. Pontificatus 
 Nostri anno mgesimo quinto. 
 
 deemer willed that his Church 
 should be endowed for definiiio: 
 
 o 
 
 doctrine regarding faith or morals ; 
 and that therefore such definitions 
 of the Eoman Pontiff are irreform- 
 able^ of themselves, and not from 
 the consent of the Church. 
 
 But if any one — which may God 
 avert — presume to contradict this 
 our definition : let him be anathe- 
 ma. 
 
 Given at Eome in public Session 
 solemnly held in the Vatican Basil- 
 ica in the year of our Lord one 
 thousand eight hundred and sev- 
 enty, on the eighteenth day of July, 
 in the twenty-fifth year of our Pon- 
 tificate. 
 
 ' That is, in the words used by Pope Nicholas I., note 13, and in the Synod of Quedlin- 
 bnrg, A.D. 1085, 'It is allowed to none to revise its judgment, and to sit in judgment upon 
 what it has judged' (Labbe, Vol. XII. p. 679). 
 
VATICAN ISM: 
 
 AN ANSWER TO 
 
 REPROOFS AND REPLIES. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P., 
 
 If 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE VATICAN DECREES IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE." 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FRANKLINSQUARE. 
 
 1875- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 The Replies which have appeared on this Occasion. The Insult. 
 Evidences of Personal Loyalty all that could be wished. Dr. 
 Newman. His Remarkable Admissions. Evidences as to the Char- 
 acter AND Tendencies of Vaticanism : most unsatisfactory. 
 
 II. THE RUSTY TOOLS. THE SYLLABUS U 
 
 1. What are its Contents ? 16 
 
 2. What is its Authority ? 23 
 
 in. THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE 
 
 POPE 27 
 
 Breach with History, No. 1. From the Opinions and Declarations 
 of the Roman Catholics of the United States for Two Centuries. 
 
 IV. THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND THE INFALLIBILITY • OF THE 
 
 TOFE— continued. ." 38 
 
 Breach with History, No. 2. From the History of the Council of 
 Constance. Gallicanism. 
 
 V. THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND OBEDIENCE TO THE POPE 47 
 
 VL REVIVED CLAIMS OF THE POPE 50 
 
 1. To the Deposing Power 50 
 
 2. To the Use of Force 55 
 
 VIL WARRANT OF ALLEGIANCE ACCORDING TO THE VATICAN 57 
 
 1 . Its Alleged Superiority 57 
 
 2. Its Real Flaws 59 
 
 3. Alleged Non-interference of the Popes for Two Hundred Years. 63 
 
 VIIL ON THE INTRINSIC NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF THE PAPAL 
 
 INFALLIBILITY DECREED IN THE VATICAN COUNCIL GG 
 
 IX. CONCLUSION 78 
 
 APPENDICES 89 
 
UiSriVERSITT 
 
 VATICANISM 
 
 • I. iNTRODrCTION. 
 
 The number and qnalitj of the antagonists who have been drawn 
 into the field on the occasion offered by my tract on the Vatican De- 
 crees/ and the interest in the subject which has been manifested by 
 the pubhc of England and of many other countries, appear to show that 
 it was not inopportune. The only special claim to attention with which 
 I could invest it was this, that for thirty years I had striven hard, 
 together with others, to secure a full measure of civil justice for my 
 Eoman Catholic fellow-countrymen, and that I still retained the con- 
 victions by which these efforts had been prompted. Knowing well 
 the general indisposition of the English mind, amid the pressing de- 
 mands of our crowded daily life, to touch any subject comparatively 
 abstract and remote, I was not surprised when many journals of great 
 influence, reflecting this indisposition, condemned the publication of 
 the Tract, and inspired Eoman authorities among us with the vain 
 conception that the discussion was not practical or significant.^ In 
 Eome itself, a different view was taken ; and the veiled prophets be- 
 hind the throne, by whom the Latin Church is governed, brought 
 about its condemnation as blasphemous, without perusal, from the lips 
 of the Holy Father.^ The object, probably, was at once to prevent or 
 
 1 Appendix A. 
 
 ^ For example : ' The various organs of the press, with the shrewd political sense for 
 which they are conspicuous, without any possible collusion, extinguished its political import 
 in a single morning.' — Bishop Vaughari's Pastoral Letter, p. 5. 
 
 ^ The declaration of non avenu, which, after a brief interval, followed the announcement 
 of the condemnation, appeared upon some subsequent discussion to be negatived by the evi- 
 
6 VATICANISM. 
 
 neutralize avowals of sympathy from Eoman Catholic quarters. It 
 may have been with a like aim that a number of Prelates at once en- 
 tered, though by no means with one voice, into the lists. At length 
 the great name of Dr. Kewman was announced, and he too has re- 
 plied to me, and explained himself, in a work to w^iich I shall present- 
 ly refer. Even apart from the sjpolia ojphna of this transcendent 
 champion, I do not undervalue the ability, accomplishments, and dis- 
 cipline of that division of the Roman Army which confronts our 
 Church and nation. Besides its supply from indigenous sources, it 
 lias been strangely but very largely recruited from the ranks of the 
 Englisli Church, and her breasts have, for thirty years, been pierced 
 mainly by children wliom they had fed. 
 
 In these replies, of w^liich the large majority adopt without reserve 
 the Ultramontane hypothesis, it is most commonly alleged that I have 
 insulted the Roman Catholics of these kingdoms. Dr. Newman, averse 
 to the use of harsh words, still announces (p. 3) that ' heavy charges 
 have been made against the Catholics of England.' Bishop Clifford, 
 in a pastoral letter of which I gladly acknowledge the equitable, re- 
 strained, and Christian spirit, says I have proclaimed that since the 
 Vatican Decrees were piiblished 'it is no longer possible for English 
 Catholics to pay to their temporal sovereign a full and undivided alle- 
 giance.' 
 
 I am obliged to assert that not one of the writers against me has 
 apprehended or stated with accuracy my principal charge. Except a 
 prospective reference to ' converts,' the subject (to speak teclipically) 
 of all my propositions is the word ' Rome ;' and with reference to 
 these ' converts,' I speak of what they suffer, not of what they do. It is 
 an entire, and even a gross error to treat all affirmations about Rome 
 as equivalent to affirmations about British subjects of the Roman com- 
 munion. They may adopt the acts of Rome : the question was and is, 
 w^hetlier they do. I have done nothing to leave this question open to 
 doubt ; for I have paraphrased my monosyllable ' Rome ' by the wwds 
 ' the Papal chair, and its ad visei-s and abettors ' (p. 9 ; Am. ed. p. 11). Un- 
 able as I am to attenuate the charges, on the contrary bound rather to 
 plead guilty to the fault of having understated them, I am on that ac- 
 
 dence. But such declarations are, I conceive, well understooil in Rome to depend, like an 
 Englisli '- not at home,'' upon convenience. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 count the more anxious tliat their aim shall be clearly understood. 
 First, then, I must again speak plainly, and I fear hardly, of that sys- 
 tem, political rather than religious, which in Germany is well termed 
 Vaticanism. It would be affectation to exclude from my language and 
 meaning its contrivers and conscious promoters. But here in my mind, 
 as well as in my page, any thing approaching to censure stops. The 
 Vatican Decrees do, in the strictest sense, establish for the Pope a su- 
 preme command over loyalty and civil duty. To the vast majority of 
 Eoman Catholics they are, and in all likelihood will long in their care- 
 fully enveloped meaning remain, practically unknown. Of that small 
 minority who have spoken or fitted themselves to speak, a portion re- 
 ject them. Another portion receive them with an express reserve, to 
 me perfectly satisfactory, against all their civil consequences. Another 
 portion seem to suspend their judgment until it is determined what is 
 a free Council, what is moral unanimity, what are declarations excathe- 
 drdy whether there has been a decisive and binding promulgation so as 
 to create a law, and whether the claim for an undue obedience need be 
 considered until some act oi undue obedience is asked. A very large 
 class, as it seems to me, think they receive these Decrees, and do not. 
 They are involved in inconsistency, and that inconsistency is dangerous. 
 So I presume they would tell me that when I recite in the Creed the 
 words, ' I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,' I am involved in in- 
 consistency, and my inconsistency is dangerous. To treat this as a 
 * heavy charge ' is surely inaccurate ; to call it an insult is (forgive the 
 word) preposterous. 
 
 Not even against men who voted under pressure, against their better 
 mind, for these deplorable Decrees — nay, not even against those who 
 resisted them and now enforce them — is it for me to utter a word of 
 censure. The just appreciation of their difficulties, the judgment of 
 their conduct, lies in a region far too high for me. To assail the sys- 
 tem is the Alpha and Omega of my desire ; and it is to me matter of 
 regret that I am not able to handle it as it deserves without reflecting 
 upon the persons, be they who they may, that have brought it into the 
 world ; have sedulously fed it in its weakness ; have reared it up to its 
 baleful maturity; have forced it upon those who now force it upon 
 others; are obtaining for it from day to day fresh command over the 
 pulpit, the press, the confessional, the teacher's chair, the bishop's 
 
8 VATICANISM. 
 
 throne ; so that every father of a family, and every teacher in the Latin 
 communion, shall, as he dies, be replaced by some one more deeply 
 imbued with the new color, until at the last, in that moiety of the 
 whole Christian family, nothing shall remain except an Asian mon- 
 archy ; nothing but one giddy height of despotism, and one dead level 
 of religious subserviency. 
 
 But even of the most responsible abettors of that system I desire 
 once for all to say that I do not presume in any way to impeach their 
 sincerity ; and that, as far as I am acquainted with their personal char- 
 acters, I should think it great presumption to place myself in compar- 
 ison or competition with any of them. 
 
 So much for insult Much has also been said of my ignorance and 
 incapacity in theology ;* a province whic-h I had entered only at the 
 points where it crossed the border of the civil domain. Censures of 
 this kind have great weight when they follow upon demonstration 
 given of errors committed by the person who is the object of them ; 
 but they can have very little when they are used as substitutes for such 
 a demonstration. In the 'absence of such proof, they can rank no 
 higher than as a mere artifice of controversy. I have endeavored to 
 couch all m}^ positive statements in language of moderation, and not 
 one among them that appertains to the main line of argument has been 
 shaken. As to the use of rhetoric, another matter of complaint, I cer- 
 tainly neither complain of strong language used against me, nor do I 
 think that it can properly be avoided, when the matters of fact, care- 
 fully ascertained and stated, are such that it assists toward a compre- 
 hension of their character and consequences. At the same time, in the 
 use of such language, earnestness should not be allowed to degenerate 
 into dogmatism, and to qualify is far more pleasant than to employ it. 
 
 With so much of preface, I proceed to execute my twofold duty. 
 One of its branches is to state in what degree I conceive the immedi- 
 ate purpose of my Expostulation to have been served ; and the other, 
 to examine whether the allegations of antagonists have dislodged my 
 arguments from their main positions, or, on the contrary, have con- 
 
 * For example: by Archbishop Manning, pp. 13, 177. Bishop Ullathorne, Letter, p. 10. 
 Exposition Unraveled, p. 68. Bishop Vaughan, p. 37. Month, December, 1874, p. 497. 
 Monk of St. Augustine, p. 10. With these legitimate reproaches is oddly combined, on the 
 part of the Archbishop, and, apparently, of Bishop Ullathorne, a snpposition that Dr. Dijllin- 
 ger was in some manner concerned in my tract on the Vatican Decrees. See Appendix B. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 6 
 
 firmed them ; and to re-state — nay,»even to enlarge — those positions 
 accordingly. 
 
 In considering the nature of the declarations on civil duty which 
 have been elicited, it will not be thought unnatural if I begin with the 
 words of one to whom age and fame combine in assigning the most 
 conspicuous place — I mean Dr. Newman. 
 
 Of this most remarkable man I must pause to speak a word. In my 
 opinion, his secession from the Church of England has never yet been 
 estimated among us at any thing like the full amount of its calamitous 
 importance. It has been said that the world does not know its great- 
 est men ; neither, I will add, is it aware of the power and weight car- 
 ried by the words and by the acts of those among its greatest men 
 whom it does know. The Ecclesiastical historian will perhaps here- 
 after judge that this secession w^as a much greater event than the great 
 event of the partial secession of John "Wesley, the only case of loss suf- 
 fered by the Church of England, since the Keformation, which can be 
 at all compared with it in magnitude. I do not refer to its effect upon 
 the mere balance of schools or parties in the Church ; that is an infe- 
 rior question. I refer to its effect upon the state of positive belief, and 
 the attitude and capacities of the religious mind of England. Of this, 
 thirty years ago, he had the leadership : an office and pow^ from which 
 none but himself could eject him. 
 
 "Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus 
 Tarn cari capitis?" 
 
 It has been his extraordinary, perhaps unexampled case, at a critic- 
 al period, first to give to the religious thought of his time and country 
 the most powerful impulse which for a long time it had received from 
 any individual; and then to be the main involuntary cause of disor- 
 ganizing it in a manner as remarkable, and breaking up its forces into 
 a multitude of not only severed but conflicting bands. 
 
 My duty calls me to deal freely with his Letter to the Duke of Nor- 
 folk. But in doing so, I can never lose the recollection of the perhaps 
 ill-appreciated greatness of his early life and works. I do not presume 
 to intrude into the sanctuary of his present thoughts ; but, by reason of 
 that life and those works, it seems to me that there is something we 
 must look upon with the affection with which Americans regard those 
 Englishmen who strove and wrought before the colonization or sever- 
 
10 VATICANISM. 
 
 ance of their country. Nay, it tnay not be J3resumptiious to say we 
 have a possessory right in the better half of him. All he produces is 
 and must be most notable. But has he outrun, has he overtaken the 
 greatness of the ^ History of the Arians ' and of tlie * Parochial Ser- 
 mons,' those indestructible classics of English theology ? 
 
 And again, I thankfully record the admissions which such integrity, 
 combined with such acuteness, has not been able to withhold. They 
 are of the greatest importance to the vindication of my argument. In 
 my reading of his work, w^e have his authority for the following state- 
 ments : That Eoman Catholics are bound to be ' as loyal as other sub- 
 jects of the State ;' and that Rome is not to give to the civil power 
 * trouble or alarm ' (p. 7). That the assurances given by the Roman 
 Catholic Bishops in 1825-26 have not been strictly fulfilled (pp. 12-14). 
 That Roman Catholics can not wonder that statesmen should feel them- 
 selves aggrieved (p. 17). That Popes are sometimes in the WTong, and 
 sometimes to be resisted, even in matters affecting the government and 
 welfare of the Church (pp. 33, 34). That the Deposing power is defen- 
 sible only upon condition of ' the common consent of peoples ' (p. 37). 
 That if England supported Italy against any violent attempt to restore 
 the Pope to his throne, Roman Catholics could offer no opposition but 
 such as the constitution of the country allows (p. 49). That a soldier 
 or a sailor employed in a war which (in his private judgment, be it ob- 
 served) he did not think unjust, ought not to retire from the prosecu- 
 tion of that war on the command of the Pope (p. 52). That conscience 
 is the aboriginal vicar of Christ (p. 57) : e{?i iuchtiges Wort ! and Dr. 
 Newman, at an ideal public dinner, will drink to conscience first, and 
 the Pope afterwards (p. ^^). That one of the great dangers of the Ro- 
 man Catholic Church is to be found in the exaggerated language and 
 proceedings allowed among its own members (pp. 4, 80, 94, 125), and 
 that there is much malaria in the court of Rome. That a definition 
 by a general Council, which the Pope approves, is not absolutely bind- 
 ing thereby, but requires a moral unanimity, and a subsequent recep- 
 tion by the Church (pp. 96-98). That antecedently to the theological 
 definitions of 1854 and 1870, an opponent might have ' fairly said ' ' it 
 might appear that there w^ere no sufficient historical grounds in behalf 
 of either of them ;' and that the confutation of such an opponent is 
 now to be sought only in ^the fact of the definition being made^ 
 
INTRODUCTION. H 
 
 (p. 107). I sball indulge in none of the taunts, which Dr. Newman an- 
 ticipates, on the want of correspondence between him and other Apol- 
 ogists ; and I shall leave it to theologians to examine the bearing of 
 these admissions on the scheme of Vaticanism, and on other parts of 
 his own work. It is enough for me to record that, even if they stood 
 alone, they would suffice to justify the publication which has given ' oc- 
 casion ' for them ; and that on the point of Dr. Newman's practical 
 reservation of his command over his own 'loyalty and civil duty,' they 
 are entirely satisfactory. As regards this latter point, the Pastoral of 
 Bishop Clifford is also every thing that can be wished. Among lay- 
 men who declare they accept the Decrees of 1870, 1 must specially 
 make the same avowal as to my esteemed friend Mr. De Lisle ; and 
 again, as to Mr. Stores Smith, who regards me with ' silent and intense 
 contempt,' but who does not scruple to write as follows : 
 
 ' If this country decide to go to war, for any cause whatsoever, I will hold my own opinion 
 as to the justice or policy of that war, but I will do all that in me lies to bring victory to the 
 British standard. If there be any Parliamentary or Municipal election, and any Priest or 
 Bishop, backed by Archbishop and the Pope, advise me to take a certain line of action, and 
 I conceive that the opposite course is necessary for the general weal of my fellow-countrymen, 
 I shall take the opposite.' ^ 
 
 When it is considered that Dr. Newman is like the sun in the in- 
 tellectual hemisphere of Anglo-Romanism, and that, besides those ac- 
 ceptors of the Decrees who write in the same sense, various Roman 
 Catholics of weight and distinction, well known to represent the views 
 of many more, have held equally outspoken and perhaps more consist- 
 ent language, I can not but say that the immediate purpose of my ap- 
 peal has been attained, in so far that the loyalty of our Roman Cath- 
 olic fellow-subjects in the mass is evidently untainted and secure. 
 
 It would be unjust to Archbishop Manning, on whose opinions, in 
 many points, I shall again have to animadvert, were I not to say that 
 his declarations^ also materially assist in leading me to this conclusion : 
 an avowal I am the more bound to make, because I think the premises 
 from which he draws them are such as, if I were myself to* accept 
 them, would certainly much impair the guarantees for my performing, 
 under all circumstances, the duties of a good subject. 
 
 This means that the poison which circulates from Rome has not 
 
 ' Letter in Halifax Courier of December 5, 1874. 
 " Archbishop Manning, Vatica7i Decrees, pp. 136-40. 
 
12 VATICANISM. 
 
 been taken into the system. Unhappily, what I may term the minor- 
 ity among the Apologists do not represent the ecclesia docens ; the 
 silent diffusion of its influence in the lay atmosphere ; the true current 
 and aim of thought in the Papal Church ; now given up to Vaticanism 
 deju7'e, and likely, according to all human probability, to come from 
 year to year more under its power. And here again the ulterior pur- 
 pose of my Tract has been thus far attained. It was this : To 
 provide that if, together with the ancient and loyal traditions of the 
 body, we have now imported among us a scheme adverse to the prin- 
 ciples of human freedom and in its essence unfaithful to civil duty, 
 the character of that scheme should be fully considered and under- 
 stood. It is high time that the chasm should be made visible, severing 
 it, and all who knowingly and thoroughly embrace it, from the princi- 
 ples which we had a right to believe not only prevailed among the Eo- 
 man Catholics of these countries, but were allowed and recognized by 
 the authorities of their Church ; and w^ould continue, therefore, to form 
 the basis of their system, permanent and undisturbed. For the more 
 complete attainment of this object, I must now proceed to gather to- 
 gether the many threads of the controversy, as it has been left by my 
 numerous opponents. This I shall do, not from any mere call of spec- 
 ulation or logical consistency, but for strong practical reasons. 
 
 Dr. lls'ewman's letter to the Duke of Norfolk is of the highest inter- 
 est as a psychological study. Whatever he writes, whether we agree 
 with him or not, presents to us this great attraction as well as advant- 
 age, that we have every where the man in the work, that his words are 
 the transparent covering of his nature. If there be obliquity in them, 
 it is purely intellectual obliquity; the work of an intellect sharp 
 enough to cut the diamond, and bright as the diamond which it cuts. 
 How rarely it is found, in the wayward and inscrutable records of our 
 race, that with these instruments of an almost superhuman force and 
 subtlety, robustness of character and energy of will are or can be de- 
 veloped in the same extraordinary proportions, so as to integrate that 
 structure of combined thought and action which makes life a moral 
 whole. ' There are gifts too large and too fearful to be handled free- 
 ly.'^ But I turn from an incidental reflection to observe that my dut^ 
 
 * Dr. Newman, p. 127. 
 
INTRODUCTION. X3 
 
 is to appreciate the letter of Dr. Newman exclusively in relation to my 
 Tract. I thankfully here record, in the first place, the kindliness of 
 his tone. If he has striven to minimize the Decrees of the Vatican, I 
 am certain he has also striven to minimize his censures, and has put 
 words aside before they touched his paper, \vhich must have been in 
 his thoughts, if not upon his pen. I sum up this pleasant portion of 
 my duty with the language of Helen respecting Hector: 7raTr}p wc, 
 
 rjTTiOQ ai^i. 
 
 It is, in my opinion, an entire mistake to suppose that theories like 
 those, of which Eome is the centre, are not operative on the thoughts 
 and actions of men. An army of teachers, the largest and the most 
 compact in the world, is ever sedulously at work to bring them into 
 practice. Within our own time they liave most powerfully, as well as 
 most injuriously, altered the spirit and feeling of the Roman Church 
 at large ; and it will be strange indeed if, having done so much in the 
 last half-century, they shall effect nothing in the next. I must avow, 
 then, that I do not feel exactly the same security for the future as for 
 the present. Still less do I feel the same security for- other lands as 
 for this, l^or can I overlook indications which lead to* the belief that, 
 even in this country, and at this time, the proceedings of Vaticanism 
 threaten to be a source of some practical inconvenience. I am confi- 
 dent that if a system so radically bad is to be made or kept innocuous, 
 the first condition for attaining such a result is that its movements 
 should be carefully watched, and, above all, that the bases on which 
 they work should be faithfully and unflinchingly exposed. Xor can I 
 quit this portion of the subject without these remarks. The satis- 
 factory views of Archbishop Manning on the present rule of civil 
 allegiance have not prevented him from giving his countenance 
 as a responsible editor to the lucubrations of a gentleman who 
 denies liberty of conscience, and asserts the riglit to persecute when 
 there is the power ; a right wliich, indeed, lie has not himself dis- 
 claimed. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that the very best of all the declarations we 
 have heard from those who allow themselves to be entangled in the 
 meshes of the Vatican Decrees are, every one of them, uttered subject 
 
 * Iliad, xxiv. 775. 
 
14 ^ VATICANISM. 
 
 to the condition that, npon orders from Rome, if such orders should is- 
 sue, they shall be qualified or retracted or reversed. 
 
 'A breath can unmake them, as a breath has made.' 
 
 But even apart from all this, do what we may in checking external 
 developments, it is not in our power to neutralize the mischiefs of the 
 wanton aggression of 1870 upon the liberties — too scanty, it is excusa- 
 ble to think — which up to that epoch had been allowed to private Chris- 
 tians in the Roman communion. Even in those parts of Christendom 
 where the Decrees and the present attitude of the Papal See do not 
 produce or aggravate open broils wdth the civil power, by undermining 
 moral liberty they impair moral responsibility, and silently, in the suc- 
 cession of generations if not even in the lifetime of individuals, tend to 
 emasculate the vigor of the mind. 
 
 In the tract on the Vatican Decrees I passed briefly by those por- 
 tions of my original statement which most lay within the province of 
 theology, and dwelt principally on two main propositions. 
 
 I. That Rome had reproduced for active service those doctrines of 
 former times, termed by me ' rusty tools,' which slie was fondly thought 
 to have disused.* 
 
 II. That the Pope now claims, with plenary authority, from every 
 convert and member of his Church, that he ^ shall place his loyalty and 
 civil duty at the mercy. of another:' that other being himself. 
 
 These are the assertions which I now hold myself bound further to 
 sustain and prove. 
 
 11. The Rusty Tools. The Syllabus. 
 
 1. Its Contents. 
 
 2. Its Authority. 
 
 ' With regard to the proposition that Rome has refurbished her * rusty ' 
 tools, Dr. l^ewman says it was by these tools that Europe was brought 
 into a civilized condition ; and thinks it worth w^hile to ask whether it 
 is my wish that penalties so sharp and expressions so high should be 
 of daily use.^ 
 
 I may be allowed to say, in reply to the remark I have cited, that I 
 
 ^ Dr. Newman, p. 32. 
 
THE RUSTY TOOLS. THE SYLLABUS. 16 
 
 have nowhere presumed to pronounce a general censure on the conduct 
 of the Papacy in the Middle Ages. That is a vast question, reaching 
 far beyond my knowledge or capacity. , I believe much is to be justly 
 said in praise, much as justly in blame. But I can not view the state- 
 ment that Papal claims and conduct created the civilization of Europe 
 as other than thoroughly unhistorical and one-sided ; as resting upon a 
 narrow selection of evidence, upon strong exaggeration of what that 
 evidence imports, and upon an 'invincible ignorance' as to all the 
 rest. 
 
 Many things may have been suited, or not unsuited, to rude times 
 and indeterminate ideas of political right, the reproduction of which is 
 at the least strange, perhaps even monstrous. We look back with in- 
 terest and respect upon our early fire-arms as they rest peacefully ranged 
 upon the wall; but we can not think highly of the judgment which 
 would recommend their use in modern warfare. As for those weapons 
 which had been consigned to obscurity and rust, my answer to Dr. 
 IN'ewman's question is that they should have slept forever, till perchance 
 .some reclaiming plow of the future should disturb them. 
 
 ' . . . quum finibas illis 
 Agricola, incurvo terrain molitus aratro, 
 Exesa inveniet scabra rubigine pila.' ^ 
 
 As to the proof of my accusation, it appeared tq me that it might be 
 sufiiciently given in a summary but true account ^ of some important 
 portions of the Encyclica of December 8, 1864, and especially of the 
 accompanying Syllabus of the same date. 
 
 The replies to the five or six pages in which I dealt with this subject 
 have so swollen as to reach fifteen or twenty times the bulk. I am 
 sorry that they involve me in the necessity of entering upon a few 
 pages of detail which may be wearisome. But I am bound to vindicate 
 my good faith and care, where a failure in either involves results of 
 real importance. These results fall under the two following heads : 
 
 (l.J The Syllabus ; what is its language ? 
 
 (2.) The Syllabus ; what is its authority ? 
 
 ^ Virgil, Georgics, i. 493. 
 
 ^ Erroneously called by some of my antagonists a translation, and then condemned as a 
 bad translation. But I know of no recipe for translating into less than half the bulk of the 
 original. 
 
16 VATICANISM. 
 
 As to the language, I liave justly represented it: as to its authority, 
 my statement is not above, but beneath the mark. 
 
 1. The Contents of the Syllabus. 
 
 My representation of the language of the Syllabus has been assailed 
 in strong terms. I proceed to defend it : observing, however, that my 
 legitimate object was to state in popular terms the effect of propositions 
 more or less technical and scholastic; and, secondly, that I did not 
 present each and every proposition for a separate disapproval, but di- 
 rected attention rather to the effect of the document as a whole, in a 
 qualifying passage (p. 13 ; Am. ed. p. 14) which no one of my critics has 
 been at the pains to notice. 
 
 Nos. 1-3. — The first charge of unjust representation is this : ^ I have 
 stated that the Pope condemns (p. 25; Am. ed. p. 21) liberty of the 
 press and liberty of speech. By reference to the priginal, it is shown 
 that the right of printing and speaking is not in terms • condemned 
 universally ; but. only the right of each man to print or speak all his 
 thoughts {suos concejptus qitoscunque'), whatever they may be. Here- 
 upon it is justly observed that in all countries there are laws against 
 blasphemy, or obscenity, or sedition, or all three. It is argued, then, that 
 men are not allowed the right to speak or print all their thoughts, and 
 that such an extreme right only is what the Pope has condemned. 
 
 It appears to me that this is, to use a mild phrase, mere trifling with 
 the subject. We are asked to believe that what the Pope intended to 
 condemn was a state of things which never has existed in any country 
 of the world. Now he says he is condemning one of the commonly 
 prevailing errors of the time, familiarly known to the bishops whom he 
 addresses.^ What bishop knows of a State which by law allows a per- 
 fectly free course to blasphemy, filthiness, and sedition ? The w^orld 
 knows quite well what is meant by free speech and a free press. It 
 does mean, generally, perhaps it may be said universally, the right of 
 declaring all opinions whatsoever. The limit of freedom is not the 
 justness of the opinion, but it is this, that it shall be opinion in good 
 
 ^ The Month, December, 1874, p. 494. Coleridge, Abomination of Desolation, p. 20. Bish- 
 op Ullathorne, Pastoral Letter, p. IG. Monk of St. Augustine's, p. 15. Dr. Newman, pp. 59, 
 72, in some part. 
 
 * 'Probe noscitis hoc tempore non paucos reperiri, qui,' etc. — Encycl., December 8, 1864. 
 
THE RUSTY TOOLS. THE SYLLABUS. 17 
 
 faith, and not mere grossness, passion, or appeal to violence. The law 
 of England at this moment, allowing all opinions whatever, provided 
 they are treated by way of rational discourse, most closely corresponds 
 to what the Pope has condemned. His condemnation is illustrated by 
 his own practice as Governor in the Roman States, where no opinion 
 could be spoken or printed but such as he approved. Once, indeed, he 
 permitted a free discussion on Saint Peter's presence and prelacy in the 
 city ; but he repented quickly, and forbade the repetition of it. We 
 might even cite his practice as Pope in 1S70, where every thing was 
 done to keep the proceedings of the Council secret from the Church 
 which it professed to represent, and even practically secret from its 
 members, except those who were of the governing cabal. But there 
 can be no better mode of exhibiting his real meaning than by referring 
 to his account of the Austrian law. Hdo lege omnis omnium opiiiio- 
 nurn et librarice artis libertas, omnis turn fidei^ turn conscientice ac 
 doctrinoe, libertas statuitur} To the kind of condemnation given, I 
 shall again refer ; but the matter of it is nothing abstract or imaginary, 
 it is actual freedom of thinking, speaking, and printing, as it is practiced 
 in a great civilized and Christian empire. I repel, then, the charge 
 against me as no better than a v(?i-bal subterfuge ; and I again affirm 
 that in his Syllabus, as in his acts, the Pope has condemned liberty of 
 speech and liberty of the press. 
 
 No. 5. — I have stated that the Pope condemns * those who assign to 
 the State the power of defining the civil rights {jura) and province of 
 the Church.' Hereupon it is boldly stated that ' the word civil is a 
 pure interpolation.' ^ This statement Dr. Newman's undertaking tempts 
 him to quote, but his sagacity and scholarship save him from adopting. 
 Anticipating some cavil such as this, I took care (which is not noticed) 
 to place the word^wr^ in my text. I now affirm that my translation 
 is correct. Jtis means, not right at large, but a specific form of right, 
 and in this case civil right, to which meaning indeed the word con- 
 stantly leans. It refers to right which is social, relative, extrinsic. Jus 
 hominum situm est in generis humani societate (Cic. Tusc. 2-26). If 
 
 * From the Pope's Allocution of June 22, 18G8 : 'By this law is established universal lib- 
 erty of all opinions and of the press, and, as of belief, so of conscience and of teaching.' Sec 
 Vering, Archiv fur Katholisches Kirchenrecht. Mainz, 1868, p. 171, Band xx. 
 
 ' The Abomination of Desolation, p. 21. Dr. Newman, p. 87. 
 
 B 
 
18 ^^^^^ALiFOnil^^ VATICANISM. 
 
 a theological definition is desired, take that of Dens : Accipitur potis- 
 simum jpro jure jprout est in altera, cui debet satisfieri ad oequalita- 
 tem ; de jure sic surapto hie agiiur} It is not of the internal consti- 
 tution of the Church and the rights of its members inter se that the 
 proposition treats, nor yet of its ecclesiastical standing in reference 
 to other bodies ; but of its rights in the face of the State — that is to 
 say, of its civil rights. My account therefore was accurate, and Mr. 
 Coleridge's criticism superfluous. 
 
 I must, however, admit that Vaticanism has a way of escape. For 
 perhaps it does not admit that the Church enjoys any civil rights ; but 
 considei-s as her own, and therefore spiritual in their source, such rights 
 as we consider accidental and derivative, even where not abusive. 
 
 On this subject I will refer to a high authority. The Jesuit Schra- 
 der was, I believe, one of those employed in drawing up the Syllabus. 
 He has published a work, with a Papal Approbation attached to it, in 
 which he converts the condemnatory negations of the Syllabus into the 
 corresponding afiirmatives. For Article XXX. he gives the following 
 proposition : 
 
 * The immunities of the Church, and of ecclesiastical persons, have not their origin in 
 civil right.' • 
 
 He adds the remark: *but are rooted in the Church's own right, 
 given to her from God.' ^ 
 
 ]^o. 7. — I have said those persons are condemned by the Syllabus 
 who hold that in countries called Catholic the free exercise of other re- 
 ligions may laudably be allowed. Dr. Newman truly observes^ that it 
 is the free exercise of religion by immigrants or foreigners which is 
 meant (horainibus illuc im7nigrantibus), and that I have omitted the 
 words. I omitted them, for my case was strong enough without them. 
 But tliey seem to strengthen my case. For the claim to a free exercise 
 of religion on behalf of immigrants or foreigners is a stronger one than 
 on behalf of natives, and has been so recognized in Italy and in Rome 
 itself. I think I am right in saying that difference of tongue has gen- 
 erally been recognized by Church law as mitigating the objections to 
 the toleration of dissidence. And it is this stronger claim, not the 
 
 ' Tractatus dejure etjustitid, No. 6. 
 
 ' Ber Papst und die Modemen Ideen. Von P. Clemens Schrader, S. J. Heft ii, p. 65. 
 
 " Dr. Newman, p. 8G. 
 
THE RUSTY TOOLS. THE SYLLABUS. ^9 
 
 weaker. one, which is condemned. So that if there be a fault, it is the 
 fault of under, not of over statement. 
 
 Again I support myself by the high authority of Schrader the Jesuit. 
 The following is his Article LXXYII. It draws no distinction of 
 countries : 
 
 * In our view it is still useful that the Catholic religion should be maintained as the only 
 State religion, to the exclusion of eveiy other. ' ^ 
 
 In the appended remark he observes that on this account the Pope, 
 in 1856, condemned the then recent Spanish law which tolerated other 
 forms of worship.2 
 
 1^0. 8. — I am charged, again, ^ with mistranslating under my eighth 
 head. The condemnation in the Syllabus is, as I conceived, capable of 
 being construed to apply to the entire proposition as it is there given, 
 or to a part of it only. In brief it is this : ' The Episcopate has a cer- 
 tain power not inherent, but conferred by the State, which may there- 
 fore be withdrawn at the pleasure of the State.' The condemnation 
 might be aimed at the assertion that such a power exists, or at the as- 
 sertion that it is withdrawable at pleasure. In the latter sense, the con- 
 demnation is unwise and questionable as a general proposition ; in the 
 former sense it is outrageous beyond all bounds ; and I am boldly ac- 
 cused of mistranslating* because I chose the milder imputation of the 
 two, and understood the censure to apply only to withdrawal ad libi- 
 tum. I learn now that, in the opinion of this antagonist at least, the 
 State was not the source of (for example) the power of coinage, which 
 was at one time exercised by the Bishops of Durham. So that the up- 
 shot is, either my construction is right, or my charge is milder than it 
 should have been. 
 
 Nos. 13, 14. — A grave charge is made against me respecting the. mat? 
 rimonial propositions, because I have ciied the Pope as condemning 
 those who affirm that the matrimonial contract is binding whether 
 there is or is not (according to the Poman doctrfne) a Sacrament, and 
 have not at the same time stated that English, marriages are held by 
 Kome to be sacramental, and therefore valid.^ 
 
 No charge, serious or slight, could be more entirely futile. But it is 
 
 * Schrader, p. 80. ^ Tnf- ^ Mr. Coleridge, Abomination of Desolation, p. 21. 
 
 * Ibid. * Monk of St. Augustine's, p. 15. Abomination, p. 22. 
 
20 VATICANISM. 
 
 serious, and not slight, and those who prompt the examination must 
 abide the recoil. I begin thus : 
 
 1. I am censured for not having given distinctions between one 
 country and another, which the Pope himself has not given. 
 
 2. And which are also thought unnecessary by authorized expound- 
 ers of the Syllabus for the faithful.^ 
 
 I have before me the Exposition,^ with the text, of the Encyclica and 
 Syllabus, published at Cologne in 1874 with the approval of authority 
 {mit oberldrcJilicher Aj^prohation). In p. 45 it is distinctly taught that 
 with marriage the State has nothing to do; that it may safely rely 
 upon the Church ; that civil marriage, in the eyes of the Church, is 
 only concubinage ; and that the State, by the use of worldly compul- 
 sion, prevents the two concubinary parties from repenting and aban- 
 doning their guilty relation to one another. Exactly the same is the 
 doctrine of the Pope himself, in his speeches published at Rome, where 
 civil marriage is declared to be, for Christians, nothing more than a 
 mere concubinage, and a filthy concubinage {sozzo concubinato)? 
 These extraordinary declarations are not due to the fondness of the 
 Pontiff for speaking impromptu. In his letter of September 19, 1852, 
 to King Victor Emmanuel, he declares that matrimony carrying the 
 Sacrament is alone lawful for Christians, and that a law of civil mar- 
 riage, which goes to divide them, for practical purposes, constitutes a 
 concubinage in the guise of legitimate marriage.* So that, in truth, in 
 all countries within the scope of these denunciations, the parties to a 
 civil marriage are declared to be living in an illicit connection, w^hich 
 they are called upon to renounce. This call is addressed to them sep- 
 arately as well as jointly, the wife being summoned to leave her hus- 
 band, and the husband to abandon his wife ; and after this pretended 
 repentance from a state of sin, unless the law of the land and fear of 
 consequences prevail, a new oennection, under the name of a marriage, 
 may be formed with the sanction of the Church of Rome. I know not 
 by what infatuation it is that adversaries have compelled me thus to 
 develop a state of facts created by the highest authorities of the Roman 
 
 * Appendix C. 
 
 ^ Die Encyclica, der Syllabus, und die wichtigsten darin angefuhrten Actenstiicke, nehst 
 einer auafiihrlichen Einleitung. Koln, 1874. 
 
 =* Discorsi di Pio IX. Roma, 1872, 1873. Vol. i. p. 193 ; vol. ii. p. 356. 
 
 * Recueil des Allocutions de Pie IX., etc. Paris : Leclerc, 180.'), p. 313. 
 
THE RUSTY TOOLS. THE SYLLABUS. gl 
 
 Church, which I shall now not shrink from calHng horrible and revolt^ 
 ing in itself, dangerous to the morals of society, the structure of the 
 family, and the peace of life. 
 
 It is true, indeed, that the two hundred thousand non-Roman marri- 
 ages which are annually celebrated in England do not at present fall 
 under the foul epithets of Rome. But why ? Not because we marry, 
 as I believe nineteen twentieths of us marry, under the sanctions of re-. 
 ligion ; for our marriages are, in the eye of the Pope, purely civil mar- 
 riages; but only for the technical, accidental, and precarious reason that, 
 the disciplinary 'decrees of Trent are not canonically in force in this 
 country. I apprehend that there is nothing, unless it be motives of 
 mere policy, to prevent the Pope from putting them into force here 
 when he pleases. If, and w^hen that is done, every marriage thereafter 
 concluded in the English Church will, according to his own words, be a 
 filthy concubinage. 
 
 But what claim of right have we to be treated better than others? 
 The Tridentine decrees have force, I understand, in Italy, France, Ger- 
 many, Austria, Poland, Hungary; If so, every civil marriage in those 
 countries, and every religious marriage not contracted before a Roman 
 Parockus, as the Council of Trent requires, is but the formation of a 
 guilty connection, which each of the parties severally is charged by the 
 Church of Rome to dissolve, under pain of being held to be in mortal 
 sin. 
 
 I believe this statement can not be impeached. It can only be even 
 qualified by pointing out that Rome has reserved to herself, if and when 
 she pleases, the application of the rule of the Council of Trent, absurd- 
 ly called Clandestinity, to non-Roman marriages in Tridentine coun- 
 tries. Benedict XIY., a great authority, questioned the propriety or 
 policy of the rule ; and Pius YII., in a communication to the Primate 
 Dalberg, formerly Archbishop of Mentz, referred with approval to the 
 language of Benedict XIY. But even they have never taken that 
 course which appears to be the rational one, namely, to allow to non- 
 Roman marriages generally, if contracted solemnly and with due pre- 
 caution, that same consensual validity which all allow to belong to mar- 
 riages outside the Christian pale. The upshot, then, of their opinions 
 seems to be this : that while stigmatizing marriages not Tridentine as 
 concubinages in the manner we have seen, a power is reserved, under 
 
22 VATICANISM. 
 
 the name or plea 6f special circumstances, to acknowledge them or not 
 as policy may i*ecommend. This is but the old story. All problems 
 which menace the Eoman Chair with difficulties it dare not face are to 
 be solved, not by the laying down of principles, good or bad, strict or 
 lax, in an intelligible manner, but by reserving all cases as matters of 
 discretion to the breast of the Curia, which will decide from time to 
 time, according to its pleasure, whether there has been a sacrament or 
 not, and whetlier we are married folks, or persons living in guilty com- 
 merce, and rearing our children under a false pretext of legitimacy. 
 
 This, then, is the statement I now make. It has been drawn from 
 me by the exuberant zeal and precipitate accusations of the school of 
 Loyola. 
 
 No. 18. — Finally, it is contended that I misrepresent Rome in stat- 
 ing that it condemns the call to reconcile itself with progress, liberal- 
 ism, and modern civilization. *" 
 
 It is boldly stated that the Pope condemns not these, but only what 
 is bad in these.^ And thus it is that, to avert public displeasure, w^ords 
 are put in the Pope's mouth which he has not used, and which are at 
 variance with the whole spirit of the document that he has sent forth 
 to alarm, as Dr. Newman too well sees, the educated mind of Europe.^ 
 It appears to be claimed for Popes that they shall be supreme over the 
 ^aws of language. But mankind protests against a system which pal- 
 ters in a double sense with its own solemn declarations; imposing 
 them on' the weak, glorying in them before those who are favorably 
 prepossessed, and then contracting their sense ad libitum, even to the 
 point of nullity, by arbitrary interpolation, to appease the scandalized 
 understanding of Christian nations. Without doubt, progress, liberal- 
 ism, modern civilization, are terms more or less ambiguous ; but they 
 are, under a sound general rule, determinable by the context. Now 
 the contexts of the Syllabus and Encyclica are perfectly unambiguous: 
 they perfectly explain what the Pope means by the words. He means 
 to condemn all that we consider fair limitation of the claims of priest- 
 ly power; to repudiate the title of man to general freedom of thought, 
 and of speech in all its varied forms of utterance ; the title of a nation 
 to resist those who treat the sovereignty over it as a property, and who 
 
 * Month, as sup. p. 496. Bishop UUathorne, Expostulation Unraveled, p. 69. 
 " Dr. Newman, p. 90. 
 
THE RUSTY TOOLS. THE SYLLABUS. 23 
 
 would enforce on the people — for example, of the Papal States — a gov- 
 ernment independently of or against its will ; in a word, the true and 
 only sure titles of freedom in all its branches, inward and outward, 
 mental, moral, and political, as they are ordinarily understood in the 
 judgment of this age and country. 
 
 I have gone, I believe, through every particular impeachment of my 
 account of the language of the Syllabus and the Encyclica. If each 
 and all of these have failed, I presume that I need not dwell upon the 
 general allegations of opponents in respect to those heads where they 
 have not been pleased to enter upon details.^ 
 
 Now it is quite idle to escape the force of these charges by re- 
 proaches aimed at my unacquaintance with theology, and by recom- 
 mendations, sarcastic or sincere, that I should obtain some instruction 
 in its elements. To such reproaches I shall peacefully and respect- 
 fully bow, so soon'as I shall have been convicted of error. But I think 
 I have shown that the only variations from exact truth to which I can 
 plead guilty are variations in the way of understatements of the case 
 which it was my duty to produce. 
 
 2. The Authority of the Syllabus. 
 
 I have next to inquire what is the authority of the Syllabus ? 
 
 Had I been inclined to push my case to extremes, I might very 
 well have contended that this document was delivered ex cathedra. 
 Schulte, whose authority as a Canonist is allowed on all hands to be 
 great, founds his argument on that opinion.'-^ Dr. Ward, who has been 
 thanked^ by His Holiness for his defense of the faith, wonders that 
 any one can doubt it.* The Pope himself, in his speeches, couples the 
 Syllabus with the Decrees of the Vatican Council, as being jointly the 
 great fundamental teachings of these latter days; and he even de- 
 scribes it as the only anchor of safety for the coming time.^ Bishop 
 Fessler, whose work was published some time after the Council, to tone 
 down alarms, and has had a formal approval from the Pope,^ holds 
 
 ' The Month, as sup. p. 497. 
 
 2 Power of the Roman Popes (transl. by Sommers. Adelaide, 1871). 
 
 3 Dublin Review, July, 1870, p. 224. 
 
 * Ibid., July, 1874, p' 9. 
 
 * Discorsi di Pio IX., vol. i. p. 59. 
 
 * Fessler, True and False Infallibility (English transl), p. iiL 
 
24 VATICANISM. 
 
 that the Syllabus is not a document proceeding ex cathedra. But it 
 touches faith and morals : its condemnations are, an*d are allowed to be, 
 assertions of their contradictories, into which assertions they have been 
 formally converted by Schrader, a writer of authority, who was official- 
 ly employed in its compilation. Furthermore, though I was wrong (as 
 Dr. IS'ewman has properly observed^) in assuming that the Encyclica 
 directly covered all the propositions of the Syllabus, yet this document 
 is addressed by the Pope through Cardinal Antonelli to all the Bishops 
 of the Christian (Papal) world — therefore in his capacity as universal 
 Teacher. 
 
 The reasons advanced by Bishop Fessler in the opposite sense appear 
 to be very weak. When the Pope (by conversion of the 23d Proposi- 
 tion) declares that preceding pontiffs have not exceeded the limits of 
 their power, and h»'e not usurped the rights of princes. Bishop Fessler 
 replies that we are here dealing only wnth facts of Iiistory, not touch- 
 ing faith or morals, so that there is no subject-matter for a dogmatic 
 definition.^ But the depositions of sovereigns were wont to be founded 
 on considerations of faith or morals; as when Gregory YII., in A.D. 
 1079, charged upon Henry lY. many capital crimes,^ and as when In- 
 nocent III. deposed Kaymond of Toulouse for (among other reasons) 
 not proceeding satisfactorily with the extirpation of the Albigenses.* 
 The Christian creed itself is chiefly composed of matters of fact set 
 forth as articles of belief. And he who asserts that the acts of Popes 
 did not go beyond their rights, distinctly expresses his belief in the 
 claims of right which those acts involved. 
 
 Fessler's other objection is that the form of the Syllabus does not set 
 forth the intention of the Pope.^ But he appears to have overlooked 
 the perfectly explicit covering letter of Antonelli, which in the Pope's 
 name transmits the Syllabus, in order that the w^hole body of Latin 
 Bishops might have before their eyes those errors and false doctrines 
 of the age which the Pope. had proscribed. Nor does Fessler venture 
 to assert that the Syllabus is w^ithout dogmatic authority. He only 
 says many theologians have doubts upon the question whether it be 
 I t ■ . ■ — — 
 
 ^ Newman, p. 82. 
 
 ^ Fessler, Vraie etfaiisse InfailUhilit^ des Popes (French transl.), p. 89. 
 ^ Greenwood, Cathedra Petri, iv. 420. 
 * Ibid., V. 549. * Fessler, p. 132. 
 
THE RUSTY TOOLS. THE SYLLABUS. 25 
 
 ex cathedrosu: theological science will hereafter have to examine and 
 decide the matter :' in the mean time every Eoman Catholic is bound 
 to submit to and obey it. Such is the low or moderate doctrine con- 
 cerning the Syllabus.^ Thus its dogmatic authority is probable: its 
 title to universal obedience is absolute, while among its assertions is 
 that the Church has the right to employ force, and. that the Popes 
 have not exceeded their powers or invaded the rights of princes. 
 
 Now, when I turn to the seductive pages of Dr. Newman, I find 
 myself to be breathing, another air, and discussing, it would seem, some 
 other Syllabus. If the Pope were the author of it, he would accept 
 it.^ But he is not,* and no one knows who is. Therefore it has no 
 dogmatic force.^ It is an index to a set of dogmatic Bulls and Allo- 
 cutions, but it is no more dogmatic itself than any other index or 
 table of contents.^ Its value lies in its references, and from them 
 alone can w^e learn its meaning. 
 
 If we had Dr. Newman for Pope, we should be tolerably safe, so 
 merciful and genial would be his rule. But when Dr. Newman, not 
 being Pope, contradicts and nullifies what the Pope declares, whatever 
 we may wish, we can not renounce the use of our eyes. Fessler, who. 
 writes, as Dr. Newman truly says, to curb exaggerations,'' and who is 
 approved by the Pope, declares^ that every subject of the Pope, and 
 thus that Dr. Newman, is bound to obey the Syllabus, because it is 
 from the Pope and of the Pope. ' Before the Council of the Vatican, 
 every Catholic was bound to submit to and obey the Syllabus; the 
 Council of the Vatican has made no difference in that obhgation of 
 conscience.' He questions its title, indeed, to be held as ex cathedrd, 
 and this is his main contention against Von Schulte ; but he nowhere 
 denies its infallibility, and he distinctly includes it in the range of 
 Christian obedience. 
 
 Next, Dr. Newman lays it down that the words of the Syllabus are 
 of no force in themselves, except as far as they correspond with the 
 terms of the briefs to which references are given, and which he ad- 
 mits to be binding. But here Dr. Newman is in flat contradiction to 
 
 ' Fessler, pp. 8, 132, 134. Mbid., p. 81. 
 
 =^ Ibid., p. 8. «Ibid., p. 8. 
 
 3 Newman, p. 20. ' Ibid., p. 81. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 79. « Fessler, p. 8 (French transl.). 
 
26 VATICANISM. 
 
 tlie oflScial letter of Cardinal Antonelli, who states that tjie Syllabus 
 has been framed, and is sent to the Bishops, by command of the Pope, 
 inasmuch as it is likely that they have by no means all seen the prior 
 instruments, and in order that they may know from the Syllabus itself 
 what it is that has been condemned. Thus then it will be seen that 
 the Syllabus has been authoritatively substituted for the original doc- 
 uments as a guide to the Bishops. And if, as Dr. Newman says, and 
 as I think in some cases is the fact, the propositions of the Syllabus 
 widen the propositions of those documents, it is the wider and not the 
 narrower form that binds, unless Dr. Newman is more in the confi- 
 dence of Rome than tlie Secretary of the Vatican Council, and than 
 the regular minister of the Pope. 
 
 Again, I am reminded by the Dublin Beview, a favored organ of 
 Roman opinions, that utterances ex cathedra ' are not the only form in 
 which Infallibility can speak ; and that the Syllabus, whether ex ca- 
 thedra or not, since it has been uttered by the Pope, and accepted by 
 the Church diffused, that is to say, by the Bishops diffused, is undoubt- 
 edly infallible. This w^ould seem to be the opinion of Bishop Ulla- 
 thorne." But what is conclusive as to practical effect upon the whole 
 cilse is this — that while not one among the Roman apologists admits 
 that the Syllabus is or may be erroneous, the obligation to obey it is 
 asserted on all hands, and is founded on the language of an infal- 
 lible Vatican Decree. I have been content to argue the case of the 
 Syllabus upon the supposition that, in relation to England at least, 
 its declarations were purely abstract. The readers, however, of Mac- 
 millan^s Magazine for February may perceive that even now we are 
 not without a sample of its fruits in a matrimonial case, of which par- 
 ticulars were long ago given in the Times newspaper, and which may 
 possibly again become the object of public notice. 
 
 It is therefore absolutely superfluous to follow Dr. Newman through 
 his references to the Briefs and Allocutions marginally noted. The Syl- 
 labus is part of that series of acts to which the dogmatizations of 1854 
 and, 1870 also belong; and it bridges over the interval between them. 
 It generalizes, and advisedjy enlarges, a number of particular con- 
 demnations ; and, addressing them to all the Bishops, brings the whole 
 
 * Dublin Review, Jan. 1875, pp. 177, 210. 
 
 " Bishop Ullathorne, Expost. Unraveled, p. 6G. 
 
THE RUSTY TOOLS. THE SYLLABUS. 27 
 
 * 
 
 of the Latin obedience within its net. The fish, when it is inclosed 
 and beached, may struggle for a while ; but it dies, while the fisher- 
 man lives, carries it to market, and quietly puts the price into his till. 
 The result then is : 
 
 1. I abide by my account of the contents of the Syllabus. 
 
 2. I have understated, not overstated, its authority. 
 
 3. It may be ex cathedra / it seems to have the infallibility of dog- 
 ma : it unquestionably demands, and is entitled (in the code of Vati- 
 canism) to demand, obedience. 
 
 III. The Vatican Council and the Infallibility of the PorE. 
 Breach mith History^ No, 1. 
 
 Like the chieftains of the heroic time. Archbishop Manning takes 
 his place with promptitude, and operates in front of the force he leads. 
 
 Upon the first appearance of my tract, he instantly gave utterance 
 to the following propositions; nor* has he since receded from them : 
 
 1. That the Infallibility of the Pope was a doctrine of Divine Faith 
 before the Council of the Vatican was held. 
 
 2. That the Vatican Decrees have in Ho jot or tittle changed either 
 the obligations or the conditions of civil allegiance. 
 
 3. That the civil allegiance of Koman Catholics is as undivided as 
 that of other Christians, and neither more noV less limited. 
 
 4. That the claim of the Poman Church against obedience to the 
 civil power in certain cases is the same as that made by other religions 
 communions in. England. 
 
 These four propositions may be treated as two. The first is so allied 
 with the second, and the third with the fourth, that the two members 
 of each pair respectively must stand or fall together. I can make no 
 objection to the manner in which they raise the question. I shall leave 
 it to others, whom it may more concern, to treat* that portion* of his 
 work in which, passing by matters that 'more nearly touched his argu- 
 ment, he has entered at large on the controversy between Rome and 
 the German Empire ; nor shall I now discuss his compendium of 
 Italian history, which in no manner touches the question whether the 
 dominion of the Pope ought again to be imposed by foreign arms upon 
 
28 VATICANISM. 
 
 a portion of the Italian people. But of the four propositions I will 
 say that I accept them all, subject to the very simple condition that 
 the word ^not' be inserted in the three which are affirmative, and its 
 equivalent struck out from the one which is negative. 
 
 Or, to state the case in my own words : 
 
 My task will be to make good the two following assertions, which 
 were the principal subjects of my former argument : 
 
 1. That upon the authority, for many generations, of those who pre- 
 ceded Archbishop Manning and his coadjutors in their present official 
 position, as well as upon other authority, Papal Infallibility was not 
 •a doctrine of Divine Faith before the Council of the Vatican was 
 held.' 
 
 And that, therefore, the Vatican Decrees have changed the obliga- 
 tions and conditions of civil allegiance. 
 
 2. That the claim of the Papal Church against obedience to the civil 
 power in certain cases not only goes beyond, but is essentially different 
 from that made by other religious communions or ^y their members 
 in England. 
 
 And that, therefore, the civil allegiance of those who admit the 
 claim, and carry it to its logical consequences, is not for the purposes 
 of the State the same with that of other Christians, but is differently 
 limited. 
 
 In his able and lengthened work. Archbishop Manning has found 
 space for a dissertation on the great German quarrel, but has not in- 
 cluded, in his proof of the belief in Papal Infallibility before 1870, any 
 reference to the history of the Church over which he presides, or the 
 sister Church in Ireland. This very grave deficiency I- shall endeavor 
 to make good, by enlarging and completing the statement briefly given 
 in my tract. That statement was that the English and Irish penal laws 
 against lioman Catholics were repealed on the faith of assurances 
 which have not been fulfilled. , 
 
 IIad*all antagonists been content to reply with the simple ingenuous- 
 ness of Dr. Newman, it migh£ have been unnecessary to resume this 
 portion of the subject. I make no complaint of the Archbishop; for 
 such a reply would have destroyed his case. Dr. Newman, struggling 
 hard with the difficulties of his task, finds that the statement of Dr. 
 Doyle requires (p. 12) 'some pious interpretation;' that in 1826 the 
 
THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND INFALLIBILITY. 29 
 
 clergy both of England and Ireland were trained in Gallican opinions 
 (p. 13), and had modes of thinking 'foreign altogether to the minds of 
 the entourage of the Holy See ;' that the British ministers onght to 
 have applied to Rome (p. 14) to learn the civil duties of British sub- 
 jects ; and that ' no pledge from Catholics was of any value to which 
 Eome was not a party.' 
 
 This declaration involves all, and more than all, that I had ventured 
 reluctantly to impute. Statesmen of the future, recollect the words, 
 and recollect from whom they came : from the man who by his genius, 
 piety, and learning towers above all the eminences of the Anglo-Papal 
 communion ; who, so declares a Romish organ,^ * has been the mind 
 and tongue to shape and express the English Catholic position in the 
 many controversies which have arisen' since 1845, and who has been 
 roused from his repose on this occasion only by the most fervid ap- 
 peals to him as the man that could best teach his co-religionists how 
 and what to think. The lesson received is this. Although pledges 
 were given, although their validity was firmly and even passionately^ 
 asserted, although the subject-matter was one of civil allegiance, ' no 
 pledge from Catholics was of any value to which Rome was not a 
 party' (p. 14). 
 
 In all seriousness I ask whether there is not involved in these words 
 of Dr. Newman an ominous approximation to my allegation that the 
 seceder to the Roman Church 'places his loyalty and civil duty at the 
 mercy of another V 
 
 But as Archbishop Manning has asserted that the Decrees of the 
 Vatican have 'in no jot or tittle' altered civil allegiance,^ and that 
 ' before the Council was held the infallibility of the Pope was a doc- 
 trine of Divine Faith,'* and as he is the ofiicial head of the Anglo- 
 Roman body, I must test his assertions by one of those appeals to his- 
 tory which he has sometimes said are treason to the Church;^ as in- 
 deed they are in liis sense of the Church, and in his sense of treason. 
 It is only justice to the Archbishop to add tliat he does not stand 
 
 ^ The Month, December, 1874, p. 4G1. 
 
 ^ Bishop Doyle, Esmy on the Claims, p. 38. 
 
 ^ Letter to the London Times, November 7, 1874. 
 
 * Letter to the New York Herald, November 10, 1874. Letter to MacmillarCs Magazine, 
 October 22. 
 • ^ Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost. 
 
30 VATICANISM. 
 
 alone. Bishop Ullatliorae says, ' The Pope always wielded this infalli- 
 bility, and all men knew this to be the fact.' ^ We shall presently find 
 some men, whose history the Bishop should have been familiar with, 
 who did not know this to be the fact, but very solemnly assured us 
 they knew the exact contrary. 
 
 This is not an affair, as Dr. Newman seems to think, of a particular 
 generation of clergy who had been educated in Galilean opinions. In 
 all times, from the reign of Elizabeth to that of Victoria, the lay Ro- 
 man Catholics of England, as a body, have been eminently and unre- 
 servedly loyal. But they have been as eminently noted for their thor- 
 ough estrangement from Ultramontane opinions; and their clergy, 
 down to the period of the Emancipation Act, felt with them ; though 
 a school addicted to curialism and Jesuitism, thrust among them by 
 the Popes at the commencement of the period, first brought upon them 
 grievous sufferings, then succeeded in attaching a stigma to their name, 
 and now threatens gradually to accomplish a transformation of their 
 opinions, with an eventual change in their spirit, of which it is difficult 
 to foresee the bounds. ]S"ot that the men who now hold the ancestral 
 view w^ill, as a rule, exchange it for the view of the Vatican ; but tliat, 
 as in the course of nature they depart, Yaticanists will grow up and 
 take their places. 
 
 The fii'st official head of the Anglo-Roman body in England was the 
 wise and loyal Archpriest Blackwell. He was deposed by the Pope 
 in 1608, ' chiefly, it is supposed, for his advocacy of the Oath of Alle- 
 giance,'^ which had been devised by King James, in order that he might 
 confer peace and security upon loyal Roman Catholics.^ Bellarmin 
 denounced, as heretical, its denial of the power of the Pope to depose 
 the King and release his subjects from their allegiance. Pope Paul 
 Y. condemned the oath by a brief in October, 1606. The unfortunate 
 members of his communion could not believe this brief to be authentic* 
 So a second bi-ief was sent in September, 1607, to confirm and enforce 
 the first. Blackwell gallantly advised his flock to take the oath in de- 
 fiance of the brief. Priests confined in Newgate petitioned the Pope 
 to have compassion on them. Forty-eight doctors of the Sorbonne 
 
 ' Bishop Ullathorne, Letter, p. 14. 
 * Butler, Historical Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 411. 
 ^ Ibid., vol. i. pp. 303 sqq. 
 
THE VATICAN COUNCIL ;AND INFALLIBILITY. , 81 
 
 against six, declared that it might be taken witli good conscience. 
 And taken it was by many ; but taken in despite of the tyrannical in- 
 junctions of Paury.j unhappily confirmed by Urban VIII. and by In- 
 nocent X.^ 
 
 When it was proposed, in 1648, to banish Eoman Catholics on ac- 
 count of the deposing power, their divines met and renounced the doc- 
 trine. This renunciation was condemned at Rome as heretical ; but 
 the attitude of France on these questions at the time prevented the 
 publication of the decree.^ 
 
 When the loyal remonstrance of 1661 had been signed by certain 
 Bishops and others of Ireland, it was condemned at Rome, in July, 
 1662, by the Congregation de propaganda ; and in the same month 
 the Papal Kuncio at Brussels, who superintended the concerns of Irish 
 Roman Catholics at the time, denounced it as already condemned by 
 the constitutions of Paul V. and Innocent X. ; and specially censured 
 the ecclesiastics who, by signing it, had misled the laity.^ 
 
 Well may Butler say, ' The claim of the Popes to temporal power^ 
 by divine right, has been one of the most calamitous events in the his- 
 tory of the Church. •Its effects since the Reformation, on the English 
 and Irish Catholics, have been dreadful.' * And again ': ' How often 
 did our ancestors experience thatf ultra-catholicism is one of the worst 
 enemies of cfitholicity !' ^ 
 
 The vigor of the mind of Dryden is nowhere more evident than 
 in parts of his poems of controversial theology; and they are im- 
 portant, as exhibiting that view of Roman Catholic tenets which was 
 presented at the time for the purposes of proselytism. He mentions 
 various opinions as to the seat of infallibility, describing that of the 
 Pope's infallibility, with others, as held by ^ some doctors,' and states 
 what he considers to be the true doctrine of the Latin Church, as follows : 
 
 ' I then affirm, that this unfailing guide 
 In Pope and general councils must reside, 
 Both lawful, both combined ; what one decrees, 
 By numerous votes, the other ratifies : 
 On this undoubted sense the Church relies.'^ 
 
 ^ Butler, vol i. p. 352. 
 
 ' Caron, Remonstrantia Hibernorum. Ed. 1731, p. 7. Comp. Butler, Hist. Memoirs^ vol. 
 ii. p. 18. 
 
 ' Caron, p. 4. Butler, vol. ii. p. 401-2. ' Ibid., vol. ii. p. 8."; ; also vol. ii. p. 20. 
 
 * Butler, vol. i. p. 182. e The Hind and Panther, part ii. 
 
32 VATIflANISM. 
 
 When, in 1682, the Gallican Church, by the first of its four Arti- 
 cles, rejected the sophistical distinction of direct and indirect author- 
 ity, and absolutely denied the power of the Pope in temporals, to this 
 article, says Butler, there was hardly a dissentient voice either clerical 
 or lay. He adds that this principle is ' now adopted by the universal 
 Catholic Church.' » 
 
 Such was the sad condition of the Anglo-Eoman body in the seven- 
 teenth century. They were ground between the demands of the civil 
 power, stern, but substantially just, on the one hand, and the cruel and 
 outrageous impositions of the Court of Eome on the other. Even for 
 the shameful scenes associated with the name and time of Titus Gates 
 that Court is largely responsible: and the spirit that governed it in 
 regard to the Oath of Allegiance is the very same spirit wliich gained 
 its latest triumphs in the Council of the Vatican. 
 
 I now pass to the period which followed the Ee volution of 1688, 
 especially with reference to the bold assertion that before 1870 the 
 Pope's infallibility was a doctrine of Divine Faith. 
 
 The Ee volution, brought about by invasions of the law and the con- 
 stitution, w^ith which the Church of Eome w^as disastrously associated, 
 necessarily partook of a somewhat vindictive character as towards the 
 Anglo-Eoman body. Our penal provisions were a mitigated, but also 
 a debased copy of the Papal enactments against heresy. It w^as not 
 until 1757, on the appointment of the Duke of Bedford to the Lord- 
 Lieutenancy of Ireland, that the first sign of life was given.^ Indeed, 
 it was only in 1756 that a new penal law had been proposed in Ire- 
 land.^ But in the next year the Irish Eoman Catholic Committee 
 published a Declaration which disavowed the deposing and absolving 
 power, with other odious opinions. Here it w^as averred that the Pope 
 had ^no temporal or civil jurisdiction,' Mirectly or indirectly, within 
 this realm,' And it was also averred that it ^ is not an article of the 
 Catholic faith, neither are we thereby obliged to believe or profess that 
 the Pope is infallible :' in diametrical contradiction to the declaration 
 of Archbishop Manning that persons of his religion w^ere bound to 
 this belief before the Council of 1870.* 
 
 ' Butler, vol. i. p. 358, and vol. ii. p. 20. 
 
 ' Butler, vol. iv. p. 511 . Sir II. ParnelV, History of the Penal Laws. 
 
 ' Madden, Historical Notice of the Penal Laws, p. 8. 
 
 * I cite the terms of this document from The Elector's Guide, addressed to the freeholders 
 
THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND INFALLIBILITY. 33 
 
 It may, indeed, be observed that in declaring they are not required 
 to believe the infallibility of the Pope, the subscribers to this document 
 do not say any thing to show that they did not for themselves hold the 
 tenet. But a brief explanation will show that the distinction in this 
 case is little better than futile. As we have seen, the Declaration set 
 forth that the Pope had no temporal power in England. Now in the 
 notorious Bull Unam Sanctam it had been positively declared ex ca- 
 thedra that both the temporal and the spiritual sword were at the 
 command of the Church, and that it was the office of the Pope, by a 
 power not human, but divinp, to judge and correct the secular author- 
 ity. The language of the Declaration of 1757 was directly at variance 
 with the language of the Pope, speaking ex cathedra, and therefore 
 here, if any where, infallible. It could, therefore, only have been con- 
 sistently used by persons who for themselves did not accept the tenet. 
 I am aware it will be argued that the infallible part of the Bull is only 
 the last sentence. It is well for those who so teach that Boniface YIII. 
 is not alive to hear them. The last sentence is introduced by the word 
 * Porro,' furthermore : a strange substitute for ' Be it enacted.' The 
 true force of that sentence seems to be : ' Furthermore, we declare that 
 this subjection to the Koman Pontiff, as hereinbefore described, is to 
 be held as necessary for salvation.' It is not the substance, but an ad- 
 dition to the substance. 
 
 If, however, any thing had been wanting in this Declaration, it would 
 have been abundantly supplied by the Protestation of the Koman Cath- 
 olics of England in 1788-9. In this very important document, which 
 brought about the passing of the great English Belief Act of 1791, 
 besides a repetition of the assurances generally which had been there- 
 tofore conveyed, there are contained statements of the greatest sig- 
 nificance. 
 
 1. That the subscribers to it ' acknowledge no infallibility in the 
 Pope.; 
 
 2. That their Church has no power that can directly or indirectly 
 injure Protestants, as all she can do is to refuse them her sacraments, 
 which they do not want. '' 
 
 3. That no ecclesiastical power whatever can ^ directly or indirectly 
 
 of the County of York. No. 1, p. 44. York, 1826. It is also, I believe, to be found in Par- 
 nell's History of the Penal Laws. 1 808. 
 
 
 
34 VATICANISM. 
 
 affect or interfere with the independence, sovereignty, laws, constitu- 
 tion, or government ' of the realm. 
 
 This Protestation was, in the strictest sense, a representative and 
 binding document. It was signed by two hundred and forty-one 
 priests,^ including all the Yicars Apostolic : by all the clergy and laity 
 in England of any note ; and in 1789, at a general meeting of the 
 English Catholics in London, it was subscribed by every person present.^ 
 
 Thus we have on the part of the entire body of which Archbishop 
 Manning is now the head^ a direct, literal, and unconditional rejection 
 of the cardinal tenet which he tells us Jias always been believed by 
 his Church, and was an article of Divine Faith before as well as after 
 1870. Nor was it merely that the Protestation and the Relief coin- 
 cided in time. The protesters explicitly set forth that the penal laws 
 against them were founded on the doctrines imputed to them, and they 
 asked and obtained the relief on the express ground that they re- 
 nounced and condemned the doctrines.* 
 
 Some objection seems to have been taken at- Pome to a portion (we 
 are not told what) of the terms of the Protestation. The history con- 
 nected herewith is rather obscurely given in Butler. But the Protes- 
 tation itself was, while the Bill was before Parliament, deposited in the 
 British Museum, by order of the Anglo-Roman body : ' that it may be 
 preserved there as a lasting memorial of their political and moral in- 
 tegrity.'^ Two of the four Vicars Apostolic, two clergymen, and one 
 layman withdrew their names from the Protestation on the deposit ; 
 all the rest of the signatures remained. 
 
 Canon Flanagan's History of the Church in England impugns the 
 representative character of the Committee, and declares that the Court 
 of Rome approved of proceedings taken in opposition to it.^ But the 
 
 * Slater's Letters on Roman Catholic Tenets^ p. 6. 
 ' Butler, Hist. Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 118, 126. 
 
 ^ Prelates really should remember that they may lead their trustful lay folloAjers into 
 strange predicaments. Thus Mr. Towneley (of Towneley, I believe), in his letter of Nov. 18 to 
 the London Times, dwells, I have no doubt with perfect justice, on the loyalty of his ancestors; 
 but, unhappily, goes on to assert that ' the Catholic Church has always held and taught the 
 infallibility of the Pope in matters of faith and morals.' No : the Roman Catholics of En- 
 gland denied it in their Protestation of 1788-9 ; and on the list of the Committee which 
 prepared and promoted that Protestation I find the name of Peregrine Towneley, of Towne- 
 ley.— Ibid., vol. ii. p. 304, 
 
 * Butler, Hist. Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 119, 125. 
 
 * Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 136-8. * Flanagan, vol. ii. p. 398. 
 
THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND INFALLIBILITY. 35 
 
 material fact is the subscription of the Protestation by the clergy and 
 laity at large. On this subject he admits that it was signed by ^ the 
 greater part of both clergy and laity ;' ^ and states that an organization 
 in opposition to the Committee, founded in 1794 by one of the Yicars 
 Apostolic, died a natural death after ' a very few years.' ^ The most 
 significant part of the case, however, is perhaps this : that the work of 
 Flanagan, which aims at giving a tinge of the new historical color to 
 the opinions of the Anglo-Roman body, was not published until 1857, 
 when things had taken an altogether new direction, and when the Eman- 
 cipation controversies had been long at rest. 
 
 The Act of 1791 for England was followed by that of 1793 for Ire- 
 land. The Oath inserted in this Act is founded upon the Declaration 
 of 1757, and embodies a large portion of it, including the words : 
 
 ' It is not an article of the Catholic Faith, neither am I thereby required to believe or pro- 
 fess, that the Pope is infallible.' 
 
 I refer to this Oath, not because I attach an especial value to that 
 class of security, but because we now come to a Synodical Declaration 
 of the Irish Bishops which constitutes perhaps the most salient point 
 of the whole of this singular history. 
 
 On the 26th of February, 1810, those Bishops declared as follows : 
 
 ' That the said Oath, and the promises, declarations, abjurations, and protestations therein 
 contained, are, notoriously, to the Roman Catholic Church at large, become apart of the Roman 
 Catholic religion as taught hy us the Bishops and received and maintained by the Roman 
 Catholic Churches in Ireland ; and as such are approved and sanctioned by the other Roman 
 Catholic Churches/^ 
 
 It will now, I think, have sufficiently appeared to the reader who ha& 
 followed this narration how mildly, I may say how inadequately, I have 
 set forth in my former tract the pledges which were given by the au- 
 thorities of the Eoman Catholic Church to the Crown and State of the 
 United Kingdom, and by means of which principally they obtained 
 the remission of the penal laws and admission to full civil equality. 
 We were told in England by the Anglo- Eoman Bishops, clergy, and 
 laity that they rejected the tenet of the Pope's infallibility. We were 
 told in Ireland that they rejected the doctrine of the Pope's temporal 
 power, whether direct or indirect, although the Pope had in the most 
 
 ^ Flanagan, vol. ii. p. 394. =* Slater on Roman Catholic Tenets, pp. 14, 15. 
 
 ^ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 407. 
 
SQ VATICANISM. 
 
 solemn and formal manner asserted his possession of it. We were also 
 told in Ireland that Papal infallibility was no part of the Eoman Catho- 
 lic faith, and never could be made a part of it ; and that the impossi- 
 bility of incorporating it in their religion was notorious to the Eoman 
 Catholic Church at large, and was become part of their religion, and 
 this not only in Ireland, but throughout the world. These are the 
 declarations, which reach in effect from 1661 to 1810 ; and it is in the 
 light of these declarations that the evidence of Dr. Doyle in 1825, and 
 the declarations of the English and Irish prelates of the Papal com- 
 munion shortly afterward, are to be read. Here, then, is an extraordi- 
 nary fullness and clearness of evidence, reaching over nearly two centu- 
 ries ; given by and on behalf of millions of men ; given in documents 
 patent to all the world ; perfectly well known to the See and Court of 
 .Kome, as we know expressly with respect to merely the most important 
 of all these assurances, namely, the actual and direct repudiation of in- 
 fallibility in 1788-9. So that either that See and Court had at the 
 last-named date, and at the date of the Synod of 1810, abandoned the 
 dream of enforcing infallibility on the Church, or else by willful silence 
 they were guilty of practicing upon the British Crown one of the black- 
 est frauds recorded in history. 
 
 The difficulties now before us were fully foreseen during the sittings 
 of the Council of 1870. In the Address prepared by Archbishop Ken- 
 rick, of St. Louis, but not delivered, because a stop was put to the debate, 
 •I find these words: 
 
 ' Quomodo fides sic gubernio Anglicano data conciliari possit cum definitione papalis in- 
 fallibilitatis .... ipsi viderint qui ex Episcopis Hiberniensibus, sicut ego ipse, illud jura- 
 mentum prsesliterint.'^ 
 
 ^In what way the pledge thus given to the English Government can 
 be reconciled with the definition of Papal infallibility, let those of the 
 Irish Bishops consider who, like myself, have taken the oath in question.' 
 
 The oath was, I presume, that of 1793. However, in Friedberg's 
 Sammlung der ActenstucJce zum Ooncil, p. 151 (Tubingen, 1872), I find 
 it stated, I hope untruly, that the Civiltd Cattolica^tliQ prime favorite of 
 Vaticanism, in Series viii. vol. i. p. 730, announced among those who had 
 submitted to the Definition the name of Archbishop Kenrick. 
 
 ' Friedrich, Doc, ad Illmt. Cone, Vat. vol. 1. p. 219. 
 
THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND INFALLIBILITY. 37 
 
 Let it not, however, be for a moment supposed that I mean to charge 
 upon those who gave the assurances of 1661, of 1Y57, of 1783, of 1793j 
 of 1810, of 1825-6, the guilt of falsehood. I have Aot a doubt that 
 what they said they one and all believed. It is for Archbishop Man- 
 ning and his confederates, not for me, to explain how these things have 
 come about ; or it is for Archbishop MacHale, who joined as a Bishop 
 in the assurances of 1826, and who then stood in the shadow and recent 
 recollection of the Synod of 1810, but who now is understood to have 
 become a party, by promulgation, to the Decree of the Pope's infalli- 
 bility. There are but two alternatives to choose between : on the one 
 side, that which I reject, the hypothesis of sheer perjury and falsehood ; 
 on the other, that policy of Violence and change in faith' which I 
 charged, and stirred so much wrath by charging, in my former tract. I 
 believed, and I still believe it to be the true, as well as the milder ex^ 
 planation. It is for those who reject it to explain their preference for 
 the other solution of this most curious problem of history.^ 
 
 And now what shall we say to that coloring power of imagination 
 with which Dr. Newman^ tints the wide landscape of these most intract- 
 able facts, when he says it is a pity the Bishops could mot have antici- 
 pated the likelihood that in 1870 the Council of the Vatican would at- 
 tach to the Christian creed the Article of the Pope's infallibility. A 
 pity it may be ; but it surely is not a wonder : because they told us, as 
 a fact notorious to themselves, and to the whole Eoman Catholic world, 
 that the passing of such a decree was impossible.^ Let us reserve our 
 faculty of wonder for the letter of an Anglo-Eoman, or, if he prefers it, 
 Romano- Anglican Bishop, who in a published circular presumes to term 
 * scandalous ' the letter of an English gentleman, because in that letter 
 he had declared he still held the belief which in 1788-9 the whole body 
 of the Roman Catholics of England assured Mr. Pitt that they held ;* 
 and let us learn which of the resources of theological skill will avail to 
 bring together these innovations, and the serrvper eadem of which I am, 
 I fear, but writing the lamentable epitaph. 
 
 *Non bene conveniunt, nee in un^ sede morantur.'* 
 
 ^ See Appendices D and E. ^ Dr. Newman, p. 17. ^ See Appendix D. 
 
 * Letter of Mr. Petre to the London Times of Nov. 15, 1874 ; of Bishop Vaughan, Jan. 2, 1875. 
 
 * Ov. MetamorpK 
 
38 VATICANISM. 
 
 This question has been raised by me primarily as a British question ; 
 and I hope that, so far as this country is concerned, I have done some- 
 thing to throw light upon the question whether Papal infallibility was 
 or was not matter of Divine Faith before 1870; and consequently on 
 the question whether the Vatican Decrees have Mn no jot or tittle' al- 
 tered the conditions of civil allegiance in connection with this infalli- 
 bility.i 
 
 The declaration of the Irish prelates in 1810 w^as a full assurance to 
 us that what they asserted for their country was also asserted for the 
 whole Romish world. 
 
 • But as evidence has been produced which goes directly into antiqui- 
 ty, and arguments have been made to show how innocuous is the new- 
 fangled form of religion, I proceed to deal with such evidence and ar- 
 gument in regard to my twofold contention against the Decrees — 
 
 • 1. In respect to infallibility. 
 2. In respect to obedience. 
 
 IV. The Vatican Council and the Infallibility of the Pope. — 
 
 Continued. 
 Breach with History, I^o. 2. 
 
 In a single instance, I have to express my regret for a statement made 
 with culpable inadvertence. It is in p. 28 (Am. ed. p. 22), where I have 
 stated that the Popes had kept up their claim to dogmatic infallibility 
 with comparativtsly little intermission 'for well-nigh one thousand years.' 
 I can not even account for so loose an assertion, except by the fact that 
 the point lay out of the main line of my argument, and thus the slip 
 of the pen once made escaped correction. Of the claim to a suprema- 
 cy virtually absolute, which I combined with the other claim, the state- 
 ment is true ; for this may be carried back, perhaps, to the ninth cent- 
 ury and the appearance of the false Decretals. That was the point 
 which entered so largely into the great conflicts of the Middle Ages. 
 It is the point which I have treated as the more momentous ; and the 
 importance of the tenet of infallibility in faith and morals seems to 
 
 ^ For a practical indication of the effect produced by the Roman Catholic disclaimers, now 
 denounced as ' scandalous, ' see Appendix E. 
 
THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND INFALLIBILITY. 39 
 
 me to arise chiefly from its aptitude for combination with the other. 
 As matter of fact, the stability and great authority of the Eoman 
 Church in controversies of faith were acknowledged generally from an 
 early period. But the heresy of Honorius, to say nothing of other 
 Popes, became, from his condemnation by a General Council, and by a 
 long series of Popes as well as by other Councils, a matter so notori- 
 ous that it could not fade from the view even of the darkest age; and 
 the possibility of an heretical Pope grew to be an idea perfectly famil- 
 iar to the general mind of Christendom. Hence in the Bull Cum 
 ex Apostolatus Officio^ Paul lY. declares (1559) that if a heretic is 
 chosen as Pope, all his acts shall be void «5 initio. All Christians are 
 absolved from their obedience to him, and enjoined to have recourse to 
 the temporal power.^ So likewise in the Decretals themselves it is 
 provided that the Pope can only be brought to trial in case he is found 
 to deviate from the faith.^ 
 
 It is an opinion held by great authorities that no pontiff before Leo 
 X. attempted to set up the infallibility of Popes as a dogma. Of the ci- 
 tations in its favor which are arrayed by Archbishop Manning in his 
 Privilegium Petri ^ I do not perceive any earlier than the thirteenth 
 century which appear so much as to bear upon the question.^ There 
 is no Conciliary declaration, as I need scarcely add, of the doctrine. 
 This being so, the point is not of primary importance. The claim is 
 one thing, its adoption by the Church, and the interlacing of it with a 
 like adoption of the claim to obedience, are another. I do not deny to 
 the opinion of Papal infallibility an active, though a checkered and in- 
 termittent life exceeding six centuries. 
 
 Since, then, I admit that for so long a time the influences' now tri- 
 umphant in the Koman Church have been directed towards the end 
 they have at last attained, and seeing that my statement as to the liber- 
 ty which prevailed before 1870 has been impugned, I am bound to of- 
 fer some proof of that statement. I will proceed, in this instance as in 
 others, by showing* that my allegation is much within the truth : "that 
 not only had \hQ Latin Church forborne to adopt the tract of Papal in- 
 
 ^ Von Schulte, Power of the Popes, vol. iv. p. 30. 
 
 * ' Hujus culpas istic redarguere praesumit mortalium nullus, quia cunctos ipse judicaturus 
 a nemine est judicandus, nisi deprehendatur ajide devius.^ Deer. i. Dist. xl. c. vi. 
 ^ Petri Privilegium, vol. ii. pp. 70-91. 
 
40 VATICANISM. 
 
 fallibility, but that she was rather bound by consistency with her own 
 principles, as recorded in history, to repel and repudiate that, tenet. I 
 refer to the events of the great epoch marked by the Council of Con- 
 stance. And the proof of the state of facts with regard to that epoch 
 will also be proof of my more general allegation that the Church of 
 Rome does not keep good faith with history, as it is handed down to 
 her, and marked out for her, by her own annals. I avoided this dis- 
 cussion in the former tract, because it is necessarily tinctured with the- 
 ology ; but the denial is a challenge, which I can not refuse to take up. 
 
 It is alleged that certain of my assertions may be left to confute 
 one another. I will show that they are perfectly consistent with one 
 another. 
 
 The first of them charged on Vaticanism that it had disinterred 
 and brought into action the extravagant claims of Papal authority, 
 which were advanced by Popes at the climax of their power, but which 
 never entered into the faith even of the Latin Church. 
 
 The second, that it had added two if not three new articles to the 
 Christian Creed : the two articles of the Immaculate Conception and 
 of Papal Infallibility ; with what is at least a new law of Christian 
 obligation — the absolute duty of all Christians and all Councils to obey 
 the Pope in his decrees and commands, even where fallible, over the 
 whole domain of faith, morals, and the government and discipline of 
 the Church. This law is now for the first time, I believe, laid down 
 by the joint and infallible authority of Pope and Council. Dr. ISTew- 
 man^ wonders that I should call the law absolute. I call it absolute 
 because it is without exception and without limitation. 
 
 To revive obsolete claims to authority, and to innovate in matter of 
 belief, are things perfectly compatible : we have seen them disastrous- 
 ly combined. In such innovation is involved, as I will now show, a 
 daring breach with history. 
 
 While one portion of the Roman theologians have held the infalli- 
 bility of the Pope, many others have taught that an (Ecumenical Coun- 
 cil, together with a Pope, constitutes jper se an infallible authority in 
 faith and morals. I believe it to be also true that it was, down to that 
 disastrous date, compatible with Roman orthodoxy to hold that not 
 
 ^ Dr. Newman, pp. 45, 53. 
 
THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND INFALLIBILITY. 41 
 
 even a Pope and a Council united could give the final seal of certain- 
 ty to a definition, and that for this end there was further necessary the 
 sanction, by acceptance, of the Church diffused. This last opinion, 
 however, seems to have gone quite out of fashion ; and I now address 
 myself to the position in argument of those who hold that in the de- 
 cree of a Council, approved by the Pope, the character of infallibility 
 resides. 
 
 Both the Council of Constance and the Council of the Vatican were 
 in the Poman sense CEcumenical ; and it is this class of councils alone 
 that is meant where infallibility is treated of. I shall endeavor to be 
 brief, and to use the simplest language. • 
 
 The Council of the Vatican decreed (chap, iii.) that the Pope had 
 from Christ immediate power over the universal Church (par. ii.). 
 
 That all were bound to obey him, of whatever rite and dignity, col- 
 lectively as well as individually (cujioscunque ritHs et dignitatis . . . 
 tain seoTsum singulis guam simul omnes. — Ibid.). 
 
 That this duty of obedience extended to all matters of faith, of 
 morals, and of the discipline and government of the Church (Ibid., and 
 par. iv.). 
 
 That in all ecclesiastical causes he is judge, without appeal or pos- 
 sibility of reversal (par. iv.). 
 
 That the definftions of the Pope in faith and morals, delivered ex 
 cathedra^ are irreformable, and are invested with the infallibility grant- 
 ed by Christ in the said subject-matter to the Church (chap. iv.). 
 
 Now let us turn to the Council of Constance. 
 
 This Council, supported 'by the following Council of Basle before 
 its translation to Ferrara, had decreed in explicit terms that it had 
 from Christ immediate power over the universal Church, of which it 
 was the representative. 
 
 That all were bound to obey it, of whatever state and dignity, even 
 if Papal, in all matters pertaining to faith, or to the extirpation of the 
 subsisting schism, or to the reformation of the Church in its head and 
 its members.! 
 
 In conformity herewith, the Council of Constance cited, as being it- 
 self a superior authority, three Popes to its bar. Gregory XII. antici- 
 
 1 Labbe, Concilia^ vol. xii, p. 22, ed. Paris, 1672. 
 
42 VATICANISM. 
 
 pated his sentence by resignation. Benedict XIII. was deposed, as 
 was John XXIII., for divers crimes and offenses, but not for heresy. 
 Having thus made void the Papal Chair, the Council elected thereto 
 Pope Martin Y. 
 
 It is not my object to attempt a general appreciation of the Council 
 of Constance. There is much against it to be said from many points 
 of view, if there be more for it. But I point out that, for the matter 
 now in hand, the questions of fact are clear, and that its decrees are 
 in flat and diametrical contradiction to those of the Yatican. 
 
 This of itself would not constitute any difficulty for Koman theolo- 
 gy, and WQjild give no proof of its breach with history. It is admitted 
 on all or nearly all hands that a Council, however great its authority 
 may be, is not of itself infallible. What really involves a fatal breach 
 with history is, when a body, which professes to appeal to it, having 
 proclaimed a certain organ to be infallible, then proceeds to ascribe to 
 it to-day an utterance contradictory to its utterance of yesterday ; and, 
 thus depriving it not only of all certainty, but of all confidence, lays 
 its honor prostrate in the dust. This can only be brought home to 
 the Eoman Church, if two of her Councils, contradicting one another 
 in the subject-matter of faith or morals, have each respectively been 
 confirmed by the Pope, and have thus obtained, in Roman eyes, the 
 stamp of infallibility. Now this is what I charge fu the present in- 
 stance. 
 
 It is not disputed, but loudly asseverated, by Yaticanists that the 
 Council of the Yatican has been approved and confirmed by the Pbpe. 
 
 But an allegation has been set up that the Council of Constance did 
 not receive that confirmation in respect to the Decree of the Fiftli Ses- 
 sion which asserted its power, given by Christ, over the Pope. Bishop 
 UUathorne says : 
 
 * Although the mode of proceeding in that Council was really informal, inasmuch as its 
 members voted by nations, a portion of its doctrinal decrees obtained force through the dog- 
 matic Constitution of Martin V. ' ^ 
 
 Here it is plainly implied that the Decree of the Fifth ^Session was 
 not confirmed. And I have read in some Ultramontane production 
 of the last three months an exulting observation that the Decrees of 
 
 * Expostulation Unraveled, p. 42. 
 
THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND INFALLIBILITY. 43 
 
 the Fourth and Fifth Sessions were not confirmed by the Pope, and 
 that . thus, I presume lil^e the smitten fig-tree, they have remained a 
 dead letter. Let us examine this allegation ; but not that other state- 
 ment of Archbishop Manning that the proceeding was null from the 
 nullity of the assembly, the irregularity of the voting, and the hetero- 
 doxy of the matter.^ The Pope's confirmation covers and disposes of 
 all these arbitrary pleas. Whether it did so or not, is to be tried by 
 the evidence of authoritative documents. 
 
 In the record of the Council of Constance we are told that, in its 
 Forty-fifth Session, the Pope declared, not that, he confirmied a part of 
 its doctrinal decrees, but 'that he would hold and inviolably observe, 
 and never counteract in any manner, each and all of the things which 
 the Council had in full assembly determined, concluded, and decreed 
 in matters of faith (m materiis fidei)^'^ And he approves and ratifies 
 accordingly. 
 
 Embracing all the decrees described in its scope, this declaration is 
 in tone as much an adhesion, as a confirmation by independent or su- 
 perior authority. But let that pass. Evidently it gives all that the 
 Pope had in his power to give. 
 
 , The only remaining question is, whether the Decree of the Fifth 
 Session was, or was not, a decree of faith ? 
 
 ' Now upon this question there are at least two independent lines of 
 argument, each of which, respectively and separately, is fatal to the Ul- 
 tramontane contention: this contention being that, for want of the con- 
 firmation of Pope Martin Y., that Decree fell to the ground. 
 , First : Pope Martin Y. derived his whole power to confirfti from his 
 election to the Papal Chair by the Council.. And the Council was com- 
 petent to elect, because the See was vacant. And the See was vacant, 
 because of the depositions of the three rival Popes ; for if the See was 
 truly vacant before, there had been no Pope since the schism of 1378, 
 w^hich is not supposed by either side. But the power of the Council to 
 vacate the See was in virtue of the principle asserted by the Dfecree of 
 the Fifth Session. "We arrive then at the following dilemma. Eitlier 
 that Decree had full validity by the confirmation of the Pope, or Mar- 
 tin the Fifth was not a Pope; the Cardinals made or confirmed by him 
 
 ' Petri Privilegium, ii. 95. 
 
 ^ Labbe, Concilia, vol. xii. p. 258. See Appendix F for the most important passages. 
 
44 VATICANISM. 
 
 were not Cardinals, and could not elect validly his successor, Eugene 
 lY. ; so that the Papal succession has failed since an early date in the 
 fifteenth century, or more than four hundred and fifty years ago. 
 
 Therefore the Decree of the Fifth Council must upon Roman princi- 
 ples have been included in the raaterioi fidei determined by the Coun- 
 cil, and was confirmed by Pope Martin Y. 
 
 But again. It has been held by some Roman writers that Pope 
 Martin Y. only confirmed the Decrees touching Faith ; that the Decree 
 of the Fifth Session did not touch Faith, but only Church-government, 
 and that accordingly it remained unconfirmed. 
 
 Now in the Apostles' Creed, and in the Mcene Creed, we all express 
 belief in the Holy Catholic Church. Its institution and existence are 
 therefore strictly matter of faith. How can it be reasonably contend- 
 ed that the organized body is an article of faith, but that the seat of its 
 vital, sovereign power, by and from which it becomes operative for be- 
 lief and conduct, belongs to the inferior region of the ever mutable 
 discipline of the Church ? 
 
 But this is argument only; and we have a more sure criterion at 
 command, which will convict Yaticanism for the present purpose out 
 of its own mouth. Yaticanism has effectually settled this question as 
 against itself ; for it has declared that the Papal Infallibility is a 
 dogma of Faith (divinitits revelatwn dogma, 'Const.' ch. iv.). But 
 if by this definition, the infallibility of the Pope in definitions of faith 
 belongs to the province of materice fidei and of ea quce jpertinent ad 
 fidem, the negative of the proposition thus affirmed, being in the same 
 subject-mfftter, belongs to the same province. It therefore seems to 
 follow, by a demonstration perfectly rigorous — 
 
 1. That Pope Martin Y. confirmed (or adopted) a Decree which de- 
 clares the judgments and proceedings of the Pope, in matters of faith, 
 without exception, to be reformable, and therefore fallible. 
 
 2. That Pope Pius IX. confirmed (and proposed) a Decree which 
 declares certain judgments of the Pope, in matters of faith and morals, 
 to be infallible; and these, with his other judgments in faith, morals, 
 and the discipline and government of the Church, to be irreformable. 
 
 3. That the new oracle contradicts the old, and again the Roman 
 Church has broken with history in contradicting itself. 
 
 4. That no oracle which contradicts itself is an infallible oracle. 
 
THE VATICAN COUNCIL AND INFALLIBITY. 45 
 
 5. That a so-called (Ecumenical Council of the Roman Church, con- 
 firmed or non-confirmed by the Pope, has, upon its own showing, no 
 valid claim to infallible authority. 
 
 The gigantic forgeries of the false Decretals, the general contempt 
 of Yaticanism for history, are subjects far too wide for me to touch. 
 But for the present I leave my assertion in this matter to stand upon — 
 
 1. The case of the Eoman Catholics of the United Kingdom before 
 1829. 
 
 2. The Decrees of the Council of Constance, compared with the 
 Decrees of the Council of the Vatican. 
 
 When these assertions are disposed of, it will be time enough to 
 place others in the rank. I will now say a word on the cognate sub- 
 ject of Gallicanism, which has also been brought upon the carpet. 
 
 It would be unreasonable to expect from Archbishop Manning 
 greater accuracy in his account of a foreign Church than he has 'ex- 
 hibited with regard to the history of the communion over which he 
 energetically presides. 
 
 • As the most famous and distinct of its manifestations was that ex- 
 hibited in the Four Articles of 1682, it has pleased the Archbishop to 
 imagine, and imagining to state, that in that year Gallicanism took its 
 rise. Even with the help of this airy supposition, he has to admit 
 that in the Church where all is unity, certainty, and authority, a doc- 
 trine contrary to divine faith, yet proclaimed by the Church of France^, 
 was, for want of a General Council, tolerated for one hundred and 
 eighty-eight years. Indeed, he alleges?'. the. errors of the Council of 
 Constance, four hundred and sixty years ago, as a reason for. the Coun- 
 cil of t*he Vatican. 
 
 ' ]^or were Catholics free to deny his infallibility before 1870. The 
 denial of his infallibility had indeed never been condemned by a defi- * 
 nition, because since the rise of Gallicanism in 1682 no (Ecumenical 
 Council had ever been convoked.'^ 
 
 I will not stop to, inquire why, if the Pope has all this time been in- 
 fallible, a Council was necessary for the issuing of a definition ; since 
 we are now on matters of history, and the real difficulty would be to 
 know where to dip into the prior history of France without finding 
 
 ' Petri Privilegium^ ii. 40. 
 
 ^ Letter to Macmillan's Magazine, Oct. 22, 1874. 
 
46 VATICANISM. 
 
 matter in utter contradiction to the Archbishop's allegation. An An- 
 glo-Koraan writer has told us that in the year 1612 [query 1614?] the 
 assembly of the Gallican Church declared that the power of the Popes 
 related to spiritual matters and eternal life, not to civil concerns and 
 temporal possessions.^ In the year 1591, at Mantes and Chartres, the 
 prelates of France in their assembly refused the order of the Pope to 
 quit the king, and on the 21st of September repudiated his Bulls, as 
 being null in substance and in form.^ It has always been understood 
 that the French Church played a great part in the Council of Con- 
 stance ; is this also to be read backward, or effaced from the records ? 
 Or, to go a little farther back, the Council of Paris in 1393 withdrew 
 its obedience altogether from Benedict XIII., without transferring it 
 to his rival at Rome; restored it upon conditions in 1403; again with- 
 drew it, because the conditions had not been fulfilled, in 1406 ; and so 
 remained until the Council of Constance and the election of Martin Y.^ 
 And what are we to say to Fleury, who writes : 
 
 *Le concile de Constance etablit la maxime de tout tewps enseign^e en France, que tout 
 Pape est soumis au jugement de tout concile universel en ce qui conceme la foi. ' * 
 
 One of the four articles of 1682 simply reaiHrms the decree of Con- 
 stance ; and as Archbishop Manning has been the first, so he will prob- 
 ably be the last person to assert that Gallicanism took its rise in 1682. 
 
 This is not the place to show how largely, if less distinctly, the spirit 
 of what are called the Gallican liberties entered into the ideas and in- 
 stitutions of England, Germany, and even Spain. Neither will I dwell 
 on the manner in which the decrees of Constance ruled for a time not 
 only the minds of a school or party, but the policy of the Western 
 Church at large, and proved their eflftcacy and sway by the remarkable 
 submission of Eugenius lY. to the Council of Basle. But I will cite 
 * the single sentence in which Mr. Hallam, writing, alas, nearly sixty 
 years back, has summed up the case of the decrees of Constance : 
 
 ' These decrees are the great pillars of that moderate theory with respect to the Papal au- 
 thority which distinguished the Gallican Church, and is embraced, I presume, by almost all 
 laymen, and the major part of ecclesiastics, on this side the Alps.'^ 
 
 ^ Cited in Slater's Letters, p. 23, from Hook's Principia, iii. 577. 
 
 = Continuator of Fleury, Hist. Eccl, xxxvi., 337 (Book 160, ch. 84). 
 
 ' Du Chastenet, Nouvelle Histoire du Cone, de Constance (Preface) ; and Preuves, pp. 79, 
 84 sqq., 95, 479 (Paris, 1718). 
 
 * Fleury, Nouv. Opusc. p. 44, cited in Demaistre, Z)u Pape, p. 82. See also Fleury, Hist. 
 Eccl.(Bookl02, ch. 188). 
 
 ' Hist, of the Middle Ages, ch. vii. part 2. 
 
OBEDIENCE TO THE POPE. 47 
 
 • » 
 
 Y. The Yatican Council and Obedience to the Pope. 
 
 Archbishop Manning has boldly grappled with my proposition that 
 the Third Chapter of the Yatican Decrees had forged new chains for 
 the Cliristian people, in regard to obedience, by giving its authority to 
 what was previously a claim of the Popes only, and so making it a 
 claim of the Church. He is astonished at the statement : and he offers^ 
 what he thinks a sufficient confutation of it in six citations. 
 
 The four last of these begin with Innocent III., and end with the 
 Council of Trent. Innocent III. and Sixtus lY. simply claim the reg- 
 imen^ or government of the Church, which no one denies them. The 
 Council of Florence speaks oi plena ■potestas, and the Council of Trent 
 of swprema potestas, as belonging to the Pope. Neither of these as- 
 sertions touch the point. Full power, and supreme power, in the gov- 
 ernment of a body, may still be limited by law. No other power call 
 be above them. But it does not follow that they can command from 
 all persons an unconditional obedience, unless themselves empowered 
 by law so to do. We are familiar, under the British monarchy, both 
 with the term supreme and with its limitation. 
 
 The Archbishop, however, quotes a Canon or Chapter of a Roman 
 Council in 863, which anathematizes all who despise the Pope's orders 
 with much breadth and amplitude of phrase. If taken without the 
 context, it fully covers the ground taken by the Yatican Council. It 
 anathematizes all who contemn the decrees of the Roman See in faith, 
 discipline, or correction of manners, or for the remedy or prevention of 
 mischief. Considering that the four previous Canons of this Council, 
 and the whole proceedings, relate entirely to the case of the Divorce 
 of Lothair, it might, perhaps, be argued that the whole constitute only 
 Q. privilegium, or law for the individual case, and that the anathema 
 of the Fifth Canon must be limited to those who set at naught the 
 Pope's proceedings in that case. But the point is of small consequence 
 to my argument. 
 
 But then the Roman Council is local, and adds no very potent rein- 
 forcement to the sole authority of the Pope.. The question then re- 
 mains how to secure for this local and Papal injunction the sanction 
 
 * Archbishop Manning, pp. 12, 13, 
 
: i -RSiTT 
 
 43 ---...^LLii--^^ VATICANISM. 
 
 of the Universal Church, in the Roman sense of the word. Archbish- 
 op Manning, perfectly sensible of what is required of him, writes that 
 'this Canon was recognized in the Eighth General Council held at 
 Constantinople in 869.' He is then more than contented with this ar- 
 ray of proofs ; and, confining himself, as I am bound to say he does in 
 all personal matters throughout his work, to the mildest language con- 
 sistent with the full expression of his ideas, he observes that I am man- 
 ifestly out of my depth. ^ 
 
 I know not the exact theological value of the term 'recognized;' 
 but I conceive it to mean virtual adoption. Such an adoption of such 
 a claim by a General Council appeared to me a fact of the utmost sig- 
 nificance. I referred to many historians of the Church ; but I found 
 no notice of it in those whom I consulted, including Baronius. From 
 these unproductive references I went onwards to the original documents. 
 • The Eighth General Council, so called, comprised only those Bish- 
 ops of the East who adhered to and were supported by the See of 
 Kome and the Patriarch Ignatius in the great conflict of the ninth 
 century. It would not, therefore, have been surprising if its canons 
 had given some at least equivocal sanction to the high Papal claims. 
 But, on the contrary, they may be read with the greatest interest as 
 showing, at the time immediately bordering on the publication of the 
 false Decretals, how little way those claims had made in the general 
 body of the Church. The system which they describe is the Patri- 
 archal, not the Papal system; the fivefold distribution of the Chris- 
 tian Church under the ^ve great Sees of the Elder and the l^ew 
 Eome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Of these the Pope of 
 Pome is the first, but as jprimzcs inter pares (Canons XYIL, XXI,, 
 Lat.).2 The causes of clergy on appeal are to be finally decided by 
 the Patriarch in each Patriarchate (Canon XXYL, Lat.) f and it is de- 
 clared that any General Council has authority to deal, but should deal 
 respectfully, with controversies of or touching the Poman Church it- 
 self (Canon XXI. Lat., XIII. Gr.).* This is one of the Councils which 
 solemnly anathematizes Pope Honorius as a heretic. 
 
 ^ Archbishop Manning, Vatican Decrees^ pp. 12, 13. 
 » Labbe (ed. Paris, 1671), vol. x. pp. 1136, 1140. 
 => Ibid., p. 1143. 
 * Ibid., pp. 1140, 1375. 
 
OBEDIENCE TO THE POPE. 49 
 
 The reference made by Archbishop Manning is, as he has had the 
 goodness to inform me, to the Second Canon.' The material words 
 are these : 
 
 ' Regarding the most blessed Pope Nicolas as an organ of the Holy Spirit, and likewise 
 his most holy successor Adrian, we accordingly define and enact that all which they have set 
 out and promulgated synodically from time to time, as well for the defense and well-being 
 of the Church of Constantinople, and of its Chief Priest and most holy Patriarch Ignatius, 
 as likewise for the expulsion and condemnation of Photius, neophyte and intruder, he always 
 observed and kept alike entire and untouched, under (or according to) the heads set forth 
 (cu7n expositis capitulis).^ 
 
 There is not in the Canon any thing relating to the Popes generally, 
 but only to two particular Popes ; nor any reference to what tliey did 
 personally, but only to what they did synodically ; nor to what they 
 did synodically in all matters, but only in the controversy with Pho- 
 tius and the Eastern Bishops adhering to him. There is not one word 
 relating to the Canon of 863, or to the Council which passed it: which 
 was a Council having nothing to do with the Photiau controversy, but 
 called for the purpose of supporting Pope N^icholas I. in what is com- 
 monly deemed his righteous policy with respect to the important case 
 of the Divorce of Lothair.^ 
 
 So that the demonstration of the Archbishop falls wholly to. the 
 ground; and down to this time my statement remains entire and un- 
 hurt. The matter contained in it will remain very important until 
 the Council or the Pope shall amend its decree so as to bring it into 
 conformity with the views of Dr. Newman, and provide a relief to the 
 private conscience by opening in the great gate of Obedience a little 
 wicket-door of exceptions for those who are minded to disobe3\ 
 
 Had tlie Decrees of 1870 been in force in the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries, Koman Catholic peers could not have done what, un- 
 til the reign of Charles II., they did ; could not have made their way 
 to the House of Lords by taking the oath of allegiance, despite the 
 Pope's command. But that is not all. The Pope ex cathedra had 
 bidden the Poman Catholics of England in the eighteenth century, 
 and in the sixteenth, and from the fourteenth, to believe in the De- 
 
 ^ Ibid. p. 1127 Lat., p. 13G7 Gr. ; where the reader should be on his guard against the 
 Latin version, and look to the Greek original. 
 * See the original in Appendix G. 
 ^ Labbe, vol. x. pp. 7G6 sqq. 
 
 D 
 
50 VATICANISM. 
 
 posing power as an article of faith. But they rejected it; and the 
 highest law of their Church left them free to reject it. Has it not 
 bound them now ? Tlie Pope in the sixteenth century bade the Eo- 
 raan Catholics of England assist the invasion of the Spanish Armada. 
 They disobeyed him. The highest law of their Church left them free 
 to disobey. Are they free now ? That they will assert this freedom 
 for themselves I do not question — nay, I entirely believe. From every 
 standing-point, except that of Vaticanism, their title to it is perfect. 
 With Vaticanism to supply their premise, how are they to conclude ? 
 Dr. Newman says there are exceptions to this precept of obedience. 
 But this is just w^hat the Council has not said. The Church by the 
 Council imposes Aye. The private conscience reserves to itself the 
 title to say No. I must confess that in this apology there is to me a 
 strong, undeniable smack of Protestantism. To reconcile Dr. New- 
 man's conclusion with the premises of the Vatican will surely require 
 all, if not more than all, ' the vigilance, acuteness, and subtlety of the 
 Schola TheologoTum^^ 
 
 The days of such proceedings, it is stated, are gone by ; and I be- 
 lieve that, in regard to our country, they have passed away beyond re- 
 call. But that is not the present question. The present question is 
 whether the right to perform such acts has been effectually disavowed. 
 With this question I now proceed to deal. 
 
 VI. Revived Claims of the Papal Chaie. 
 
 1. The Deposing Power. 
 
 2. The Use of Force. 
 
 It will perhaps have been observed by others, as it has been by me, 
 that from the charges against my account of the Syllabus are notably 
 absent tw^o of its most important and instructive heads. I accuse the 
 Syllabus of teaching the right of the Church to use Force, and of main- 
 taining the Deposing power. 
 
 When my tract was published, I had little idea of the extent to which, 
 and (as to some of them) the hardihood with which, those w^io should 
 
 * Dr. Newman, p. 121. 
 
. EEVIVED CLAIMS OF THE PAPAL CHAIR. 51 
 
 have confuted my charges would themselves supply evidence to sustain 
 them. 
 
 Bishop Clifford, indeed, sustains the deposing power on the ground 
 that it was accorded to the Pope by the nations. It was simply a case 
 like that of the Geneva Arbitrators.^ Dr. Kewman^ defends it, but 
 only upon conditions. The circumstances must be rare and critical. 
 Tl)^ proceeding must be judicial. It must appeal to the moral law. 
 Lastly, there must be a united consent of various nations. In fine, 
 Dr. Newman accepts the deposing power only under the conditions 
 whi<}h, as he thinks, the Pope himself lays down. 
 
 These allegations quiet my fears ; but they strain my faith ; and, pur- 
 porting to be historical, they shock my judgment. For they are, to 
 speak plainly, without foundation. The Arbitrators at Geneva settled 
 a dispute, which they recited in formal terms, that the two parties to it 
 had empowered and invited them to settle. The point of consent is 
 the only weighty one among the four conditions of Dr. Newman, and 
 is the sole point raised by Bishop Clifford. Did, then, Paul III., as ar- 
 bitrator in the case of Henry YIII., pursue dflike procedure ? The first 
 words of his Bull are, ' The condemnation and excommunication of 
 Henry YIIL, King of England :' not an auspicious beginning. There 
 is nothing at all about arbitration or consent of any body, but a solemn 
 and fierce recital of power received from God, not from the nations, or 
 from one nation, or from any fraction of a nation ; power ' over the 
 nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to destroy, to build up 
 and to plant, as chief over all kings of the w^hole earth, and all peoples 
 possessing rule.' Exactly similar is the ' arbitration ' of Pius Y. between 
 himself and Elizabeth to the 'arbitration' of Paul III. between him- 
 self and Henry YIII. 
 
 Archbishop Manning, indeed, has thrown^ in a statement, the utility 
 of which it is hard to understand, that Queen Elizabeth ^was baptized 
 a Catholic' She was baptized after Appeals to Eome had been abol- 
 ished, and two years after the Clergy had owned in the King that title 
 
 ^ Pastoral Letter, -p. 12. 
 
 ^ Dr. Newman, pp. 3G, 37. 
 
 ^ Archbishop Manning, p. 89. See the Anathemas of the Council of Trent against those 
 who deny that heretics, as being baptized persons, are bound to obedience to the Church. I 
 hope the Archbishop has not incautiously incurred them. 
 
52 VATICANISM. 
 
 of Headship which Mary abolished, and which never has been revived. 
 But Archbishop Manning knows quite well that the Papal claims of 
 right extend to all baj)tized persons whatever, and Queen Victoria 
 could have no exemption unless it could be sliown that she was un- 
 baptized. 
 
 The doctrine of the consent of nations is a pure imagination. The 
 general truth of the matter is that the Popes of the Middle Ages, like 
 some other persons and professions, throve upon the discords of their 
 neighbors. Other powers were only somewhere: the Pope, in the 
 West, was every where. Of the two parties to a qnarrel, it was worth 
 the while of each to bid for the assistance of the Pope against his en- 
 emy ; and he that bid the highest, not merely in dry acknowledgment 
 of the Papal prerogatives, but also commonly in the solid tribute of 
 Peter's pence or patronages, or other tangible advantages, most com- 
 monly got the support of the Pope. This is a brief and rude outline ; 
 but it is history, and the other is fiction. 
 
 But does Dr. Newman stand better at this point ? He only grants 
 the deposing power in the shape in which the Pope asks it; and he 
 says the Pope only asks it on the conditions of which one is ' a united 
 consent of various nations.'^ In the Speech of the Pope, however, 
 which he cites, there is nothing corresponding to this account. The 
 Pope says distinctly, ^of this right the Fountain is (not the Infallibil- 
 ity, but) the Pontifical Authority.' The people of the Middle Ages — 
 what did they do ? made him an arbitrator or judge? No: but recog- 
 nized in him that which — what? he w^as? no: but — Mie IS; the Su- 
 preme Judge of Christendom.' The right was not created, but 'as- 
 sisted, as was DUE to it, by the public law and common consent of 
 • tlie nations.' If this is not enough, I will complete the demonstration. 
 An early report of the Speech'^ from the Eoman newspapers winds up 
 the statement by describing the Deposing Power as — 
 
 'A right which the Popes, invited by the call of the nations, had to exircise, when the gen- 
 eral good demanded it. ' 
 
 But in tlie authorized and final report^ given in the Collection of 
 the Speeches of Pius IX., this passage is corrected, and runs thus : 
 
 * Dr. Newman, p. 37. 
 
 ' Tablet, November 21, 1874, Letter of C. S. D. 
 
 "^ Discorsi di Pio J^. vol. i. p. 203. 
 
REVIVED CLAIMS OF THE PAPAL CHAIR. 53 
 
 'A right which the Popes exercised in virtue of their authority when the general good de- 
 manded it. ' ^ 
 
 Thus Bishop Clifford and Dr. Xewinan are entirely at issue with the 
 Pope respecting the deposing power. Will they not have to reconsider 
 what they are to say, and w^hat they are to believe? That power, it 
 must be borne in mind, appears to have one of the firmest possible 
 Pontifical foundations in the Bull Unam Sanctam, which is admitted 
 on all hands to be a declaration ex cathedra. 
 
 But it is not to the more moderate views of the Bishop and Dr. 
 Newman that we are to resort for information on the ruling fashions 
 of Roman doctrine. Among the really orthodox defenders of Vati- 
 canism, who have supplied the large majority of Peproofs and Peplies, 
 I do not recollect to have found one single disavowal of the deposing 
 power. Perhaps the nearest approach to it from any writer of this 
 school is supplied by Monsignor Capel, who remarks that the Pope's of- 
 fice of arbiter is at an end, or ^ at least in aheyance.^"^ There are, in- 
 deed, enough of disavowals wholly valueless. For example, disavowals 
 of the universal monarchy ; by which it appears to be meant that the 
 Popes never claimed, in temporals, such a monarchical power as is now 
 accorded to them in spirituals, namely, a power absorbing and compre- 
 hending every other power whatever. Or, again, disavowals of the 
 directa jpotestas. For one, I attach not a f eather s weight to the dis- 
 tinction between the direct power and the indirect. Speaking in his 
 own person. Archbishop Manning eschews the gross assertions to which 
 in another work he has lent a sanction,^ and seems to think he has 
 mended the position when he tells us that the Church — that is to say 
 the Pope-^'lias a supreme judicial office, in respect to the moral law, 
 over all nations and over all persons, both governors and governed.' 
 As long as they do right, it is directive and preceptive ; when they do 
 wrong, the black cap of the judge is put on, ratione peccaii, 'by rea- 
 son of sin.' That is to say, in plain words, the right and the wrong in 
 the conduct of States and of individuals is now, as it always has been, a 
 
 ^ Tablet original (for which I am not responsible) : ' Un diritto, che i Papi, chiarnati clal 
 voto (lei popoli, dovettero eserciture quando il comun l)ene lo domandava.' Authorized orig- 
 inal : 'Un diritto che i Papi esercitarono in virtu della loro Autoritii, quando il comun bene 
 lo dimandava.' 
 
 = Dr. Capel, p. 60. 
 
 ^ Essays, etc. Edited by Archbishop Manning. London. 
 
54 VATICANISM. ^ 
 
 matter for the judicial cognizance of tlie Church; and the entire judi- 
 cial power of the Church is summed up in the Pope : 
 
 ' If Christian princes and their laws deviate from the law of God, the Church has Authority 
 from God to judge of that deviation, and by all its powers to enforce the correction of that 
 departure from justice.'^ 
 
 I must accord to the Archbishop the praise of manliness. If we are 
 henceforward in any doubt as to his opinions, it is by our own fault. I 
 sorrowfully believe, moreover, that he does no more than express the 
 general opinion of the teachers who form tlie ruling body in his 
 Church at large, and of the present Anglo-Eomish clergy almost with- 
 out exception. In the episcopal manifesto of Bishop Ullathorne I see 
 nothing to qualify the doctrine. In the Pastoral Letter of Bishop 
 Yaughan the comfort w^e obtain is this — ' it will never, as we believe, 
 be exercised again ;' and Mt is a question purely speculative. It is no 
 matter of Catholic faith, and is properly relegated to the schools.'^ 
 Bishop Yaughan does not appear to bear in mind that this is exactly 
 what we were told, not by his predecessors of 1789, who denied Infalli- 
 bility outright: not by the Synod of 1810, who affirmed it to be im- 
 possible that Infallibility ever could become an article of faith ; but 
 even in the ' bated breath ' of later times with resj^ect to Infallibility 
 itself, which, a little while after, was called back from the schools and 
 the speculative region, and uplifted into the list of the Christian cre- 
 denda ; and of which we are now told that it has been believed always 
 and by all, only its boundaries have been a little better marked. 
 
 In the train of the Bishops (I except Bishop Clifford) come priests, 
 monks, nay, laymen: Yaticanism in all its ranks and orders. And 
 among these champions not one adopts the language even of Bishop 
 Doyle, much less of 1810, much less of 1789. The 'Monk of St. Au- 
 gustine's ' is not ashamed to saj that Bishop Doyle, who was put for- 
 ward in his day as the champion and representative man of the body, 
 ' held opinions openly at variance with those of the great mass.' ^ 
 
 ^ Archbishop Manning, Vatican Decrees, pp. 49-51. 
 ' Pastoral Letter, pp. 33, 34. 
 
 " See The Month, Jan. 1875, pp. 82-84. Monh of St. Augustine's, pp. 27 sqq. Rev. J. 
 Curry's Disquisition, pp. 35, 41. Lord R. Montagu, Expostulation in extremis, p. 51. 
 
KEVIVED CLAIMS OF THE PAPAL CHAIR. 55 
 
 2. Title to the Use of Force. 
 
 Equally clear, and equally unsatisfactory, are the Ultramontane dec- 
 larations with respect to the title of the Church to employ force. Dr. 
 Newman holds out a hand to brethren in distress by showing that a 
 theological authority, who inclines to the milder side, limits the kind 
 of force which the Church has of herself a right to employ. ' The 
 lighter punishments, though temporal and corporal, such as shutting 
 up in a monastery, prison, flogging, and others of the same kind, short 
 of effusion of blood, the Chxwoh, jtcre suo, can inflict.' ' And again : 
 the Church does not claim the use of force generally, but only that 
 use of force which Professor !N^uytz denied. 
 
 We can from this source better understand the meaning of Arch- 
 bishop Manning, when he states^ that the Church has authority from 
 God to correct departures from justice by the use of ' all Its powers.' 
 The favorite mode of conveying this portion of truth — a portion so 
 modest that it loves not to be seen — is by stating that the Church is 
 a ' perfect society.' '-The Church is a society complete and perfect in 
 and by itself, and amply sufl^cing not only to bring men to salvation 
 and everlasting bliss, but also to establish and perfectly regulate social 
 life among them.' ^ The Church has been created, says Bishop Yaughan, 
 a ' perfect society or kingdom,' ' with full authority in the triple order, 
 as needful for a .perfect kingdom, legislative, judicial, and coercive.' * 
 His Metropolitan treats the subject at some length ; assures us that the 
 members of his communion would not make use of force if they were 
 able, but nowhere disclaims the right.^ Indeed, he can not : he dares 
 not. The inexorable Syllabus binds him to maintain it, as Ixion 
 was bound to his wheel. 
 
 The subject, however, is one of the burning class ; and it appears to 
 terrify even Archbishop Manning. He refers us to the famous brief 
 or letter of Innocent HI., headed Novit^ in his Appendix, where he 
 states that the text is given in fuU.^ In the document, "as it is there 
 
 ^ Cardinal Soglia, as cited by Dr. Newman, pp. 89, 90. 
 
 ^ Vatican Decrees^ p. 43. 
 
 ^ Martin, S. J., De Matrimonio, Notiones Prcevice, p. ci. 
 
 * Pastoral Letter, p. 13. 
 
 ^ See Appendix H. 
 
 ^ Archbishop Manning, p. G2, n. 
 
56 VATICANISM. 
 
 given, will be found the Pope's assertion that it is his part to pass 
 judgment on sovereigns in respect of sin (ratione jpeccati)^ and that he 
 can coerce them by ecclesiastical constraint {districtionem). But the 
 text of the l)rief is, according to my copy of the Decretals, not given in 
 full; and the copyist has done the Pope scanty justice. He seems to 
 have omitted what is the clearest and most important . passage of the 
 whole, since it distinctly shows that what is contemplated is the use of 
 force : 
 
 'The Apostle also admonishes us to rebuke disturbers; and elsewhere he says, "reprove, 
 intreat, rebuke with all patience and doctrine." Now that we are able, and also hound to co- 
 erce^ is plain from this, that the Lord says to the Prophet, who was one of the priests of An- 
 athoth : "Behold, I have appointed thee over. the nations and the kings, that thou raayest 
 tear up, and pull down, and scatter, and build, and plant." '^ 
 
 "With regard to Dr. Newman's limitation of the Proposition, I must 
 cite an autjiority certainly higher in the Papal sense. The Jesuit 
 Schrader has published, with a Papal aj^probation attached, a list of 
 the affirmative propositions answering to the negative condemnations 
 of the Syllabus. I extract his Article 24 : ^ 
 
 ' The Church has the power to apply external coercion (aiisseren Zwang anzuwenden) : 
 she has also a temporal authority direct and indirect.' 
 
 The remark is appended, ' Xot souls alone are subject to her author- 
 ity.' 
 
 All, then, that I stated in the Expostulation, on the Deposing Pow- 
 er, and on the claims of the Roman Church to employ force, is more 
 than made good. 
 
 It was, I suppose, to put what Burnet would call a face of propriety 
 on these and such like tenets, that one of the combatants opposed to me 
 in the present controversy has revived an ingenious illustration of that 
 clever and able writer, the late Cardinal "Wiseman. He held that cer- 
 tain doctrines present to us an unseemly appearance, because we stand 
 outside the Papal Church, even as the most beautiful window of stained 
 glass in a church offers to those without only a confused congeries of 
 paint and colors, while it is to an eye viewing it from within all glory 
 
 1 Corpus Juris Canonici Decret. Greg. IX., II. i. 13. I cite from Richter's ed, (Leipsic, 
 1839). It has all the pretensions of a critical and careful edition. I do not however pre- 
 sume to determine the textual question. 
 
 ' Schrader, as above, p. G4. 
 
WARRANT OF ALLEGIANCE ACCORDING TO THE VATICAN. 57 
 
 and all beauty. But what does this amount to ? It is simply to say 
 that when we look at the object in the ffee air and full light of day 
 which God has given us, its structure is repulsive and its arrangement 
 chaotic ; but if we will part with a great portion of that light by pass- 
 ing within the walls of a building made by the hand of man; then, in- 
 deed, it will be better able to bear our scrutiny. It is an ill recom- 
 mendation of a commodity to point out that it looks the best where 
 the light is scantiest. 
 
 YII. Warrant of Allegiance according to the Vatican. 
 
 1. Its Alleged Superiority. 
 
 2. Its Heal Flaws. 
 
 8. Alleged Non-interference of the Popes for Tivo Hundred Years. 
 
 Not satisfied with claiming to give guarantees for allegiance equal to 
 those of their fellow-citizens, the champions of the Vatican have boldly 
 taken a position in advance. They hold that they are in a condition 
 to offer better warranty than ours, and this because they are guided by 
 an infallible Pope, instead of an erratic private judgment; and because 
 the Pope himself is exceedingly emphatic, even in the Syllabus, on the 
 duties of subjects toward their rulers. Finally, all this is backed and 
 riveted by an appeal to conduct. ' The life and conduct of the Church 
 for eighteen centuries are an ample guarantee for her love of peace and 
 justice.'^ I would rather not discuss this 'ample guarantee.' Perhaps 
 the Bishop's appeal might shake one who believed : I am certain it 
 would not quiet one who doubted. 
 
 The inculcation of civil obedience under the sanction of religion is, 
 so far as I am aware, the principle and practice of all Christian com- 
 munities. We must therefore look a little farther into the matter in 
 order to detect the distinctive character, in this respect, of the Vatican. 
 
 Unquestionably the Pope, and all Popes, are full and emphatic on 
 the duties of subjects to rulers; but of what subjects to what rulers? 
 It is the Church of England which has ever been the extravagantly 
 loyal Church ; I mean which has, in other days, exaggerated the doc- 
 trine of civil obedience, and made it an instrument of much political 
 
 * Bishop Vaughan, p. 28. 
 
58 VATICAIJISM. 
 
 mischief. Passive obedience, non-resistance, and divine right, with all 
 of good or evil they involve, were specifically her ideas. In the theol- 
 ogy now dominant in the Church of Eome — the theology which has so 
 long had its nest in the Eoman Court — these ideas prevail, but with a 
 rider to them : obedience is to be given, divine right is to belong, to 
 those Princes and Governments which adopt the views of Eome, or 
 which promote her interests : to those Princes and Governments which 
 do right, Eome being the measure of right. I have no doubt that 
 many outside the charmed circle praise in perfect good faith the supe- 
 rior bouquet and body of the wine of Eoman Catholic loyalty. But 
 those within, can they make such assertions? It is hard to believe it. 
 The great art, nowhere else so well understood or so largely practiced, 
 is, in these matters, to seem to assert without asserting. This has been 
 well known at least for near five centuries, since the time of Gerson, 
 whose name for Vaticanism is Adidatio. Sentiens autem Adulaiio quan- 
 doque nimis se cognosci, studet quasi modiciore sermone deprcssius uti, nt 
 credihilior appareaV I must say that if Yaticanists have on this occa- 
 sion paraded the superior quality of the article they vend as loyalty, 
 they have also supplied us with the means of testing the assertion ; be- 
 cause one and all of them assert the corrective power of the Pope over 
 Christian Sovereigns and Governments. I do not dispute that their 
 commodity is good, in this country, for every-day tear and wear. But 
 as to its ultimate groundwork and principle, on which in other places, 
 and other circumstances, it might fall back, of this I will now cite a 
 description from one of the very highest authorities; from an epistle 
 of a most able and conspicuous great Pontiff, to whom reference has 
 already been made, Nicholas the First. 
 
 When that Pontiff was prosecuting with iron will the cause against 
 the divorce 'of Lothair from Theutberga, he was opposed by some 
 Bishops within the dominions of the Emperor. Adventitius, Bishop 
 of Metz, pleaded the duty of obeying his sovereign. Nicholas in re- 
 ply described his view of that matter in a passage truly classical, which 
 I translate from the Latin, as it is given in Baronius : 
 
 'You allege, that you subject yourself to Kings and Princes, because the Apostle says, 
 "Whether to the king, as in authority." Well and good. Examine, however, whether the 
 Kings and Princes, to whom you say that you submit, are truly Kings and Princes. Ex- 
 
 ' De Potest. Eccl, Consideratio XII. ; Works, vol. ii. p. 24G. Ed. Hague, 1728. 
 
WARRANT OF ALLEGIANCE ACCORDING TO THE VATICAN. 59 
 
 amine whether they govern well, first themselves, then the people under them. For if one be 
 evil to himself, how shall he be good to others ? Examine whether they conduct themselves 
 rightly as Princes ; for otherwise they are rather to be deemed tyrants, than taken for Kings, 
 and we should resist them, and mount up against them, rather than be under them. Other- 
 wise, if we submit to such, and do not put ourselves over them, we must of necessity encour- 
 age them in their vices. Therefore be subject "to the King, as in authority, in his virtues, 
 that is to say, not his faults ; as the Apostle says, for the sake of God, not against God." '^ 
 
 I cite the passage, not to pass a censure in the case, but for its 
 straightforward exposition of the doctrine, now openly and widely pre- 
 ferred, though not so lucidly expounded, by the teaching body of the 
 Eomish Church. Plainly enough, in point of right, the title of the 
 temporal Sovereign is valid or null according to the view which may 
 be taken by the Pope of the nature of his conduct. 'No just Prince,' 
 says Archbishop Manning, can be deposed by any power on earth ; but 
 whether a Prince is just or not, is a matter for the Pope to judge of^ 
 
 We are told, indeed, that it is not now the custom for the Pope to 
 depose princes : not even Victor Emmanuel.^ True : he does no more 
 than exhort the crowds who wait upon him in the Vatican to seek for 
 the restoration of those Italian sovereigns whom the people have driven 
 out But no man is entitled to take credit for not doing that which he 
 has no power to do. And one of the many irregularities in the mode 
 of argument pursued by Vaticanism is, that such credit is constantly 
 taken for not attempting the impossible. It is as if Louis XVI., when 
 a prisoner in the Temple, had vaunted his own clemency in not put- 
 ting the head of Eobespierre under the guillotine. 
 
 But there are other kinds of interference and aggression, just as in- 
 tolerable in principle as the exercise, or pretended exercise, of the de- 
 posing power. Have they been given up? We shall presently see.* 
 
 2. Its Real Flaws. 
 Cooks and controversialists seem to have this in common, that they 
 nicely appreciate the standard of knowledge in those whose appetites 
 they supply. The cook is tempted to send up ill -dressed dishes to 
 masters who have slight skill in or care for cookerj^; and the contro- 
 versialist occasionally shows his contempt for the intelligence of his 
 readers by the quality of the arguments or statements which he pre- 
 sents for their acceptance. But this, if it is to be done with safety, 
 
 ^ Baronius, A.D. 863, c. Ixx. ' Bishop Vaughan, Pastoral, p. 34. 
 
 " Archbishop Manning, p. 46. * Infra. 
 
60 VATICANISM. 
 
 should be done in measure ; and I must protest that Vaticanism really 
 went beyond all measure when it was bold enough to contend that its 
 claims in respect to the civil power are the same as those which are 
 made by the Christian communions generally of modern times. The 
 sole difference, we are told, is that in one case the Pope, in the other 
 the individual, determines the instances when obedience is to be re- 
 fused ; and as the Pope is much wiser than the individual, the differ- 
 ence in the Eoman view is all in favor of the order of civil society. 
 
 The reader will, I hope, pay close attention to this portion of the 
 subject. The whole argument greatly depends upon it. Before repeal- 
 ing the penal laws, before granting political equality, the statesmen of 
 England certainly took a very different view. They thought the 
 Eoman Catholic, as an individual citizen, was trustworthy. They were 
 not afraid of relying even upon the local Church. What they were 
 anxious to ascertain, and what, as far as men can through language 
 learn the thought and heart of man, they did ascertain, was this: 
 whether the Roman Catholic citizen, and whether the local Church, 
 were free to act, or were subjected to an extraneous authority. This 
 superior wisdom of the Pope of Rome was the very thing of which 
 they had had ample experience in the Middle Ages ; which our Princes 
 and Parliaments long before the reign of Henry VIII. and the birth of 
 Anne Boleyn had wrought hard to control, and which the Bishoi^s of 
 the sixteenth century, including Tunstal and Stokesley, Gardiner and 
 Bonner, used their best learning to exclude. Those who in 1875 pro- 
 pound the doctrine, which no single century of the Middle Ages would 
 have admitted, must indeed have a mean opinion of any intellects which 
 their language could cajole. 
 
 As a rule, the real independence of states and nations depends upon 
 the exclusion of foreign influence proper from their civil affairs. AVher- 
 ever the spirit of freedom, even if ever so faintly, breathes, it resents 
 and reacts against any intrusion of another people or Power into the 
 circle of its interior concerns, as alike dangerous and disgraceful. As 
 water finds its level, so, in a certain tolerable manner the various social 
 forces of a country, if left to themselves, settle down into equilibrium. 
 In the normal posture of things, the State ought to control, and can con- 
 trol, its subjects sufficiently for civil order and peace ; and the normal is 
 also* the ordinary case, in this respect, through the various countries of 
 
WARRANT OF ALLEGIANCE ACCORDING TO THE VATICAN. 61 
 
 the civilized world. But the essential condition of this ability, on which 
 all depends, is that the forces which the State is to govern shall be forces 
 Iiaving their seat within its own territorial limits. The power of the 
 State is essentially a local power. 
 
 But the Triregno of the Pope, figured by the Tiara, touches heaven, 
 earth, and the place of the departed. We now deal only with the earth- 
 ly province. As against the local sway of the State, the power of the 
 Pope is ubiquitous ; and the whole of it can be applied at any point 
 within the dominions of any State, although the far larger part of it 
 does not <irise within its borders, but constitutes, in the strictest sense, a 
 foreign force. The very first condition of State rule is thus vitally com- 
 promised. 
 
 The power with which the State has thus to deal is one dwelling 
 beyond its limits, and yet beyond the reach of its arm. All the sub- 
 jects of the State are responsible to the State : they must obey, or they 
 must take the consequences. ' But for the Pope there are no conse- 
 quences : he is not responsible. 
 
 But it may be said, and it is true, that the State will not be much the 
 better for the power it possesses of sending all its subjects to prison for 
 disobedience. And here we come upon the next disagreeable distinction 
 in the case of the Eoman Church. She alone arrogates to herself the 
 right to. speak to the State, not as a subject, but as a superior; not as 
 pleading the right of a conscience staggered by the fear of sin, but as a 
 vast Incorporation, setting up a rival law against the State in the State's 
 own domain, and claiming for it, with a higher sanction, the title to 
 similar coercive means of enforcement. 
 
 No doubt, mere submission to consequences is, for the State, an in- 
 adequate compensation for the mischief of disobedience. The State 
 has duties which are essential to its existence, and which require active 
 instruments. Passive resistance, widely enough extended, would be- 
 come general anarchy. With the varying and uncombined influences 
 of. individual judgment and conscience the State can safely take its 
 chance. But here is a Power that claims duthority to order the mill- 
 ions; and to rule the rulers of the millions, whenever, in its judgment, 
 those rulers may do wrong. 
 
 The first distinction then is, that the Pope is himself foreign and not 
 responsible to the law; the second, that the larger. part of his power is 
 
62 • VATICANISM. 
 
 derived from foreign sources ; the third, that he claims to act, and acts, 
 not by individuals, but on masses; the fourth, that he claims to teach 
 them, so often as he pleases, what to do at each point of their contact 
 with the laws of their country. 
 
 Even all this might be borne, and might be comparatively harmless 
 but for that at which I have already glanced. He alone of all ecclesi- 
 astical powers presumes not only to limit the domain of the State, but 
 to meet the State in its own domain. The Presbyterian Church of Scot- 
 land showed a resolution never exceeded, before the secession of 1843, 
 in resisting the civil power ; but it offered the resistance of submission. 
 It spoke for the body, and its ministers in things concerning it ; but did 
 not presume to command the private conscience. Its modest language 
 would be far from filling the os rotundum of a Eoman Pontiff. ISTay, 
 the words of the Apostle do not suffice for him. St. Peter himself was 
 not nearly so great as his Successor. He was content with the modest 
 excuse of the individual: 'We ought to obey God rather than man.'^ 
 Rome has improved upon St. Peter : ' Your laws and ordinances we pro- 
 scribe and condemn, and declare them to be absolutely, both hereafter 
 and from the first, null, void, and of no effect.' That is to say, the Pope 
 takes into his own hand the power which he thinks the State to have 
 misused. Not merely does he aid or direct the conscience of those who 
 object, but he even overrules the conscience of those who approve. Above 
 all, he pretends to annul the law itself 
 
 Such is the fifth point of essential distinction between these mon- 
 strous claims and the modest though in their proper place invincible 
 exigencies of the private conscience. But one void still remains un- 
 filled ; one plea not yet unmasked. Shall it be said, this is all true, 
 but it is all spiritual, and therefore harmless? An idle answer at the 
 best, for the origin of spiritual power is and ought to be a real one, and 
 ought not therefore to be used against the civil order; but w^orse than 
 idle, because totally untrue, inasmuch as we are now told in the plain- 
 est terms (negatively in the Syllabus, affirmatively in Schrader's ap- 
 proved conversion of it),^ that the Church is invested with a temporal 
 power direct and indirect, and has authority to employ external coer- 
 cion. 
 
 * Acts V. 29. ' Schrader, as above, p. G4. 
 
WARRANT OF ALLEGIANCE ACCORDING TO THE VATICAN. QS 
 
 Am I not right in saying that,after all this, to teach the identity of 
 the claims of Vaticanism with those of other forms of Christianity in 
 the great and grave case of conscience against the civil power, is simply 
 to manifest a too thinly veiled contempt for the understanding of the 
 British community, for whose palate and digestion such diet has been 
 oifered ? 
 
 The exact state of the case, as I believe, is this : The right to over- 
 ride all the States of the world and to cancel their acts, within limits as- 
 signable from time to time to, but not by those States, and the title to 
 do battle with them, as soon as it may be practicable and expedient, with 
 their own proper weapon and last sanction of exterior force, has been 
 sedulously brought more and more into view of late years. The centre 
 of the operation has lain in the Society of Jesuits ; I am loath to call 
 them by the sacred name, which ought never to be placed in the pain- 
 ful associations of controversy. In 1870, the fullness of time was come. 
 The matter of the things to be believed and obeyed had been sufficiently 
 developed. But inasmuch as great masses of the Koman Catholic body 
 before that time refused either to believe or to obey, in that year the 
 bold stroke was struck, and it was decided to bring mischievous ab- 
 stractions if possible into the order of still more mischievous realities. 
 The infallible, that is virtually the divine title to command, and the 
 absolute, that is the unconditional duty to obey, were promulgated to 
 an astonished world. 
 
 S. Alleged Non-interference of the Popes for Two Hundred Years. 
 
 It has been alleged on this occasion by a British Peer, who I have no 
 doubt has been cruelly misinformed, that the Popes have not invaded 
 the province of the civil power during the last two hundred years. 
 
 I will not travel over so long a period, but am content even with the 
 last twenty. 
 
 1. In his Allocution of the 22d of January, 1855, Pius IX. declared 
 to be absolutely null and void all acts of the Government of Piedmont 
 which he held to be in prejudice of the rights of Eeligion, the Church, 
 and the Eoman See, and particularly a law proposed for the suppres- 
 sion of the monastic orders as moral entities, that is to say as civil cor- 
 porations. 
 
 2. On the 26th of July in the same year, Pius IX. sent forth another 
 
64 VATICANISM. 
 
 Allocution, in which he recited various acts of the Government of 
 Spain, including the establishment of toleration for non-Roman wor- 
 ship, and the secularization of ecclesiastical property ; and, by his own 
 Apostolical authority, he declared all the laws hereto relating to be abro- 
 gated, totally null, and of no effect, .^^ ^ '^•p 7y 
 
 8. On the 22d of June, 1862, in another Allocution, Pius IX. recited 
 the provisions of an Austrian law of the previous December, which es- 
 tablished freedom of opinion, of the press, of belief, of conscience, of sci- 
 ence, of education, and of religious profession, and which regulated mat- 
 rimonial jurisdiction and other matters. The whole of these 'abomi- 
 nable' laws 'have been and shall be totally void, and without all force 
 whatsoever.' 
 
 In all these cases reference is made, in general terms, to Concordats, 
 of which the Pope alleges the violation ; but he never bases his annul- 
 ment of the laws upon this allegation. And Schrader, in his work on 
 the Syllabus, founds the cancellation of the Spanish law, in the matter 
 of toleration, not on the Concordat, but on the original inherent right 
 of the Pope to enforce the 77th Article of the Syllabus, respecting the 
 exclusive establishment of the Roman religion. ^ 
 
 To provide, however, against all attempts to take refugu in this spe- 
 cialty, I will now give instances where no question of Concordat enters 
 at all into the case. 
 
 1. In an Allocution of July 27, 1855, when the law for the suppres- 
 sion of monastic orders and appropriation of their properties had been 
 passed in the kingdom of Sardinia, on the simple ground of his Apos- 
 tolic authority, the Pope annuls this law, and all other laws injurious to 
 the Church, and excommunicates all who had a hand in them. 
 
 2. In an Allocution of December 15, 1856, the Pope recites the in- 
 terruption of negotiations for a Concordat with Mexico, and the various 
 acts of that Government against religion, such as the abolition of the ec- 
 clesiastical forum^ the secularization of Church propert}^, and the civil 
 permission to members of monastic establishments to withdraw from 
 them. All of these laws are declared absolutely null and void. 
 
 3. On the 17th of September, 1863, in an Encyclical Letter the Pope 
 enumerates like proceedings on the part of the Government of New 
 
 * Schrader, p. 80. 
 
WARRANT OF ALLEGIANCE ACCORDING TO THE VATICAN. 65 
 
 Granada. Among th'e wrongs committed, we find the establishment of 
 freedom of worship {cujicsque catholici cultus lihertas sancita). These 
 and all other acts against the Church, utterly unjust and impious, the 
 Pope, by his Apostolic authority, declares to be wholly null and void 
 in the future and in the past.^ 
 
 No more, I hope, will be heard of the allegation that for two hundred 
 years the Popes have not attempted to interfere with the Civil Powers 
 of the world. 
 
 But if it be requisite to carry proof a step farther, this may readily 
 be done. In his Petri Pnvikgium, vol. iii. p. 19, n.. Archbishop Man- 
 ning quotes the Bull In Coend Domini as if it were still in force. Bishop 
 Clifford, in his Pastoral Letter (p. 9), laid it down that though, all hu- 
 man actions were moral actions, there were many of them which be- 
 longed to the temporal power, and with which the Pope could not in- 
 terfere. Among these he mentioned the assessment and payment of 
 taxes. But is it not the fact that this Bull excommunicates ' all who 
 impose new taxes, not already provided for by law, without the Pope's 
 leave ?' and all who impose, without the said leave, special and express, 
 any taxes, new or old, upon clergymen, churches, or monasteries ?2 
 
 I may be told that Archbishop Manning is not a safe authority in 
 these matters, that the Bull In Ooend Domini was withdrawn after the 
 assembling of the Council, and the constitution Apostolicce Sedis^ substi- 
 tuted for it, in which this reference to taxes is omitted. But if this be 
 so,^is it not an astonishing fact, with reference to the spirit of Curialism, 
 that down to the year 1870 these preposterous claims of aggression 
 should have been upheld and from time to time proclaimed ? Indeed 
 the new Constitution itself, dated October, 1869, the latest specimen of 
 reform and concession, without making any reservation whatever on 
 behalf of the laws of the several countries, excommunicates (among 
 others) — 
 
 .* All these citations, down to 18G5, will be found in Recueil des Allocutions Consistoriales, 
 etc. (Paris, 18G5, Adrien Leclerc et C'*) ; see also Europdische Geschichtskalender, 18G8, p. 
 249 ; Von Schulte, Powers of the Roman Popes, vol. iv. p. 43 ; Schrader, as above, Heft ii. 
 p. 80 ; Vering, Katholisches Kirchenrecht (Mainz, 1868), Band xx. pp. 170-1, N. F. ; 
 Band xiv. 
 
 "^ O'KeefFe, Ultramontanism, pp. 215, 219. The reference is to sections v., xviii. 
 
 ^ See Quirinus, p. 105 ; and see Constit. Apostolicce Sedis in Friedberg's Acta et Decreta 
 Cone. Vat. p. 77 (Freiburg, 1871). 
 
 E 
 
QQ VATICANISM. 
 
 1. All who imprison or prosecute Qiostiliter insequentes) Archbishops 
 or Bishops. 
 
 2. All who directly or indirectly interfere with any ecclesiastical ju- 
 risdiction. 
 
 8. All who lay hold upon or sequester goods of ecclesiastics held in 
 right of their churches or benefices. 
 
 4. All who impede or deter the officers of the Holy Office of the In- 
 quisition in the execution of their duties. 
 
 5. All who secularize or become owners of Church property with- 
 out the permission of the Pope. 
 
 yill. On the Intkinsic Nature and Conditions of the Papal 
 Infallibility decreed in the Vatican Council. 
 
 I have now, I think, dealt sufficiently, though at greater length than 
 I could have wished, with the two allegations, first, that the Decrees of 
 1870 made no difference in the liabilities of Eoman Catholics with re- 
 gard to their civil allegiance; secondly, that the rules of their Churcli 
 allow them to pay an allegiance no more divided than that of other 
 citizens, and that the claims of Ultramontanism, as against the Civil 
 Power, are the very same with those which are advanced by Christian 
 communions and persons generally. 
 
 I had an unfeigned anxiety to avoid all discussion of the Decree of 
 Infallibility on its own, the religious ground ; but as matters have gone 
 so far, it may perhaps be allowed me now to say a few words upon the 
 nature df the extraordinary tenet which the Bishops of one half the 
 Christian world have now placed upon a level with the Apostles' Creed. 
 
 The name of Popery, which was formerly imposed ad invidiam by 
 heated antagonists, and justly resented by Koman Catholics,^ appears 
 now to be perhaps the only name which describes, at once with point 
 and with accuracy, the religion promulgated from the Vatican in 1870. 
 The change made was immense. Bishop Thirlwall, one of the ablest 
 Plnglish writers of our time, and one imbued almost beyond any other 
 with what the Germans eulogize as the historic mind, said in his Charge 
 
 * Petri Privilegium, part ii. pp. 71-91. 
 
NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF PAPAI. INFALLIBILITY. 67 
 
 of 1872, that the promulgation of the new Dogma, which had occurred 
 since his last meeting with his clergy, was ' an event far more important 
 than the great change in the balance of power which we have witness- 
 ed during the same interval.' ^ The effect of it, described with literal 
 rigor, was in the last resort to place the entire Christian religion in the 
 breast of the Pope, and to suspend it on his will. This is a startling 
 statement ; but as it invites, so will it bear, examination. I put it forth 
 not as rhetoric, sarcasm, or invective; but as fact, made good by 
 history. 
 
 It is obvious to reply that, if the Christian religion is in the heart of 
 the Pope, so the law of England is in the heart of the Legislature. The 
 case of the Pope and the case of the Legislature are the same in this : 
 that neither of them are subject to any limitation whatever, except such 
 as they shall themselves respectively allow. Here the resemblance be- 
 gins and ends. The nation is ruled by a Legislature, of which by far 
 the most powerful branch is freely chosen, from time to time, by the 
 community itself, by the greater part of the heads of families in the 
 country; and all the proceedings of its Parliament are not only carried 
 on in the face of day, but made known from day to day, almost from 
 hour to hour, in every town and village, and almost in every household 
 of the land. They are governed by rules framed to secure both ample 
 time for consideration and the utmost freedom, or, it may be, even li- 
 cense of debate; and all that is said and done is subjected to an imme- 
 diate, sharp, and incessant criticism ; with the assurance on the part of 
 the critics that they will have not only favor from their friends, but 
 impunity from their . enemies. Erase every one of these propositions, 
 and replace it by its contradictory : you will then have a perfect de- 
 scription of the present Government of the Koman Church. The an- 
 cient principles of popular election and control, for which room was 
 found in the Apostolic Church under its inspired teachers, and which 
 still subsist in the Christian East, have, by the constant aggressions of 
 Curialism, been in the main effaced, or, where not effaced, reduced to 
 the last stage of practical inanition. We see before us the Pope, the 
 Bishops, the priesthood, and the people. The priests are absolute over 
 the people ; the Bishops over both ; the Pope over all. Each inferior 
 
 ' Charge of the Bishop of St. David's, 1872, p. 2. 
 
QS VATICANISM. 
 
 may appeal against his superior ; but he appeals to a tribunal which is 
 secret, which is irresponsible, which he has no share, direct or indirect, 
 in constituting, and no means, however remote, of controlling; and 
 which, during all the long centuries of its existence, but especially dur- 
 ing the latest of them, has had for its cardinal rule this — that all its 
 judgments should be given in the sense most calculated to build up 
 priestly power as against the people, episcopal power as against the 
 priests. Papal power as against all three. The mere utterances of the 
 central See are laws ; and they override at will all other laws ; and if 
 they concern faith or morals, or the discipline of the Church, they are 
 entitled, from all persons without exception, singly or collectivel}^, to 
 an obedience without qualification. Over these utterances — in their 
 preparation as well as after their issue — no man has lawful control. 
 They may be the best, or the worst; the most deliberate, or the most 
 precipitate ; as no man can restrain, so no man has knowledge of, what 
 is done or meditated. The prompters are unknown ; the consultees are 
 unknown ; the procedure is unknown. Not that there are not officers, 
 and rules ; but the officers may at will be overridden or superseded ; 
 and the rules at will, and without notice, altered pro re natd and an- 
 nulled. To secure rights has been, and is, the aim of the Christian civ- 
 ilization ; to destroy them, and to establish the resistless, domineering 
 action of a purely central power, is the aim of the Eoman policy. Too 
 much and too long, in other times, was this its tendency; but what was 
 its besetting sin has now become, as far as man can make it, by the 
 crowning triumph of 1870, its undisguised, unchecked rule of action 
 and law of life. 
 
 These words, 'harsh as they may seem, and strange as they must 
 sound, are not the incoherent-imaginings of adverse partisanship. The 
 best and greatest of the children of the. Eoman Church have seen occa- 
 sion to use the like, with cause less grave than that which now exists, 
 and have pointed to the lust of dominion as the source of these enor- 
 mous mischiefs : 
 
 'Di' oggimai, che la Chiesa di Roma 
 Per confontlere in se due reggimenti 
 Cade nel fango, e se brutta, e la soma.'^ 
 
 ' The Church of Rome, 
 Mixing two governments that ill assort, 
 
 ' Dante, Purgatorio, xvi. 127-29. 
 
NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 69 
 
 Hath missed her footing, fallen into the mire, 
 
 And there herself, and burden, much defiled.' — Cary. 
 
 Without doubt there is an answer to all this. Publicity, responsibil- 
 ity, restraint, and all the forms of warranty and safeguard, are wanted 
 for a human institution, but are inapplicable to a ' divine teacher,' to 
 an inspired Pontiff, to a 'living Christ.' The promises of God are 
 sure, and fail not. His promise has been given, and Peter in his Suc- 
 cessor shall never fail, never go astray. He needs neither check nor 
 aid, as he will find them for himself. He is an exception to all the 
 rules which determine human action ; and his action in this matter is 
 not really human, but divine. Having, then, the divine gift of iner- 
 rancy, why may he not be invested with the title, and assume the di- 
 vine attribute, of omnipotence? 
 
 No one can deny that the answer is suf&cient, if only it be true. 
 But the weight of such a superstructure requires a firm, broad, well-as- 
 certained foundation. If it can be shown to exist, so far so good. In 
 the due use of the gift of reason with which our nature is endowed, we 
 may look for a blessing from God ; but the abandonment of reason is 
 credulity, and the habit of credulity is presumption. 
 
 Is there, then, such a foundation disclosed to us by Dr. Newman^ 
 when he says 'the long history of the contest for and against the 
 Pope's infallibility has been but a growing insight through centuries 
 into the meaning of three texts.' First, 'Feed my sheep' (John xxi. 
 15-17) ; of which Archbishop Kenrick tells us that the very words are 
 disputed, and the meaning forced.^ Next, ' Strengthen thy brethren ;' 
 which has no reference whatever to doctrine, but only, if its force 
 extend beyond the immediate occasion, to government; and, finally, 
 ' Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church ;' when it is 
 notorious that the large majority of the early expositors declare the 
 rock to be not the person but the previous confession of Saint Peter ; 
 and where it is plain that, if his person be really meant, there is no dis- 
 tinction of ex cathedra and not ex cathedra^ but the entire proceedings of 
 his ministry are included without distinction. 
 
 ' Dr. Newman, p. 110. 
 
 * ' Concio habendu at non habitu,^ i. ii, ; Friedrich, Documenta ad iUiistrandum, Cone. Vat. 
 Abth. vol. i. pp. 191, 199. I leave it to those better entitled and better qualified to criticise 
 the purely arbitrary construction attached to the words. 
 
70 VATICANISM. 
 
 Into three texts, then, it seems the Church of Rome has at length, in 
 the course of centuries, acquired this deep insight. In the study of 
 these three fragments, how much else has she forgotten ; the total igno- 
 rance of St. Peter himself respecting his 'monarchy;' the exercise of 
 the defining office not by him but by St. James in the Council of Jeru- 
 salem ; the world-wide commission specially and directly given to St. 
 Paul ; the correction of St. Peter by the Apostle of the Gentiles ; the 
 independent action of all the Apostles; the twelve foundations of the 
 New Jerusalem, ' and in them the names of the twelve Apostles of the 
 Lamb' (Rev. xxi. 14). But let us take a wider ground. Is it not the 
 function of the Church to study iht Divine Word as a whole, and to 
 gather into the foci of her teaching the rays that proceed from all its 
 parts? Is not this narrow, sterile, willful textualism the favorite resort 
 of sectaries, the general charter of all license and self-will that lays 
 waste the garden of the Lord? Is it not this that destroys the large- 
 ness and fair proportions of the Truth, squeezing here and stretching 
 there, substituting for the reverent jealousy of a faithful guardianship 
 the ambitious aims of a class, and gradually forcing the heavenly pattern 
 into harder and still harder forms of distortion and caricature? 
 
 However, it must be observed that the transcendental answer we 
 have been considering, which sets at naught all the analogies of God's 
 Providence in the government of the world, is the only answer of a 
 breadth equal to the case.. Other replies, which have been attempted, 
 are perfectly hollow and unreal. For instance, we are told that the 
 Pope can not alter the already defined doctrines of the Faith. To this 
 I reply, let him alter them as he will, if only he thinks fit to say that he 
 does not alter them, his followers are perfectly and absolutely helpless. 
 For if they allege alteration and innovation, the very same language 
 wi}l be available against them which has been used against the men 
 that have had faith and courage given them to protest against alteration 
 and innovation now. ' Most impious are you, in charging on us that 
 which, as you know, we can not do. "We have not altered, we have 
 only defined. What the Church believed implicitly heretofore, she be- 
 lieves implicitly hereafter. Do not appeal to reason; that is rational- 
 ism. Do not appeal to Scripture ; that is heresy. Do not appeal to 
 history; that is private judgment. Over all these things I am judge, 
 not you. If you tell me that I require you to affirm to-day, under an- 
 
NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 71 
 
 athema, what yesterday you were allowed or encouraged to deny, my 
 answer is that in and by me alone you have any means of knowing 
 what it is you affirm, or what it is you deny.' This is the strain which 
 is consistently held by the bold trumpeters of Vaticanism, and which 
 has been effectual to intimidate the feeble-minded and faint-hearted, who 
 seemed to have formed, at the Council of the Vatican, so large a propor- 
 tion of its opponents; nay, which has convinced them, or has performed 
 in them the inscrutable process, be it what it may, which is the Koman 
 substitute for conviction, that what in the Council itself they denounced 
 as breach of faith, after the Council they are permitted, nay bound, to 
 embrace, nay to enforce. - 
 
 Let me now refer to another of these fantastic replies. 
 
 We are told it would be an entire mistake to confound this Infalli- 
 bility of the Pope, in the province assigned to it, with absolutism : 
 
 * The Pope is bound by the moral and divine law, by the commandments of God, by the 
 rules of the Gospel, and by every definition in faith and morals that the Church has ever 
 made. No man is more bound by law than the Pope ; a fact plainly known to himself, and 
 to every bishop and priest in Christendom.'* 
 
 Every definition in faith and morals! These are written definitions. 
 What are they but another Scripture? What right of interpreting this 
 other Scripture is granted to the Church at large, more than of the real 
 and greater Scripture? Here is surely in its perfection the petition for 
 bread answered by the gift of a stone. 
 
 Bishop Vaughan does not venture to assert that the Pope is bound 
 by the canon law, the written law of the Church of Eome. The aboli- 
 tion of the French Sees under the Concordat with Napoleon, and the 
 deposition of their legitimate Bishops, even if it were the only instance, 
 has settled that question forever. Over the written law of his Church 
 the pleasure of the Pope is supreme. And this justifies, for every prac- 
 tical purpose, the assertion that law no longer exists in that Church ; in 
 the same very real sense as we should say there was no law in England 
 in the reign of James the Second, while it was subject to a dispensing 
 power. There exists no law wherever a living ruler, an executive 
 head, claims and exercises, and is allowed to possess, a power of annul- 
 ling or a power of dispensing with the law. If Bishop Vaughan does 
 
 * Bishop Vaughan, Pastoral Letter, p. 30. 
 
72 VATICANISM. 
 
 not know this, I am sorry to say he does not know the first lesson that 
 every English citizen should learn ; he has yet to pass through the lisp- 
 ings of civil childhood. This exemption of the individual, be he who 
 he may, from the restraints of the law is the very thing that in England 
 we term absolutism. By absolutism we mean the superiority of a per- 
 sonal will to law, for the purpose of putting aside or changing law. 
 Now that power is precisely what the Pope possesses. First, because 
 he is infallible in faith and morals when he speaks ex cathedra^ and he 
 himself is the final judge which of his utterances shall be utterances ex 
 cathedra. He has only to use the words, ' I, ex cathedra^ declare ;' or the 
 words, ' I, in the discharge of the office of pastor and teacher of all 
 Christians, by virtue of my supreme Apostolic authority, define as a 
 doctrine regarding fixith or morals, to be held by the Universal Church, ' 
 and all words that may follow, be they what they may, must now and 
 hereafter be as absolutely accepted by every Eoman Catholic who takes 
 the Vatican for his teacher, with what in their theological language they 
 call a divine faith, as must any article of the Apostles' Creed. And 
 what words they are to be that may follow, the Pope by his own will 
 and motion is the sole judge. 
 
 It is futile to say the Pope has the Jesuits and other admirable ad- 
 visers near him, whom he will always consult. I am bound to add that 
 I am skeptical as to the excellence of these advisers. These are the 
 men who cherish, methodize, transmit, and exaggerate all the danger- 
 ous traditions of the Curia. In them it lives. The ambition and self- 
 seeking of the Court of Rome have here their root. They seem to sup- 
 ply that Roman malaria which Dr. Newman' tells us encircles the base 
 of the rock of St. Peter. But the question is not what the Pope will 
 do ; it is what he can do, what he has power to do ; whether, in Bishop 
 Yaughan's language, he is bound by law ; not whether he is so wise and 
 so well-advised that it is perfectly safe to leave him not bound by law. 
 On this latter question there may be a great conflict of opinions; but it 
 is not the question before us. 
 
 It can not be pleaded against him, were it ever so clear, that his 
 declaration is contrary to the declaration of some other Popes. For 
 here, as in the case of the Christian Creed, he may tell you — always 
 
 * Vatican Decrees, chap. iii. . ' Dr. Newman, p. 94. 
 
NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY, 73 
 
 speaking in the manner supposed — that that other Pope was not speak- 
 ing ex cathedrd. Or he may tell you that there is no contrariety. If 
 you have read, if you have studied, if you have seen, if you have hum- 
 bly used every means of getting to the truth, and you return to your 
 point that contrariety there is^ again his answer is ready : That assertion 
 of yours is simply your private judgment ; and your pjivate judgment 
 is just what my infallibility is meant and appointed to put down. My 
 word is the tradition of the Church. It is the nod of Zeus^ it is the 
 judgment of the Eternal. There is no escaping it, and no disguising 
 it : the whole Christian religion, according to the modern Church of 
 Eome, is in the breast of one man. The will and arbitrament of one 
 man will for the future decide, through half the Christian world, what 
 religion is to be. It is unnecessary to remind me that this power is 
 limited to faith and morals. We know it is; it does not extend to 
 geometry, or to numbers. Equally is it beside the point to observe that 
 the infallibility alleged has not received a new definition : I have no- 
 where said it had. It is the old gift: it is newly lodged. Whatever 
 was formerly ascribed either to the Pope, or to the Council, or to the 
 entire governing body of the Church, or to the Church general and dif- 
 fused, the final sense of the great Christian community, aided by 
 authority, tested by discussion, mellowed and ripened by time — all — no 
 more than all, and no less than all — of what God gave, for guidance, 
 through the power of truth, by the Christian revelation, to the whole 
 redeemed family, the baptized flock of the Saviour in the world; all 
 this is now locked in the breast of one man, opened and distributed at 
 his will, and liable to assume whatever form — whether under the name 
 of identity or other name it matters not — he may think fit to give it. 
 
 Idle, then, it is to tell us, finally, that the Pope is bound 'by the 
 moral and divine law, by the commandments of God, by the rules of 
 the Gospel ;' and if more verbiage and repetition could be piled up, as 
 Ossa was set upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa, to cover the pov- 
 erty and irrelevancy of the idea, it would not mend the matter. For 
 of these, one and all, th.e Pope himself, by himself, is the judge with- 
 out appeal. If he consults, it is by his will; if he does not consult, no 
 man can call him to account. No man, or assemblage of men, is one 
 whit the less bound to hear and to obey. He is the judge of the moral 
 and divine law, of the Gospel, and of the commandments ; the supreme 
 
74 VATICANISM. 
 
 and only final juclge ; and he is the judge, with no legislature to correct 
 his errors, with no authoritative rules to guide his proceedings; with no 
 power on earth to question the force, or intercept the efifeet, of his de- 
 cisions. 
 
 It is indeed said by Dr. Newman, and by others, that this infallibility 
 is not inspiration. On such a statement I have two remarks to make. 
 First, that we have this assurance on the strength only of his own 
 private judgment; secondly, that if bidden by the self-assertion of the 
 Pope, he will be required by his principles to retract it,* and to 'assert, 
 if occasion should arise, the contrary ; thirdly, that he lives under a sys- 
 tem of development, through which somebody's private opinion of to- 
 day may become matter of faith for all the to-morrows of the future. 
 
 What kind and class of private opinions are they that are most like- 
 ly to find favor with the Yatican? History, the history of well-nigh 
 eighteen centuries, supplies the answer, and supplies it with almost the 
 rigor of a mathematical formula. On every contested question, that 
 opinion finds ultimate assent at Eome which more exalts the power of 
 Rome. Have no Popes claimed this inspiration, which Dr. Newman so 
 reasonably denies? Was it claimed by Clement XL for the Bull Uni- 
 genitus? Was it claimed by Gregory the Second in a judgment in 
 which he authorized a man, who had an invalid wife, to quit her and 
 to marry another? Is it or is it not claimed by the present Pope, who 
 says he has a higher title to admonish the governments of Europe than 
 the Prophet Nathan had to admonish David ?^ Shall we be told that 
 these are his utterances only as a private doctor? But we also learn 
 from Papal divines, and indeed the nature of the case makes it evident, 
 that the non-infallible declarations of the Pope are still declarations of 
 very high authority. Again, is it not the fact that, since 1870, many 
 bishops, German, Italian, French, have ascribed inspiration to the Pope? 
 Opinions dispersed here and there were, in the cases of the Immaculate 
 Conception, and of the Absolute Supremacy and the Infallibility ex ca- 
 thedra, gathered up, declared to constitute a consensus of the Church, 
 and made the groundwork of new Articles of Faith. Why should not 
 this be done hereafter in the case of Papal inspiration? If is but a 
 mild onward step, in comparison with the strides already made. Those 
 
 * Dr. Newman, pp. 99, 131. » Discorsi di Pio IX. vol. i. p. 366, on March 3, 1872. 
 
NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 75 
 
 who cried * magnificent ' on the last occasion will cry it again on the 
 next. Dr. Newman and the minimizing divines would, perhaps, reply, 
 'No: it is impossible.' But this was the very assurance which, not a 
 single and half-recognized divine, but the whole synod of Irish prelates 
 gave to the British Government in 1810, and which the Council of the 
 Vatican has authoritatively falsified- 
 
 Now, let us look a little more closely at this astonishing gift of In- 
 fallibility, and its almost equally astonishing, because arbitrary, limita- 
 tions. The Pope is only infallible when he speaks ex cathedra. The 
 gift, we are told, has subsisted for 1800 years. When was the discrim- 
 inating phrase invented? Was it after Christendom had done without 
 it for one thousand six hundred years that this limiting formula of 
 such vital moment was discovered ? Do we owe its currency and prom- 
 inence — with so much else of ill omen — to the Jesuits? Before this, if 
 we had not the name, had we the thing? 
 
 Dr. Newman,' indeed, finds for it a very ancient extraction. He says 
 the Jewish doctors taught ex cathedra^ and our Saviour enjoined that 
 they should be obeyed. Surely there could not be a more calamitous, 
 illustration. Observe the terms of the incoherent proposition. 
 
 The Scribes and Pharisees sit in the cathedra of Moses : '•all therefore 
 whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do." The Pope sits 
 in the cathedra of Peter: not all therefore, but only a very limited part 
 of what he enjoins, you are to accept and follow. Only what he says 
 under four well-defined conditions.'' Only, writes Dr. Newman, when 
 he speaks 'in matters speculative,'^ and 'bears upon the domain of 
 thought, not directly of action.'* Let us look again to our four condi-. 
 tions: one of them is that he must address the entire Church. It is 
 singular, to say no more, that St. Peter, in his first Epistle, which has al- 
 ways been unquestioned Scripture, does not address the entire Church ; 
 but in his second, which was for a time much questioned, he does. It 
 is much more singular that the early ages are believed to afford no ex- 
 ample whatever of a Papal judgment addressed to the entire Church. 
 So that it is easy to say that Honorius did not speak ex catliedrd: for 
 no Pope spoke ex cathedra. It is even held by some that there was no 
 Bull or other declaration of a Pope corresponding with this condition 
 
 ^ St. Matt, xxiii. 2. "" Newman, p. 115. » Ibid., p. 127. * Ibid., p.* 127. 
 
76 VATICANISM. 
 
 for one thousand three hundred years ; and that the unhappy series be- 
 gan with JJnam Sandam of Boniface VIII. But how is it beyond all 
 expression strange that for one thousand three hundred years, or were 
 it but for half one thousand three hundred years, the Church performed 
 her high office, and spread over the nations, without any infallible teach- 
 ing whatever from the Pope, and then that it should have been reserved 
 for these later ages first to bring into exercise a gift so entirely new, 
 without example in its character, and on the presence or absence of 
 which depends a vital difference in the conditions of Church life? . 
 
 The declarations of the Pope ex cathedra are to be the sure guide and 
 main-stay of the Church ; and yet she has passed through two thirds of 
 her existence without once reverting to it! Nor is this all. For in 
 those earlier ages, the fourth century in particular, were raised and set- 
 tled those tremendous controversies relating to the Godhead, the decis- 
 ion of which was the most arduous work the Church has ever been 
 called to perform in the sphere of thought. This vast work she went 
 through without the infallible utterances of the Poi)e, nay at three sev- 
 eral times in opposition to Papal judgments, now determined to have 
 been heretical. Are more utterances now begun in order to sustain the 
 miserable argum.ent for forcing his Temporal Sovereignty on a people 
 whom nothing but the violence of foreign arms will bring or keep be- 
 neath it? 
 
 Yet one more point of suggestion. There are those who think that 
 the craving after an infallibility which is to speak from human lips, in 
 chapter and verse, upon each question as it arises, is not a sign of the 
 strength and healthiness of faith, but of the diseased avidity of its weak- 
 ness. Let it, however, be granted, for the sake of argument, that it is 
 a comfort to the infirmity of human nature thus to attain promptly to 
 clear and intelligible solutions of its doubts, instead of waiting on the 
 divine pleasure, as those who watch for the morning, to receive the 
 supplies required by its intellectual and its moral trials. A recommen- 
 dation of this kind, however little it may endure the scrutiny of philo- 
 sophic reflection, may probably have a great power over the imagina- 
 tion and the affections (affectus) of mankind. For this, however, it is 
 surely required that by the ordinary faculties of mankind, rationally 
 and honestly used, these infallible decisions should be discernible, and 
 that they should stand severed from the general mass of promiscuous 
 
NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 77 
 
 and ambiguous teaching. Even so it was that, when Holy Scripture 
 was appointed to be of final and supreme authority, provision was also 
 made by the wisdom of Providence for the early collection of the New 
 Testament into a single series of books, so that even we lay persons are 
 allowed to know so far what is Scripture and what is not, without hav- 
 ing to resort to the aid of the 'scrutinizing vigilance, acuteness, and 
 subtlety of i\iQ- Scliola TheologorumJ^ But let not the Papal Christian 
 imagine th^t he is to have a like advantage in easily understanding 
 what are the Papal Decrees^ which for him form part of the unerring- 
 revelation of God. It would even be presumptuous in him to have an 
 opinion on the point. The divine word of Scripture was invested with 
 a power to feed and to refresh. ' He shall feed me in a green pasture ; 
 and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.'^ And, by the blessing 
 and mercy of God, straight and open is the access to them. In no part 
 of the Church of Christ, except the Eoman, is it jealously obstructed by 
 ecclesiastical authority ; and even there the line of the sacred precinct is 
 at least perfectly defined. But now we are introduced to a new code, 
 dealing with the same high subject-matter, and possessed of the same 
 transcendent prerogative of certain and unchanging truth ; but what are 
 the chapters of that code nobody knows except the Schola Theologorum. 
 Is, for example, the private Christian less humbly desirous to know 
 whether he is or is not to rely absolutely on the declarations of the Syl- 
 labus as to the many and great matters which it touches ? ISTo one can 
 tell him. Bishop Fessler (approved by the Pope) says so. He admits 
 that he for one does not know. It seems doubtful whether he thought 
 that the Pope himself knew. For instead of asking the Pope, he prom- 
 ises that it shall be made the subject of long inquiry by the Schola Theo- 
 logorum. Ce sera tout d'abord a la science ilieologique que s^imposera le de- 
 voir de rechercher les diverses raisons qui militent en faveur des diverses opin- 
 ions sur cette question.^ But when the inquiry has ended, and the result 
 has been declared, is he much better off"? I doubt it. For the decla- 
 ration need not then be a final one. 'Instances,' says Dr. Newman, ' fre- 
 quently occur when it is successfully maintained by some new writer 
 
 ' Dr. Newman, p. 121. « Psalm xxiii. 2. 
 
 ^ 'Vraie etfausse Infaillihilite des Papes,' p. 8. Angl. : 'It will at once become the duty 
 of theological science to examine into the various reasons which go to support each of the va- 
 rious opinions on that question.' 
 
78 VATICANISM. 
 
 that the Pope's act does not imply what it has seemed to imply ; and 
 questions which seemed to be closed are after a course of years re-open- 
 ed." It does not appear whether there is any limit to this 'course of 
 years.' But whether there is or is not, one thing is clear : Between 
 the solid ground, the terra firma of Infallibility, and the quaking, fluctu- 
 ating mind of the individual, which seeks to find repose upon it, there 
 is an interval over which he can not cross. Decrees ex cathedra arc 
 infallible ; but determinations what decrees are ex cathedra are fallible ; 
 so that the private person, after he has with all docility handed over his 
 mind and its freedom to the Schola Theologorum^ can never certainly 
 know, never know with 'divine faith,' when he is on the rock of infalli- 
 bility, when on the shifting quicksands of a merely human persuasion. 
 
 Dr. Newman" will perhaps now be able to judge the reason which led 
 me to say, ' There is no established or accepted definition of the phrase 
 ex cathedral' By a definition I understand something calculated to bring 
 the true nature of the thing defined nearer to the rational apprehension 
 of those who seek to understand it; not a volume of words in them- 
 selves obscure, only pliable to the professional interest of Curialism, and 
 certainly well calculated to find further employment for its leisure, and 
 fresh means of holding in dependence on its will an unsuspecting laity. 
 
 But all that has been said is but a slight sample of the strange aspects 
 and portentous results of the newly discovered articulus siantis autcaden- 
 tis ecclesice. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 I have now, at greater length than I could have wished, but I think 
 with ample proof, justified the following assertions: 
 
 1. That the position of Eoman Catholics has been altered by the De- 
 crees of the Vatican on Papal Infallibility, and on obedience to the Pope. 
 
 2. That the extreme claims of the Middle Ages have been sanctioned, 
 and have been revived without the warrant or excuse which might in 
 those ages have been shown for them. 
 
 8. That the claims asserted by the Pope are such as to jflace civil al- 
 legiance at his mercy. 
 
 ^ Dr. Newman, p. 121. 'Ibid., p. 107. 
 
CONCLUSION. 79 
 
 4. That the State and people of the United Kingdom had a right to 
 rely on the assurances they had received that Papal Infallibility was 
 not, and could not become, an article of fai^h in the Roman Church, and 
 that the obedience due to the Pope was limited by laws independent of 
 his will. 
 
 I need not any more refer to others of my assertions, more general, or 
 less essential to the main argument. 
 
 The appeal of the DuMin Review^ for union on tlie basis of common 
 belief in resisting unbelief, which ought to be strong, is unhappily very 
 weak. * Defend,' says the Reviewer, ' the ark of salvation precious to 
 us both, though you have an interest (so to speak) in only a part of the 
 cargo.' But as the Reviewer himself is deck-loading the vessel in such 
 a manner as to threaten her foundering, to stop his very active proceed- 
 ings is n(^t opposed to, nay, is part of, the duty of caring for the safety 
 of the vessel. But weaker still, if possible, is the appeal which Arch- 
 bishop Manning has made against my publication, as one which endeav- 
 ors to create religious divisions among his flock, and instigate them to 
 rise against the authority of the Church. For if the Church of England, 
 of which I am a member, is, as she has never ceased to teach, the an- 
 cient, lawful, Catholic Church of this country, it is rather Archbishop 
 Manning than I that may be charged with creating, for the last twenty 
 years and more, religious divisions among our countrymen, and insti- 
 gating them to rise against that ancient, lawful, and mild authority. 
 
 There may be, and probably are, great faults in my manner of con- 
 ducting this argument. But the claim of Ultramontanism among ns 
 seems to amount to this: that there shall be no free, and therefore no 
 effectual,^ examination of the Vatican Decrees, because they are the 
 words of a Father, and sacred therefore in the eyes of his affectionate 
 ' children.^ It is deliberately held, by grave and serious men, that my 
 construing the Decrees of the Vatican, not arbitrarily, but with argu- 
 ment and proof, in a manner which makes them adverse to civil duty, 
 is an insult' and an outrage to the Roman Catholic body, which I 
 have nowhere charged with accepting them in that sense. Yet a far 
 greater license has been assumed by Archbishop Manning, who, with- 
 out any attempt at proof at all, suggests,^ if he does not assert, that 
 
 ' For Jan., 1875. * Dublin Review^ Jan., 1875, p. 172. ^ Archbishop Manning, p. 345. 
 
80 VATICANISM. 
 
 the allegiance of the masses of the English people is an inert conform- 
 ity and a passive compliance, given really for wrath and not for con- 
 science' sake. This opinion is, in my judgment, most untrue, most 
 unjust; but to call even this an insult would be an act of folly, be- 
 tokening, as I think, an unsound and unmanly habit of mind. Again, 
 to call the unseen councilors of the Pope myrmidons, to speak of 
 'aiders and abettors of the Papal chair,' to. call Eome, 'head-quarters,' 
 these and like phrases amount, according to Archbishop Manning,' 
 to 'an indulgence of unchastened language rarely to be equaled.' I 
 frankly own that this is in my eyes irrational. Not that it is agreeable 
 to me to employ even this far from immoderate liberty of controversial 
 language. I would rather pay an unbroken reverence to all ministers 
 of religion, and especially to one who fills the greatest See of Christen- 
 dom. But I see this great personage, under ill advice, ain\ing heavy 
 and, as far as he can make them so, deadly blows at the freedom of 
 mankind, and therein not only at the structure of society, but at the 
 very constitution of our nature, and the high designs of Providence for 
 trying and training it. I can not under the restraints of courtly phrase 
 convey any adequate idea of such tremendous mischiefs ; for in propor- 
 tion as the power is venerable, the abuse of it is pernicious. I am driven 
 to the conclusion that this sensitiveness is at the best but morbid. The 
 cause of it may be, that for the last thirty years, in this country at least, 
 Ultramontanism has been very busy in making controversial war upon 
 other people, with singularly little restraint of language ; arid has had 
 far too little of the truth told to itself. Hence it has lost the habit, al- 
 most the idea, of equal laws in discussion. Of that system as a system, 
 especially after the further review of it which it has been my duty to 
 make, I must say that its influence is adverse to freedom in the State, 
 the family, and the individual; that when weak it is too often crafty,' 
 and when strong tyrannical; and that, though in this country no one 
 could fairly deny to its professors the credit of doing what they think 
 is for the glory of God, they exhibit in a notable degree the vast self- 
 deluding forces which make sport of our common nature. The great 
 instrument to which they look for the promotion of Christianity seems 
 to be an unmeasured exaltation of the clerical class and of its power, as 
 
 * Archbishop Mtanning. p. 177. 
 
CONCLUSION. 81 
 
 against all that is secular and lay, an exaltation not less unhealthy for 
 that order itself than for society at large. There are those who think, 
 without being mere worshipers of Luther, that he saved the Church of 
 Rome by alarming it, when its Popes, Cardinals, and Prelates were car- 
 rying it 'down a steep place into the sea;' and it may be that those 
 who, even if too roughly, challenge the proceedings of the Yatican, are 
 better promoting its interests than such as court its favors, and hang 
 upon its lips. 
 
 I am concerned, however, to say that in the quick resentment which 
 has been directed against clearness and strength of language, I seem to 
 perceive not simply a natural sensitiveness, but a great deal of contro- 
 versial stratagem. The purpose of my pamphlet was to show that the 
 directors of the Roman Church had in the Council of the Yatican com- 
 mitted a gross offense against civil authority, and against civil freedom. 
 The aim of most of those who have professionally replied to me seems 
 to have been at all hazards to establish it in the minds of their flocks, 
 that whatever is said against their high clerical superiors is said against 
 them, although they had nothing to do with the Decrees, or with the 
 choice or appointment of the exalted persons who framed and passed 
 them. But this proposition, if stated calmly as part of an argument, 
 will not bear a moment's examination. Consequently, it has been bold- 
 ly held that this drawing of distinctions between pastors and the flock, 
 because the one made the Decrees and the other did not, is an insult 
 and an outrage to all alike ;^ and by this appeal passion is stirred up to 
 darken counsel and obscure the case. 
 
 I am aware that this is no slight matter, and I have acted under a 
 sense of no trivial responsibility. Rarely in the complicated combina- 
 tions of politics, when holding a high place in the councils of my Sov- 
 ereign, and when error was commonly visited by some form of sharp 
 and speedy retribution, have I felt that scene as keenly. At any rate, 
 I may and must say that all the words of these Tracts were written as 
 by one who knows that he must answer for them to a Power higher 
 than that of public opinion. 
 
 If any motive connected with religion helped to sway me, it was not 
 
 * I withhold the references — they are numerous, although by no means universal ; and hav- 
 ing said so much of the extreme doctrines of Archbishop Manning, I have pleasure in obsen- 
 ing that he does not adopt this language. 
 
 F 
 
82 VATICANISM. 
 
 one of hostility, but the reverse. My hostility, at least, was the sen- 
 timent which we feel toward faults which mar the excellences, which 
 even destroy the hope and the promise of those w^e are fain to love. 
 Attached to my own religious communion, the Church of my birth and 
 my country, I have never loved it with a merely sectional or insular 
 attachment, but have thankfully regarded it as that portion of the great 
 redeemed Christian family in which my lot had been cast — not by, but 
 for me. In every other portion of that family, whatever its name, 
 whatever its extent, whatever its perfections, or whatever its imperfec- 
 tions, I have sought to feel a kindly interest, varying in its degree ac- 
 cording to the likeness it seemed to bear to the heavenly pattern, and 
 according to the capacity it seemed to possess to minister to the health 
 and welfare of the whole. 
 
 ' Le frondi, onde s' imponda tutto 1' orto 
 Del Ortolano Etenio, am' io cotanto 
 Quanto da Lui in lor di bene e porto." 
 
 ' The leaves, wherewith embowered is all the garden 
 Of the Eternal Gardener, do I love 
 As much as He has granted them of good.' — Longfellow. 
 
 Whether they be Tyrian or Trojan,'' Eastern or Western, Reformed or 
 Unreformed, I desire to renounce and repudiate all which needlessly 
 wounds them, which does them less than justice, which overlooks their 
 place in the affections and the care of the Everlasting Father of us all. 
 Common sense seems to me to teach that doctrine, no less than Christi- 
 anity. Therefore I will say, and I trust to the spirit of Charity to in- 
 terpret me, I have always entertained a warm desire that the better el- 
 ements might prevail over the worse in that great Latin communion 
 which we call the Church of Rome, and which comprises one half, or 
 near one half, of Christendom: for the Church which gave us Thomas 
 a Kempis,and which produced the scholar-like and statesman-like mind 
 of Erasmus, the varied and attractive excellences of Colet, and of More; 
 for the Church of Pascal and Arnauld, of Nicole and Quesnel ; for the 
 Church of some now living among ns, of whom none w^ould deny that 
 they are as humble, as tender, as self-renouncing, and as self-abased — in 
 a word, as Evangelical as the most ' Evangelical ' of Protestants by pos- 
 sibility can be. 
 
 * Dante, Paradiso, xxvi. Qi-G. " ^En. x. 108. 
 
CONCLUSION. 83 
 
 No impartial student of history can, I think, fail to regard with much 
 respect and some sympathy the body of British Christians which, from 
 the middle period of the reign of Elizabeth down to the earlier portion 
 of the present century, adhered with self-denying fidelity, and with a 
 remarkable consistency of temper and belief, to the Latin communion. 
 •I lament its formation, and I can not admit its title-deeds; but justice 
 requires me to appreciate the high qualities which it has exhibited and 
 sadly prolonged under sore disadvantage. It was small, and dispersed 
 through a mass far from friendly. It was cut off from the ancient na- 
 tional hierarchy, and the noble establishments of the national religion ; 
 it was severely smitten by the penal laws, and its reasonable aspirations 
 for the measures that would have secured relief were mercilessly thwart-' 
 ed and stifled by those Popes whom they loved too well. Amid all 
 these cruel difficulties, it retained within itself these high characteristics : 
 it was moderate; it was brave; it was devout; it was learned; it was 
 loyal. 
 
 In discussing, however sharply, the Vatican Decrees, I have endeav- 
 ored to keep faith ; and I think that honor as well as prudence required 
 me, when offering an appeal upon public and civil grounds, to abstain 
 not only from assailing, but even from questioning in any manner or 
 regard, the Eoman Catholic religion, such as it stood before 1870 in its 
 general theory, and such as it actually lived and breathed in England 
 during my own early days, half a century ago. 
 
 It was to those members of such a body, who still cherish its tra- 
 ditions in consistency as well as in good faith, that I could alone, with 
 any hope of profit, address my appeal. Who are they now? and how 
 many? Has what was most noble in them gone the way of all flesh, 
 together with those clergy of 1826 in England and Ireland, who, as Dr. 
 Newman tells us, had been educated in Gallican opinions ? 
 
 More than thirty years ago, I expressed to a near friend, slightly 
 younger than myself, and in all gifts standing high even among the 
 highest of his da}^, the deep alarm I had conceived at the prgbable 
 consequences of those secessions of educated, able, devout, and in some 
 instances most eminent men to the Church of Eome, which had then 
 begun in series, and which continued for about ten years. I had then 
 an apprehension, which after-experience has confirmed in my mind, 
 though to some it may appear a paradox, that nothing would operate 
 
84 VATICANISM. 
 
 SO powerfully upon the England of the nineteenth century as a crowd 
 of these secessions — especially if from Oxford — in stimulating, strength- 
 ening, and extending the negative or destructive spirit in religion. My 
 friend replied to me, that at any rate there would, if the case occurred, 
 be some compensation in the powerful effect which any great English 
 infusion could not fail to have in softening the spirit and modifying- 
 the general attitude of the Church of Eome itself. The secessions con- 
 tinue'd, and multiplied. Some years later, the author of this remark 
 himself plunged into the flood of them. How strangely and how sadly 
 has his estimate of their effects been falsified? They are now seen, and 
 felt as well as seen, to have contributed everywhere to the progress and 
 to the highest exaggerations of Vaticanism, and to have altered in that 
 sense both profoundly and extensively, and by a process which gives no 
 sign of having even now reached its last stage, the complexion of the 
 Anglo-Roman communion. 
 
 It is hard to recognize the traditions of such a body in the character 
 and action of the Ultramontane policy, or in its influence either upon 
 moderation, or upon learning, or upon loyalty, or upon the general 
 peace. 
 
 I have above hazarded an opinion that in this country it may cause 
 inconvenience ; and I have had materials ready to hand which would, 
 I think, have enabled me amply to prove this assertion. But to enter 
 into these details might inflame the dispute, and I do not see that it 
 is absolutely necessar}^ My object has been to produce, if possible, a 
 temper of greater watchfulness; to promote the early and provident 
 fear which, says Mr. Burke, is the mother of necessity ; to distrust that 
 lazy way of thought which acknowledges no danger until it thunders 
 at the doors; to warn my countrymen against the velvet paw, and 
 smooth and soft exterior of a system which is dangerous to the founda- 
 tions of civil order, and which any one of us may at "any time encount- 
 er in his daily path. If I am challenged, I must not refuse to say it 
 is not Jess dangerous, in its ultimate operation on the human mind, to 
 the foundations of that Christian belief, which it loads with false ex- 
 crescences, and strains even to the bursting. 
 
 In some of the works to which I am now offering my rejoinder a 
 protest is raised against this discussion in the name of peace.^ I will 
 
 ' Dr. Capel, p. 48; Archbishop Manning, p. 127. 
 
CONCLUSION. 85 
 
 not speak of the kind of peace which the Roman Propaganda has for 
 the last thirty years been carrying through the private homes of En; 
 gland. But I look out into the world; and I find that now, and in 
 great part since the Vatican Decrees, the Cliurch of Rome, through the 
 Court of Rome and its Head, the Pope, is in direct feud with Portu-. 
 gal, with Spain, with Germany, with Switzerland, with Austria,' with 
 Russia, with Brazil, and with most of South America; in short, with 
 the far larger part of Christendom. The particulars may be found in, 
 nay, they almost fill, the Speeches, Letters, Allocutions, of the Pope 
 himself. So notorious are the facts that, according to Archbishop Man- 
 ning, they are due to a conspiracy of the Governments. He might as 
 reasonably say they were due to the Council of the Amphictyons. Oa 
 one point I must strongly insist. In my Expostulation, I laid stress 
 upon the charge of an intention^ on the part of Yaticanism, to pro- 
 mote the restoration of the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, on the 
 first favorable opportunity, by foreign arms, and without reference to 
 the wishes of those who were once his people. From Archbishop 
 Manning downward, not so much as one of those who have answered 
 me from the standing-ground of Yaticanism has disavowed this proj- 
 ect: many of them have openly professed that they adopt it, and glo- 
 ry iu it. Thus my main practical accusation is admitted; and the 
 main motive which prompted me is justified. I am afraid that the cry 
 for peace in the quarters from which it comes has been the complaint 
 of the foeman scaling the walls against the sentry who gives the alarm. 
 That alarm every man is entitled to give, when the very subject that 
 precipitates the discussion is the performance of duties toward the 
 Crown and State, to which we are all bound in common, and in which 
 the common interest is so close that their non-performance by any one 
 is an injury to all the rest. 
 
 It may be true that in human things there are great restraining and 
 equalizing powers, which work unseen. It may be true that the men 
 of good systems are worse than their principles, and the men of bad sys- 
 tems better than their principles, but, speaking of systems, and not of 
 men, I am convinced that the time has come when religion itself re- 
 quires a vigorous protest against this kind of religionism. 
 
 I am not one of those who find or imagine a hopeless hostility be- 
 tween authority and reason ; or who undervalue the vital moment of 
 
8G VATICANISM. 
 
 Christianity to mankind. I believe that religion to be the determin- 
 ing condition of oar well or ill being, and its Church to have been and 
 to be, .in its several organisms, by far the greatest institution that the 
 world has ever seen. The" poles on which the dispensation rests are 
 truth and freedom. Between this there is a holy, a divine union ; and 
 he that impairs or impugns either is alike the enemy of both. To 
 tear or to beguile away from man the attribute of inward liberty,- is 
 not only idle, I would almost say it is impious. When the Christian 
 scheme first went forth, with all its authority, to regenerate the world, 
 it did not discourage, but invited, the free action of the human reason 
 and the individual conscience, while it supplied these agents from with- 
 in with the rules and motives of a humble, wdiich was also a noble, self- 
 restraint. The propagation of the Gospel was committed to an organ- 
 ized society; but in the constitution of that society, as we learn alike 
 from Scripture and from history, the rights of all its orders were well 
 distributed and guaranteed. Of these early provisions for a balance 
 of Church power, and for securing the laity against sacerdotal domina- 
 tion, the rigid conservatism of the Eastern Church presents us, even 
 down to the present day, with an authentic and living record. But in 
 tlie Churches subject to the Pope, clerical power, and every doctrine 
 and usage favorable to clerical power, have been developed, and devel- 
 oped, and developed, while all that nurtured freedom, and all that guar- 
 anteed it, have been harassed and denounced, cabined and confined, 
 attenuated and starved, with fits and starts of intermitted success and 
 failure, but with a progress on the whole as decisively onward toward 
 its aim as that which some enthusiasts think they see in the natural 
 movement of humanity at large. At last came the crowning stroke 
 of 1870: the legal extinction of Eight, and the enthronement* of Will 
 in its place, throughout the churches of one half of Christendom. 
 While freedom and its guarantees are thus attacked on one side, a 
 multitude of busy but undisciplined and incoherent assailants, on the 
 other, are making war, some upon Revelation, some upon dogma, some 
 upon Theism itself. Far be it from me to question the integrity of 
 either party. But as freedom can never be effectually established by 
 the adversaries of that Gospel which has first made it a reality for all 
 orders and degrees of men, so the Gospel never can be effectually de- 
 fended by a policy which decline^s to acknowledge the high place as- 
 
CONCLUSION. -87 
 
 signed to Liberty in the counsels of Providence, and which, upon the 
 pretext of the abuse that like every other good she suffers, expels her 
 from its system. Among the many noble thoughts of Homer, there is 
 not one more noble or more penetrating than his judgment upon slav- 
 ery. ' On the day,' he says, ' that makes a bondman of the free,' 
 
 * Wide-seeing Zeus takes half the man away.' 
 
 He thus judges, not because the slavery of his time was cruel, for evi- 
 dently it was not, but because it wns slavery. What he said against 
 servitude in the social order we may plead against Vaticanism in the 
 spiritual sphere; and no cloud of incense, which zeal, or flattery, or 
 even love, can raise, should hide the disastrous truth from the vision of 
 mankind. 
 
\ 3 ^A^y" 
 
 rxvERsmr 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 APPENDIX A (p. 5). 
 
 The following are the principal Replies from antagonists which I have 
 seen. I have read the whole of them with care ; and I have not know- 
 ingly omitted in this Rejoinder any thing material to the main argu- 
 ments that they contain. I place them as nearly as I can in chronolog- 
 ical order : 
 
 1. Reply to Mr. Gladstone. By a Monk of St. Augustine's, Ramsgate. 
 
 Nov. 15,1874. London. 
 
 2. Expostulation in extremis. By Lord Robert Montagu*. London, 1874. 
 
 3. The Dbllingerites^ Mr. Gladstone., and the Apostates from the Faith. 
 
 By Bishop Ullathorne. Nov. 17, 1874. London. 
 
 4. The Abomination of Desolation. By Rev. J. Coleridge, S.J. Nov. 
 
 23, 1874. London. 
 
 5. Very Rev. Canon Oakeley, Letters of Nov. 16 and 27, 1874. In 
 
 the Times. 
 Q. Catholic Allegiance. By Bishop Clifford. Clifton, Nov. 25, 1874. 
 1. Pastoral Letters. By Bishop Yaughan. Dec. 3, 1874. London. The 
 
 same, with Appendices, Jan. 1875. 
 
 8. Review of Mr. Gladstone's Expostulation, in The Month for Dec. 1874 
 
 and Jan. 1875. By Rev. T. B. Parkinson, S, J. 
 
 9. External Aspects of the Gladstone Controversy. In T'he Month of 
 
 Jan. 1875. 
 
 10. All Ultramontane' s Reply to Mr. Gladstone's Expostulation. Lon- 
 
 don, 1874. 
 
 11. Letter to J. D. Hutchinson, Esq. By Mr. J. Stone Smith. Nov. 29, 
 
 1874. In the Halifax Courier of Dec. 5, 1874. 
 
 12. Letter to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. By a Scottish Cath- 
 
 olic Layman. London, 1874. 
 
 1 3. Reply to the Right Ho7i. W. E Gladstone's Political Expostulation. 
 
 By MoHsignor Capel. London, 1874. 
 
 14. ^ Vindication of the Pope and the Catholic Religion. By Mulhallen 
 
 Marum, LL.B. Kilkenny, 1 874. 
 
90 APPENDICES. 
 
 15. C atkolicity^ Liberty^ Allegiance^ a Didqidsition on Mr, Gladstone's Ex- 
 
 postulation. By Rev. John Curry, Jan. 1, 1875. London, Dublin, 
 Bradford. 
 
 16. Mr. Gladstone^ Expostidation Unraveled. By Bishop Ullathorne. 
 
 London, 1875. 
 
 17. Hul Tentativo Anticattolico in Inghilterra,, eV Opuscolo del On""'" Sig. 
 
 Gladstone. Di Monsignor Francesco Nardi. Roma, 1875. 
 
 18. ^ Letter to his Grace the Duke of Norfolk, on occasion of Mr. Glad- 
 
 stone's recent Expostulation. By John Henry Newman, D.D., of 
 the Oratory. London, 1875. 
 
 1 9. The Vatican Decrees in their hearing on Civil Allegiance. By Henry 
 
 Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. London, 1875. 
 
 20. The Duhlin Bevieio, Art. VH. London, Jan. 1875. 
 
 21. The Union Hevieic, Art. L By Mr. A. P. de Lisle. London, Feb. 
 
 1875. 
 
 I need not here refer particularly to the significant letters of favorable 
 response wiiich have proceeded from within the Roman Catholic com- 
 munion, or from those who have been driven out of it by the Vatican 
 Decrees. 
 
 APPENDIX B (p. 8). 
 
 *I lament not only to read the name, but to trace the arguments of Dr. 
 Von Dollinger in the pamphlet before me.' — Archhisho}) Manning, Letter 
 to the ''Times^ Nov. 7, 1874. — ' Vatican Decrees,'* p. 4. 
 
 Justice to Dr. Von Dollinger requires me to state that he had no con- 
 cern, direct or indirect, in the production or the publication of the tract, 
 and that he w^as, until it had gone to press, ignorant of its existence. 
 Had he been a party to it, it could not have failed to be far more worthy 
 of the attention it received. 
 
 Bishop Ullathorne goes further, and says of Dr. Von Dollinger that ' he 
 never was a theologian.' — Letter, p. 10. 
 
 Then they have made strange mistakes in Germany. 
 
 Werner, a writer who I believe is trustworthy, in liis Geschichte der 
 Katholische7i Theologie, 1866, is led by his subject to survey the actual 
 staff and condition of the Roman Church. He says, p. 470: 'Almost for 
 an entire generation. Dr. J. Von Dollinger lias been held the most learned 
 theologian of Catholic Germany ; and he indisputably counts among the 
 greatest intellectual lights that the Catholic Church of the present age 
 has to show.' 
 
APPENDICES. 91 
 
 I cite a still higher authority in Cardinal Schwarzenberg, Archbishop 
 of Prague. On May 25, 1868, he addressed a letter to Cardinal Antonelli, 
 in which he pointed out that the theologians, who had been summoned 
 from Germany to the Council, were all of the same theological school, and 
 that for the treatment of.dogmatic matters it was most important that 
 some more profound students, of more rich and universal learning, as well 
 as sound in faith, should be called. He goes on to suggest the names of 
 Hefele, Kuhn, and (with a high eulogy) Von Dollinger. 
 
 The strangest of all is yet behind. Cardinal Antonelli, in his reply 
 dated July 15, receives with some favor the suggestion of Cardinal 
 Schwarzenberg, and says that one of the three theologians named would 
 certainly have been invited to the Council, had not the Pope been informed 
 that if invited he would decline to come. That one was Dr. Von Dollinger. 
 
 I cite the original documents, which will be found in Friedrich's Docu- 
 menta ad illusti'midmn Concilmm Yaticmium^ pp. 277-80. 
 
 APPENDIX C (p. 20). 
 
 As I have cited Schrader elsewhere, I cite him here also; simply be- 
 cause he translates (into German) upon a different construction of the 
 Seventy-third Article of the Syllabus from that which I had adopted, and 
 makes a disjunctive proposition out of two statements which appear to be 
 in effect identical. In English, his conversion of the article runs as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 *Among Christians no true matrimony can be constituted by virtue of 
 a civil contract ; and it is true that either the marriage contract between 
 Christians is a Sacrament, or that the contract is null when the Sacrament 
 is excluded. 
 
 * Remark. And, on this very account, is everj^ contract entered into be- 
 tween man and woman, among Christians, without the Sacrament, in vir- 
 tue of any civil law whatever, nothing else than a shameful and pernicious 
 concubinage, so strongly condemned by the Church ; and therefore tlie 
 marriage-bond can never be separated from the Sacrament." 
 
 The sum of the matter seems to be this. Wherever it has pleased the 
 Pope to proclaim the Tridentine Decrees, civil marriage is concubinage. 
 It is the duty of each concubinary (or party to concubinage), witli or 
 
 ' Sfhrnder, Heft ii. p. 79 (Wien, 1865). 
 
92 APPENDICES. 
 
 without the consent of the other party, to quit that guilty state. And as 
 no law of Church or State binds a concubinary to marriage with the other 
 concubinary, he (or slie) is free, so far as the Church of Rome can create 
 the freedom, to marry another person. 
 
 APPENDIX D (p. 37). 
 
 I do not think myself called upon to reply to the statements which Bish- 
 op Vaughan has sought {Pastoral Letter^ pp. 35-37) to show, that the fear 
 of civil war ultimately turned the scale in the minds of the chief Minis- 
 ters of 1829, and led them to propose the Bill for Emancipation. First, 
 because the question is not what influences acted at that moment on those 
 particular minds, but how that equilibrium of moral forces in the country 
 h^d been brought about which made civil war, or something that might 
 be called civil war, a possibility. Secondly, because I am content with 
 the reply provided in thQ Concio of Archbishop Kenrick, c. viii. See Fried- 
 rich's -Documenta ad illustratidum Concilium Vaticanum^ vol. i. p. 219. 
 The statements would, in truth, only be relevant if they were weant to 
 show that the Roman Catholics of that day were justified in making false 
 statements of their belief in order to obtain civil equality, but that, as 
 those statements did not avail to conciliate the Ministers of 1829, they 
 then materially fell back upon the true ones. 
 
 To show, however, how long a time had to pass before the poison could 
 obtain possession of the body, I point, without comment, to the subjoined 
 statement, anonymous, but, so far as I know, uncontradicted, and given 
 with minute particulars, which would have made the exposure of false- 
 hood perfectly easy. It is taken from the Cornish Telegraph of Decem- 
 ber 9, 1874, and is signed Clericus. It follows a corresponding statement 
 with regard to America, which is completely corroborated by Archbishop 
 Kenrick in his Concio: see Friedrich's Documenta, vol. i. p. 215. 
 
 * Of a painful alteration in another popular work, Keenan's Controver- 
 sial Catechism (London, Catholic Publishing and Book-selling Company, 
 53 New Bond Street), I can speak from two gravely differing copies, botli 
 professedly of the same edition, now lying befove me. This is so singu- 
 lar a case that I venture to give it in a little detail. Keenan's Cate- 
 chism has been very extensively used in Great Britain and America. In 
 his preface to the third edition, the author speaks of it as "having the 
 high approbation of Archbishop Hughes, the Right Rev. Drs. Kyle and 
 
APPENDICES. 0^ 
 
 CaiTuthers ; as well as the approval of the Right Rev. Dr. Gillis, and the 
 Right Rev. Dr. Murdoch." These last-named four ecclesiastics were vic- 
 ars-apostolic of their respective districts in Scotland, and their separate 
 episcopal approbations are prefixed to the Catechism; those of Bishops 
 Carruthers and Kyle are dated, respectively, 10th and 15th of April, 1846 ; 
 those of Bishops Gillis and Murdoch, 14th and 19th of November, 1853. 
 
 * Thus this work was authenticated by a well-known American arch- 
 bishop and four British bishops thoroughly familiar with the teaching of 
 their Church, long before Archbishop Manning joined it. Now, at page 
 112 of one of my copies of the "new edition, corrected by the author, 
 twenty-fourth thousand," are the following question and answer : 
 
 Q. — * "Must not Catholics believe the Pope in himself to be infallible?" 
 A. — ' " This is a Protestant invention ; it is no article of the Catholic 
 faith ; no decision of his can oblige, under pain of heresy, unless it be re- 
 ceived and enforced by the teaching body — that is, by the bishops of the 
 Church." 
 
 * It would be satisfactory if Archbishop Manning w^ould explain how 
 his statement to Mr. Bennett squares with this statement of Keenan's, 
 and with that of the 50 7t6as(9?i5. 
 
 ' But, further, it would be highly satisfactory if Archbishop Manning, or 
 some representative of the "Catholic Publishing and Book-selling Compa- 
 ny" would explain how it came to pass that, on the passing of the Vati- 
 can decree, apparently while this very edition of Keenan's Catechism was 
 passing through the press, the above crucial question and answer were 
 quietly dropped out, though no intimation whatsoever was given that 
 this vital alteration was made in the remainder of the edition. Had a 
 note been appended, intimating that this change had become needful, no 
 objection, of course, could have been made. But no word has been in- 
 serted to announce or explain this omission of so material a passage ; 
 while the utmost pains have been taken, and, I must add, Avith great suc- 
 cess, to pass oif this gravely altered book as being identical with the rest 
 of the edition. The title-pages of both copies alike profess that it is the 
 " new edition, corrected by the author" (who was in his grave before the 
 Vatican Council was dreamed of) ; both profess to be of the " twenty- 
 fourth thousand ;" both have the same episcopal approbations and pref- 
 aces; both are paged alike throughout; so that, from title-page to index, 
 both copies are, apparently, identical. I have very often placed both in 
 the hands of friends, and asked if they could detect any difference, but 
 have always found they did not. The Roman Catholic book-sellers, 
 
94 APPENDICES. 
 
 Messrs. Kelly and Messrs. Gill, in Dublin, from whom I purchased a num- 
 ber of copies in August, 1871, were equally unaware of this change ; both 
 believed that the Publishing Company had supplied them with the same 
 boot, and both expressed strongly their surprise at finding the change 
 made without notice. Another Dublin Roman Catholic book-seller was 
 very indignant at this imposition, and strongly urged me to expose it. 
 It is no accidental slip of the press ; for while all the earliest copies of 
 the edition I bought from Messrs. Kelly contained the question and an- 
 swer, they were omitted in all the later copies of Messrs. Gill's supply. 
 The omission is very neatly, cleverly made by a slight widening of the 
 spaces between the questions and answers on page 112 and the beginning 
 of page 113 ; so skillfully managed that nobody would be at all likely to 
 notice the difference in these pages of the two copies, unless he carefully 
 looked, as I did, for the express purpose of seeing if both alike contained 
 this question and answer.' 
 
 APPENDIX E (p. 37). 
 
 Extract from ^ The Catholic Question f addressed to the Freeholders of the 
 County of York on the General Election o/'1826, p. 31. 
 
 * The Catholic religion has three great {eras ; first in its commencement 
 to the Dark Ages ; then from the middle centuries down to the Reforma- 
 tion ; and lastly, from the Reformation to the present day. The Popish 
 religion of the present day has scarcely any resemblance with its middle 
 stage; its powers, its pretensions, its doctrines, its wealth, and its object 
 are not the same ; it is a phantom, both in theory and practice, to what it 
 once was ; and yet the bigots draw all their arguments from the Middle 
 Ages, and, passing all the manifest alterations of modern times, set up a 
 cry about the enormities of times long past, and which have been dead 
 and buried these three hundred years. This unjust conduct is just the 
 same as if you were to hang a faithful, tried domestic, who had served 
 you forty years, because he had committed some petty theft when he was 
 a boy. It is the most illiberal and the most unjustifiable mode of argu- 
 ing, and if applied to the Church of England, would reduce it to a worse 
 case than that of her old rival.' 
 
 The * bigots,' who are here charged by the Liberal electors of York- 
 shire with reviving mediaeval Romanism, are not Vaticanists, but Protest- 
 
APPENDICES. ' 95 
 
 ant bigots, whose sinister predictions tlie Vaticanists have done, and are 
 doing, their best to verify. 
 
 Both by reason of the language of this extract, and of its being taken 
 out of the actual working armory of one of the great electioneering strug- 
 gles for the County of York, which then much predominated in impor- 
 tance over every other constituency of the United Kingdom, it is impor- 
 tant. It show^s by direct evidence how the mitigated professions of the 
 day told, and justly told, on the popular mind of England. 
 
 APPENDIX F (p. 43). 
 
 I. From the Decree. 
 
 'Et primo declarat, quod ipsa in Spiritu Sancto legitime congregata, 
 concilium generale faciens, et ecclesiam Catholicam repraesentans, potesta- 
 tem a Christo immediate habet, cui quilibet cuj usque stattis vel dignitatis, 
 etiam si papalis existat, obedire tenetur in his qim pertinent adfidem et 
 extirpationem dicti schismatis, et reformationem dicta3 ecclesise in capite 
 et in membris.' — Cone. Const. Sess. v.; Labhe et Cossart^ tom. xii. p. 22. 
 
 II. From the account of the Pope's confirmation. 
 
 ' Quibus sic factis, sanctissimus dominus noster papa dixit, respondendo 
 ad prsedicta, quod omnia et singula determinata conclusa et decreta in 
 materiis fidei per praesens concilium, conciliariter tenore et inviolabiliter 
 observare volebat, et nunquam contraire quoquo modo. Ipsaque sic con- 
 ciliariter facta approbat et ratificat, et non aliter, nee alio modo.' — Cone. 
 Const. Sess. xlv. ; Lahhe et Cossart, tom. xii. p. 258. 
 
 APPENDIX G (p. 49). 
 
 Zabbe, Concilia^ x. 1127, ed. Paris, 1671, Canon II. 
 
 * Obedite prmpositis vestris^ et subjacete illis; ipsi enim previgilant pro 
 animabus vestris, tanquam rationem reddituri ; Paulus magnus Apostolus 
 prsecepit. Itaque beatissimum Papam Nicolaum tanquam organum Sanc- 
 ti Spiritus habentes,' necnon et sanctissimum Hadrianum Papam, succes- 
 sorem ejus, definimus atque sancimus, etiam omnia qua) ab eis synodice 
 per diversa tempera exposita sunt et promulgata, tarn pro defensione ac 
 
 ' In the Greek, ibid. p. 1167, wf opyavov tov ayiou UvivfiaroQ txovriQ. 
 
96 APPENDICES. 
 
 statu ConstantinopoUtanorum ecclesim^ et smnmi sacerdotis ejus, Ignatii 
 videlicet, sanctissimi Patriarchoe, quam etiam pro Photii, neophyti et inva- 
 soris, expulsioiie ac condemnatione, servari semper et custodiri cum exposi- 
 tis capitidis immutilata pariter et illcesa.^ 
 The Canon then goes on to enact penalties. 
 
 APPENDIX H (p. 55). 
 
 It appears to me that Archbishop Manning has completely misappre- 
 hended the history of the settlement of Maryland and the establishment 
 of toleration there for all believers in the Holy Trinity. It was a wise 
 measure, for which the two Lords Baltimore, father and son, deserve the 
 highest honor. But the measure was really defensive ; and its main and 
 very legitimate purpose plainly was to secure the free exercise of the Ro- 
 man Catholic religion. Immigration into the colony was by the Charter 
 free : and only by this and other popular provisions could the territory 
 have been extricated from the grasp of its neighbors in Virginia, who 
 claimed it as their own. It was apprehended that the Puritans would 
 flood it, as they did: and it seems certain that but for this excellent pro- 
 vision, the handful of Koman Catholic founders would have been unable 
 to hold their ground. The facts are given in Bancroft's History of the 
 United States, vol. i. chap. vii. 
 
 I feel it necessary, in concluding this answer, to state that Archbishop 
 Manning has fallen into most serious inaccuracy in his letter of ISTovem- 
 ber 10 (p. 6), where he describes my Expostulation as the first event 
 which has overcast a friendship of forty-five years. I allude to the sub- 
 ject with regret ; and without entering into details. 
 
 THE END. 
 
SPEECHES 
 
 OF 
 
 POPE PIUS IX 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE VATICAN DECREES IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE,' 
 
 "VATICANISM," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
 
 1-8 7 5- 
 
\ a « A ay" 
 UN-IVERSITT 
 
 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 [Republished from the Quarterly Review for January, 1875.] 
 
 Art. YIII.' — Dlscorsi del Soimno Pontefice Pio IX., proniLnm^ati 
 in Vaiicano, ai Fedeli di Roma e delV Orhe, dal jprincijpio delta 
 sxta Prigionia fino al jpresente. Yol. I., Roma, Aurelj, 1872 ; 
 Yol. IL, Ciiggiani, 1873. 
 
 As a general rule, the spirit of a system can nowhere be more fairly, 
 more authentically learned than from the language of its accredited 
 authorities, especially of its acknowledged Head. The rule applies 
 peculiarly to the case of the Paj^acy and of the present Pope, from 
 considerations connected both with the system and wath the man. The 
 system aims at passing its operative utterances through the lips of the 
 Supreme. Pontiff; and as no holder of the liigh office has ever more 
 completely thrown his personality into his function, so no lips have 
 ever delivered from the Papal Throne such masses of matter. Pope 
 all over, and from head to foot, he has fed for eight-and-twenty years 
 upon the moral diet wliich a too sycophantic following supplies, till 
 every fibre of his nature is charged with it, and the simple-minded 
 Bishop and Archbishop Mastai is hardly to be recognized under the 
 Papal mantle. 
 
 ' At the time when this Article was Avritten and published I was unaware that the Rev. 
 W. Arthur had published, in a small volume entitled 'The Modern Jove,' a searching re- 
 view of the contents of the first volume of the 'Discorsi,' or I should not have omitted to 
 notice it. In this work Mr. Arthur justly comments on the lack of disposition to estimate 
 tliese subjects as they deserve (p. 117); an indisposition which I believe to be more charac- 
 teristic of life and its organs in our metropolis than in the countiy at large. ' Tiie Ultra- 
 montane party in Rome,' says Mr. Arthur, 'are not accountable for the illusions of English 
 politicians and clergy, for they have of late been very outspoken.' He also cites a remarka- 
 ble exclamation of Mr. O'Connell's, who, on hearing it stated in public that his Church had 
 an infallible head, cried aloud, 'No, an infallible body.* 
 
4 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 It can hardly be policy, it must be a necessity of his nature, which 
 prompts his incessant harangues. But they are evidently a true pict- 
 ure of the man ; as the man is of tlie system, except in this that he, 
 to use a homely phrase, blurts out, when he is left to himself, what it 
 delivers in I'ather more comely phrases, overlaid with art. 
 
 Much interest therefore attaches to such a phenomenon as the pub- 
 lished Speeches of the Pope; and, besides what it teaches in itself, 
 other and singular lessons are to be learned from the strange juxta- 
 ''position in which, for more than four years, his action has now been 
 exhibited. Probably in no place and at no period, through the whole 
 history of the world, has there ever been presented to mankind, even 
 in the agony of war or revolution, a more extraordinary spectacle than 
 is now witnessed at Eome. In that city the Italian Government Iiolds 
 a perfectly peaceable, though originally forcible, possession of the resi- 
 due of the States of the Church ; and at the same time the Pope, re- 
 maining on his gronnd, by a perpetual blast of fiery w^ords, tippeals to 
 other lands and to future days, and thus makes his wordy, yet not 
 wholly futile, w^ar upon the Italian Government. 
 
 The mere extracts and specimens which have from time to time ap- 
 peared in the public journals have stirred a momentary thrill or sigh 
 or shrug, according to the temperaments and tendencies of readers. 
 But they have been totally insufficient to convey an idea of the vigor 
 with wiiich this peculiar warfare is carried on ; of the absolute, appar- 
 ently the contemptuous, tolerance with which it is regarded by the 
 Government ruling on the spot ; or of the picture which is presented 
 to us by the words and actions of the Pope, taken as a whole, and con- 
 sidered in connection with their possible significance to the future 
 peace of Europe. 
 
 Between the 20th of October, 1870, and the 18th of September, 1873, 
 this octogenarian Pontiff (he is now aged at least eighty-two), besides 
 bearing all the other cares of ecclesiastical government, and despite in- 
 tervals of illness, pronounced two hundred and ninety Discourses, 
 which are reported in the eleven hundred pages of the two volumes 
 now to be introduced to the notice of the reader. They are collected 
 and published for the first time by the Eev. Don Pasquale de Francis- 
 cis; and, though they may be deemed highly incendiary documents, 
 they are sold at the bookshop of the Propaganda, and are to be had in 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 5 
 
 the ordinary way of trade by virtue of tliat freedom of the press which 
 the Papacy abhors and condemns. 
 
 The first question which a judicious reader will put is whether we 
 have reasonable assurance that this work really reports the Speeches of 
 the Pontiff with accuracy. And on this point there appears to be no 
 room for reasonable doubt. Some few of them are merely given as 
 abstracts, or sunii ; but by far the larger number in exte?iso, in the 
 first person, with minutely careful notices of the incidents of the occa- 
 sion, such as the smiles, the sobs, the tears' of the Pontiff on the audi- 
 tory; the animated gestures of the one, the enthusiastic shoutings of 
 the other, which cause the lialls of the Vatican to ring again. In a 
 detailed notice, which, instead of introducing the First Yolume, is rather 
 inconveniently appended to it at the close, the editor gives an account 
 both of the opportunities he has enjoyed and of the loving pains he took 
 in the execution of his task. On nearly every occasion he seems to 
 have been present and employed as a reporter (raccoglitore) ; once his 
 absenc6 is noticed, as if an unusual no less than unfortunate circum- 
 stance (ii. 284). In a particular instance (ii. 299) he speaks of the Pope 
 himself as personally giving judgment on what might or might not be 
 published {savebhe stato ])iibhlicato^ se co si fosse jyiaciiito a GHIj^otea 
 volere altrimenti). The whole assistance of the Papal press in Pome 
 was freely given him (i. 505). Eyes and ears, he says, far superior to 
 his own, had revised and approved the entire publication (i. 506). The 
 Preface to the Second Yolume refers to the enthusiastic reception ac- 
 corded to the First, and announces the whole work as that which is 
 alone authentic and the most complete (ii. 14, 15). So that our footing 
 plainly is sure enough ; and we may reject absolutely the supposition 
 which portions of the book might very well suggest, namely, that we 
 were read in o; a scandalous Protestant forejerv. 
 
 Certainly, if the spirit of true adoration will make a good reporter, 
 Don Pasquale ought to be the best in the world. The Speeches he 
 gives to the world are ^a treasure,' and that treasure is sublime, in- 
 
 ^ In the estimation of Don Pasquale, all emotion, if within the walls of the Vatican and on 
 the Papal side, is entitled to respect, and must awaken sympathy ; but when he has to describe 
 the tears and sobs which, as he states, accompanied the funeral procession of the ex-Minister 
 Ratazzi (ii. 350), he asks, Might not this be a Congress of Crocodiles (iion seinbra qtiesto tin 
 Congresso di Coccodrilli)? 
 
6 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 spired, divine (i. 1, 2, 3). iN'ot only do we quote these epithets textually, 
 but they, and the like of them, are repeated every where, even to satiety, 
 and perhaps something more than satiety. * Receive, then, as from the 
 hands of angels, this Divine Volume of the Angelic Pio ISTono ' (p. 4) ; 
 ' the most glorious and venerated among all the Popes ' (p. 3) ; ^ the 
 portentous Father of the nations' (p. 11). This is pretty well, but it 
 is not all. He is ^the living Christ' (p. 9); he is the Yoice of God. 
 There is but one step more to take, and it is taken. He is (in the 
 face of the Italian Government) Nature, that protests : he is God, 
 
 THAT C0NDE]MNS (p. 17). 
 
 In a letter dated December 10, 1874, and addressed to a monthly 
 magazine,* Archbishop Manning, with his usual hardihood, says, ^ For 
 a writer who affirms tliat the Head of the Catholic Church claims to 
 be the Incarnate and Visible Word of God I have really compassion.' 
 Will this bold controversialist spare a little from his fund of pity for 
 the editor of these Speeches, who declares him to be the living Christ, 
 and for the Pope, under whose authority this declaration is published 
 and sold ? 
 
 Truly, some of the consequences of a ' free press ' are rather start- 
 ling. And those who are astonished at the strained and preternatural 
 tension, the surexcitatioii ahnormale, to borrow a French phrase, the 
 inflamed and inflaming tone of the language ordinarily used by the 
 Pontiff, should carefully bear in mind that the fulsome and revolting 
 strains, of which we have given a sample, exhibit to us the atmosphere 
 which he habitually breathes. 
 
 Even those, however, who would most freely criticise, and, indeed, de- 
 nounce the prevailing strain and too manifest upshot of these Speeches, 
 may find pleasure, while they yield a passing tribute to the persevering 
 tenacity and, if we may be pardoned such a word, the pluck which they 
 display. It may be too true that the Pope has brought his misfortunes 
 on his own head. But they are heavy, and they are aggravated by the 
 weight of years ; and the strong constitution, indicated by his deep 
 chest and powerful voice, has had to struggle with various infirmities. 
 Yet by his mental resolution all /cold obstruction' is kept at arms- 
 length ; and he delivers himself from week to week or day to day — 
 
 * Macmillan's Magazine for January, 1875. 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 7 
 
 sometimes, indeed, more than once in the day — of his copious and highly 
 explosive material, with a really marvelous fluency, versatility, inge- 
 nuity, energy, and, in fact, with every good quality except that, the ab- 
 sence of which, unhappily, spoils all the rest — namely, wisdom. And, 
 odd to say, even the word wisdom {saviezza) seems to be almost the only 
 one which in these Speeches does not constantly pass his lips. 
 
 Reversing the child's order with his plate at dinner, let us keep to 
 the last that which is the worst, and also the heaviest, part of the task 
 before us; and begin by noticing one or two discourses of the Holy 
 Father to little children, which are full of charm and grace. For even 
 very little children go to him on deputations, and, reciting after the 
 Italian manner, discharge in manufactured verse their antirevolution- 
 ary wrath. An infant of five years old denounces before him the sac- 
 rilegious oppressor! (ii. 405). AnothQv fanciulletta declares the Pope 
 to be the King of kings (ii. 465). These interviews were turned by the 
 Pope to edification. He tells the children of their jpeccatucci (ii. 209) 
 — how shall we try to give the graceful tournure of the phrase ? ' dar- 
 ling little sins ;' and certain orphans lie again gently touches w^ith the 
 incomparable Italian diminutive on their difettucci and their rdbhiette^ 
 and lovingly presents to them the example of their Saviour: 
 
 ' Now that the Church commemorates ' (it was on Dec. 19) ' the birth of Jesus Christ 
 the babe, do you cause Him to be re-born in your hearts ; . . . beg Him to put there some- 
 thing that is good, namely, a good will to study, and to mind your Avork and all your other 
 duties.' 
 
 And so he blesses them, and sends them away (ii. 119). 
 
 There are other examples not less pleasing, such as a discourse to 
 some penitents of the Roman Magdalen. After mentioning the case 
 of Rahab, the Pontiff proceeds in a tone both evangelical and fatherly 
 (ii.57): 
 
 ' You, too, my daughters, carry the red mark ; you, too, carry a mark able to deliver you 
 from the assaults that the enemies of your souls will make. This red mark you have put 
 upon you ; and its meaning is, the most precious blood of Jesus Christ. Often meditate on 
 this blood, which has merited for you the grace of your salvation and your conversion. At 
 the feet of the crucified Jesus, even as once did the repentant Magdalen, meditate on the 
 love that He has shown you, and you will triumph over all your enemies.' 
 
 There is, perhaps, not a word of this affectionate and simple address 
 which would not be acceptable even if it were delivered from a Non- 
 conforming pulpit, so devoid is it of the specialties of the Roman 
 Church. Kor is this the only discourse of which the same might be 
 
3 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 said (see, for instance, Disc, cxxii.). Kor must we very sharply com- 
 plain if sometimes we find in these Discourses the religious ideas which 
 we are wont to condemn as Popery. They are, perhaps, less frequent 
 and flagrant than might have been expected. They assume promi- 
 nence, however, in one passage particularly, where the Pope declares 
 that the prayers of the Mother addressed to her Son have almost the 
 character of commands {Iianno quasi ragion di comando.,\\.d'd^) ; and 
 there is traceable in some of the Addresses a curious, sometimes an 
 amusing, idea of the personal claim upon the Blessed Virgin Mary and 
 others of the Saints, which he has established by his acts, especially 
 constituting the Immaculate Conception a part of the Christian faith. 
 ' She owes you the finest gem in her coronet,' says one deputation (ii. 
 325). ' If,' says another, ' it be certain that gratitude is more lively in 
 heaven than on eartli, let him ' (here we are dealing with St. Louis, to 
 whom the Pope had erected a monument), * by way of payment, give 
 you back your crown' (ii. 116). And again, with yet greater naivete, 
 ' and most holy Mary the Immaculate, on whom you conferred so great 
 an honor, surely she will never allow herself to be outdone in generos- 
 ity V (ii. 26.) 
 
 Next after the personal piety and genialit}", which not even all the 
 perversions of his policy can extinguish in the Pope, some s^mipathy 
 remains due to his irrepressible sentiment of fun. To this even social 
 nimor has done justice in some cases. For example, at the time of the 
 Council, when his hospitality was so taxed by the presence of large 
 numbers of very poor bishops as to threaten him with an empty ex- 
 chequer, he is commonly reported to have said, 'facendomi iiifallibile, 
 mi faranno fallire^ — ' while declaring me ^m-failable, they will cause 
 me to fail.'' In these volumes he explains to a group of children the 
 prevailing redundance of demoniacal action in Italy by recounting an 
 observation then recently made to him, ' that all the devils had been 
 let out from hell, except a porter, to receive new arrivals.' The Preface 
 shows he felt the ground to be tender, for he introduced the story by 
 saying (i. 40) : ' Here I should like to tell you an incident. Yet I am 
 doubtful, as it might excite too much merriment ; but come, I will give 
 it you.' 
 
 This for children; but for bishops also, newly made bishops, he has 
 his comic anecdote, and, in order that it may be suitable, he chooses it 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 from tlie life of a Saint, though a modern one. Alphonso Liguori, 
 now not only a Saint, but also lately promoted by tlie Pope to the rank 
 of a Doctor of the Church, in his time, it seems, used to bore the Nea- 
 politan Ministro Tannucci, and consequently sometimes found it hard 
 to get within his doors. One day, having long to wait, the Bishop sat 
 upon the steps and recited his ' corona ;' and he recounts his weariness 
 in one of his letters, with the comment which shall be given in the 
 original tongue: ' questo henedetto ministro mi fa s^utare unu ala di 
 jyolmone'^ (ii. 286). 
 
 The Pope's references to Holy Scripture are very frequent ; and yet 
 perhaps hardly such as to suggest that he has an accurate or familiar 
 acquaintance with it. They are possibly picked piecemeal out of the 
 services of the Church for the day. It is, for example, to say the least, 
 a most singular method of reference to the difficult subject of the 
 Genealogies of our Lord to say (i. 127), ' we read at the commencement 
 of two of the Gospels a long Genealogy of Him, which comes down 
 from Princes and Kings.' Where, again, did the Pontiff learn that the 
 Jews, as a nation, had some celebrity as smiths (7ielV arte fahhrile^ i. 
 169) ? with which imaginary celebrity he oddly enough connects tlie 
 mention of the antediluvian Tubal-cain in Gen. iv. 22. Nor can any 
 thing be more curious than his exegesis applied to the Parable of the 
 Sower. He expounds it to a Poman deputation (i. 335). The way- 
 side represents the impious and unbelievers, and all who are possessed 
 by the devil ; those who received the seed among the thorns are those 
 who rob their neighbor and plunder the Cliurch; the stony places rep- 
 resent those who know, but do not act. ^ And who are the good ground ? 
 You. The good ground is that w^hich is found in all good Christians, 
 in all those who belong to the numerous Catholic Clubs.' Now the 
 Clubs on the other side are Clubs of Hell (ii..420 lis) ; sanctity is thus 
 (here and commonly elsewhere) identified with certain politics. Nor 
 does it seem very easy to trace in detail the resemblance between the 
 exposition of the Yicar and that given by the Principal (Matt. xiii. 18- 
 23). 
 
 Indeed, the Papal Exegesis appears somewhat frequently to bear 
 marks of dormitation. Thus, placing King Solomon at a date of twenty- 
 two or twenty-three centuries back (ii. 32), he makes th^-t sovereign the 
 cantemporary either of Pericles or of Alexander the Great. More im- 
 
10 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 portant, because it is a specimen of the willful interpretations so prev- 
 alent at Rome, is the mode in which he proves his right to be the 
 Teacher-general of all States and all nations, because (ii. 456) Saint 
 Peter was chosen, in the case of Cornelius, to preach the Gospel to the 
 Gentiles. 
 
 Many, again, will read with misgiving the Pope's treatment of the 
 text (Luke ii. 62) : ' And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature.' 
 'This increase was only apparent, for in Him, the Son of God, was' 
 {i. e. was already) ' the fullness of all wisdom, as of every virtue ' (i. 42). 
 To resolve positive statements of Holy Scripture into mere seeming is 
 not a mode of exposition the most in favor with orthodox Christianity ; 
 and, if it is to be applied to statements affecting the Perfect Humanity 
 of our Lord, to what point is it to be carried ? The Commentary of 
 Cornelius a Lapide, which will not be viewed with suspicion in Roman 
 quarters, discusses at great length this most interesting text, and, after 
 considering the varied language of the Fathers, proceeds to lay it down 
 that, besides growth in appearance and in the opinion of men, and be- 
 sides the growth of what we term experience, * tertio et propria, esto 
 Christus non creverit sapientia et gratia habituali, crevit tamen actuali 
 et practica ; nam robur spiritus et sapientiam coelestem in anima laten- 
 tem, indies magis et magis exerebat etiara existens puer.' Those wlio 
 desire a more modern statement may with advantage consult a beauti- 
 ful passage in the Commentary of Dean Alford in loco. 
 
 But w^hat is really sad in tlie Scriptural references of the Pope is 
 the incessant and violent application which is made of them to polit- 
 ical incidents and circumstances, and the too daring appropriation to 
 himself of passages, very exalted indeed, which relate to our Saviour. 
 
 As respects the former of these topics, we may take as an example 
 a short speiech to a company of ladies engaged in the reclamation of 
 girls who have lived a life of shame : ' With the same charity and zeal 
 w^hich you have employed in doing good to these girls, by reclaiming 
 them from sin, be careful to pray the Almighty that your charity may 
 also reacli all the enemies of the Church.' What would be thought of 
 the taste of any Protestant association of this country which should 
 exhort the managers of the Magdalen never to foi'get praying God for 
 the conversion of Papists? Tories and Liberals might in this way re- 
 ciprocally do a stroke of business in politics while exercising their. 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 11 
 
 charity and piety. In truth, it might seem to the readers of these 
 volumes as if the putting down of Italian liberalism and nationality 
 (which are for the Pope one and the same thing) had constituted the 
 one great purpose for which the Gospel had been sent into the world. 
 Certainly no one can complain that the Pope's injunctions to pray are 
 not sufficient, either in number or in urgency: they are incessant. 
 Tiie Pope gives no countenance whatever to the theory of Professor 
 Tyndall, or to that of Mr. Kniglit, who, as we understand, so cleverly 
 settles the great Prayer-controversy by 'splitting the difference.' But 
 of the almost innumerable exhortations to pray in these volumes, at 
 least nineteen in twenty are directed to the establishment of sound 
 Papal politics, and the conversion, or, failing this, the destruction of Lib- 
 erals, as though they were the people of some new Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah, or Tyre and Sidon ; to the triumph of the Church, and the restora- 
 tion of what the Pope, with his peculiar ideas, is pleased to call ' peace.' 
 
 It appears, however, that the comparison, which he draws indirectly 
 between women living by the wages of sin and Liberals, admits of a 
 yet more pungent application in the case of a class who are, in the 
 Pope's eyes, even worse than Liberals. These are the bad Catholics, 
 who have 'disdained the light of faith.' These will, he says (ii. 31), 
 be judged more severely than women who live in shame, but who are 
 far more likely to repent. 'The light of faith' is, we opine, that of 
 the Vatican. Council ; and the 'bad Catholics' appear to be the emi- 
 nent men who declined to affirm as immemorial truths the novelties 
 and the histori(^al falsehoods it imposed. 
 
 One touch remains to be added to this portion of the extraordinary 
 picture. The prisoner not imprisoned, who is weekly visited by crowds 
 or companies of lawbreakers, glorying in impunity, receives from them, 
 and from the sycophants about him, an adulation not only excessive in 
 its degree, but of a kind which, to an unbiased mind, may seem to 
 border on profanity. To compare him with the Scripture worthies 
 generally is not enough. Claiming, under the new-fangled Roman 
 religion, to possess in his single hands all the governing powers of the 
 Eedeemer over his Church, it is also in the sufferings of Christ alone 
 that he and his worshipers — he with some little excuse, they with 
 hardly any — find a fit standard of comparison for what he has to 
 endure. Now as to his own sufferings, we have no doubt he must 
 
f'JN'IVri.RSITYj 
 
 j-2'^^''^ ' " ■^'^ SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 suffer much, when he looks abroad over the Christian world, and reck- 
 ons up tlie. results of what the most distinguished of our Roman Cath- 
 olic lajmen, in a lecture to the Roman Catholics of a midland town, 
 recently and justly called the longest and most disastrous Pontificate 
 on record. But the sufferings mentioned incessantly in this book are 
 the sufferings pretended to be inflicted by the Italian kingdom upon 
 the so-called Prisoner of the Vatican. Let us see how, and with what 
 daring misuse of Holy Scripture, they are illustrated in the authorized 
 work before us. 'He and his august consort,' says Don Pasquale, 
 speaking of the Count and Countess de Chambord, ' were profoundly 
 moved at such great afflictions which the ZajJih of the Vatican {VAg- 
 nello del Vaticano, ii. 545) has to endure.' 
 
 On the 23d' of March, 1873 (ii. 291), the Pope draws a picture of tlie 
 Apostles repairing to our Lord, and desired by Him to take their rest 
 around Him. He proceeds : 
 
 ' Even now there is a parallel to this ; when from different parts of the Catholic world the 
 l)ishops and missionaries repair to Rome that they may give account of their missions to the 
 present most unworthy Vicar of Jesus Christ, and find within the narrow limits of the Vatican 
 an interval of rest from their labors.' 
 
 On the 3d of July, 1871 (i. 131), the Pope reminds his ex-eraployes 
 of the solemn words used by St. Thomas when he proposed to accom- 
 pany his Master to death : ' Let us also go, that we may die with him ' 
 (John xi. 16). 'You,' he says, 'are they who this morning resemble 
 those faithful followers of Jesus Christ, in your visit to the foot of the 
 Pontifical throne.' On the 5th of August, 1871, he is visited by l;he 
 Figlie di Maria, and again he compares their visit to the act of tlie 
 Blessed Virgin and her companions, who stood by the Cross of Christ 
 (ii. 212). He adds: 'It is not, however, true that on my Calvary I 
 suffer the pains which Jesus Christ suffered on his ; and only in a cer- 
 tain sense can it be said that in me there is renewed in figure all tliat 
 was in fact accomplished on the divine person of the Redeemer.' 
 Even so he quotes the inexpressibly solenm words of our Lord at tlie 
 moment of his capture (John xviii. 9) : ' I am the Yicar of Jesus Christ, 
 and I have the right to employ the very words of Jesus Christ. My 
 Father, those whom thou hast given me I will not lose {quos dedisti 
 mihi, non jperdarri)^ ^ 
 
 'It is strange to observe that the words quoted by the Pope do not correspond with the 
 Vulgate (ed. Frankfort, 1826, with the approbation of Leo XII.), either in John xviii. 9, where 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 13 
 
 It is futile to attempt a defense of language such as this by alleging 
 that, according to the beautiful observation of St. Augustine, Christ is 
 relieved in his poor, and that, according to the yet loftier teaching of 
 St. Paul, the measure of his sufferings is filled up in his saints. Where 
 St. Paul withheld his foot, Pius IX. does not fear to tread. Where 
 St. Paul gave the catalogue of his sufferings, no less truthful than ter- 
 rible (2 Cor. xi. 23-27), he did not call them his Calvar}^, as the Pope 
 calls his voluntary sojourn within the walls of a noble palace which is 
 open to all the w^orld, and which he can inhabit, leave, re-enter, when 
 and as he pleases. When he recorded the good deeds of Priscilla and 
 Aquila, w^ho for his life had exposed their own (Rom. xvi. 3), he did 
 not compare even these noble sacrifices with the ministries rendered in 
 the Gospels, by her whom the Pope teaches us to deem the holiest of 
 w^omen, to the Son of God himself. Ilis sublimity is ever as simple, 
 natural, and healthy as tlie daring and stilted phrases of the modern 
 Vatican are the reverse. 
 
 If the Pope sees in his own official character such high personal 
 titles and such nearness to Christ, it can be no w^onder that he should 
 raise those titles which are official to an extraordinary altitude. He 
 does not, indeed, quite emultite in all points the astounding language 
 of Don Pasquale, who always goes mad in w^hite linen when the Pope 
 goes mad in w^hite satin.' Yet he says (ii. 265), ' Keep, my Jesus, 
 through the instrumentality of the successors of the Apostles through 
 the instrumentality of the clergy, this flock, that God has given to you 
 and to tne? 
 
 E"o wonder, then, as he is thus partner with Christ in a separate and 
 transcendent sense, that he should give us as a rule for our Italian pol- 
 itics. Whoever is for me, is for God (Chi e con me, h con Dio). It may 
 be thought that this is the assumption which all Christian men should 
 make. Put that is not his opinion. When similar manifestations of 
 
 it reads quos> dedisti jnihi, non perdidi ex eis quemquam, or in John xvii. 1 2, Avhere the words 
 are quos dedisti viihi, custodivi. 
 
 ^ In speaking of the probable condition of Ratazzi in the other world (ii. 342), the Pope 
 says he knows not what his fiite may be, and is satisfied with calling him qiiesto infelice. Don 
 Pasquale, on the other hand (p. 3-18), says that the Pope being the Supreme Judge in the 
 Church, Avas thereby entitled to ]n-onounce a sentence far more definite and terrific on the 
 unhappy sectarian, but was pleased to hide his judgment under the inscrutable veil of the 
 judgments of God. 
 
14 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 piety are hazarded on behalf of the Italian Government, mildly to con- 
 secrate their cause, which is after all the cause of a great nation, he 
 executes summary justice (ii. 317) upon such pretenses. ' Somebody 
 has had the boldness to write, " God is not on the side of the Pope, but 
 on the side of Italy." This assertion, somewhat impudent, is contrarj^ 
 to tlie facts. And first of all I shall say that, if Italy is w4th God, 
 then assuredly she is with his Yicar.' It is all of a piece. Xothiug 
 but the superhuman is good enough for the Pope ; and in the next 
 edition of the Eoman religion probably even this will not do. We 
 have already shown where Don Pasquale, an accomplished professor 
 of flunkeyism in things spiritual, calls the Pope outright by the term 
 ' inspired.' Again, in presenting his volumes to Count de Chambord 
 (ii. 547), he has it thus : 
 
 * Nel gran volume, ove il Divin fecondo 
 Spirto, parlando Pio, suo verbo detta.' 
 
 I^or can it be said that the Pope himself, here at least, falls short of 
 his obsequious editor, when we observe the view he takes of his own 
 authority as matched with that of an inspired prophet ; even of him 
 whom God ' seiit unto David' (i. 364), and who professed to tell out to 
 the King the very words which the Lord had given him (2 Sam. vii. 
 1-14). To the parishioners of two Eoman parishes, he as ' their Sov- 
 ereign,' explains the misconduct and false position, not of Italy only, 
 but of the governments generally : he coolly, after his manner, appro- 
 priates to himself the w^ords of our Lord, ' He that is not with me, is 
 against me ;' and then, apparently under some strange paroxysm of 
 excitement, he proceeds (i. 365) : 
 
 ' You have, then, my beloved children, the few words which I desired to say to yon. But 
 I go farther. My wish is that all governments should know that I am speaking in this 
 strain. I wish that they should know it, inasmuch as I do it for their good. And I have 
 the right to speak, even viore than Nathan the prophet to David the King (anche piu che 
 Natan prof eta al Re Davide), and a great deal more than Ambrose had to Theodosius.' 
 
 The comparison with St. Ambrose, and his memorable and noble 
 proceedings, is pragmatical enough ; but it is entirely eclipsed by the 
 monstrous declaration by the Pope of his superiority to an inspired 
 teacher. We spoke some pages back of sighs or shrugs as the signs of 
 emotion which the Papal utterances, reported in the public journals, 
 have from time to time suo^orested. But if Christendom still believes 
 in Christianity, this audacity, of which Exeter Hall will indeed exult 
 
SrEECIIES OF POPE PIUS IX. 15 
 
 to hear, is far beyond either sighs or shrugs : it more fitly may 
 cause a shudder. 
 
 This daring assumption, however, is not an accident or a caprice ; it 
 is, as it were, a normal result of the Pope's habitual and morbid self- 
 contemplation, of monstrous flattery perpetually administered, and, yet 
 more, of, that ecclesiastical system which is gradually (and, we must 
 hope, without any distinct consciousness) raising the personal glorifica- 
 tion of the Pope towards the region of a Divine worship, due from 
 men to one who, in these volumes, is not only the oflnicial Vicar, but 
 also, in some undefined way, the personal Pepresentative of God on 
 earth (see <?. g. i. 4.-30 ; ii. 165). Not only is his person sacred generally, 
 but we have the sacred hand (i. 297), and the sacred foot (ii. 56, 192, 
 357) — nay, even the most sacred foot (ii. 330). Well may Dr. Elvenich' 
 say there seems to be meditated a Pope-worship (Papstcult), to stand 
 beside the God-worship. Of the things we are bringing to view, many 
 are so strange that they can hardly at once be believed. In this in- 
 stance, as in others, the true passes beyond the ordinary limits of the 
 credible. 
 
 A subordinate part of this syistem is to be found in the curious co- 
 quetry which the work exhibits to the world with reference to the as- 
 sumption of the title ' Pius the Great.' In dispersed places of the 
 volumes it is applied — as well it may be to a Pope who is termed in 
 them himself a prodigy and a miracle. These precedents, carefully 
 gathered, may hereafter form an important element in some catena 
 demonstrative of a general consensus of mankind. But, moreover, it 
 seems that the Marchese Cavaletti, a leading Pajpalino, made known 
 to the Pope that good Catholics (a phrase which here means flaming 
 Ultramontanes) desired to pay him two new honors. One of them was 
 to adjoin to his name the title of II Grande (ii. 4S4-S7). We may, 
 perhaps, refer to another scene, acted 1800 years ago, not far from the 
 Vatican, and recorded by Shakespeare : 
 
 ^Casca. There was a crown offered him: and being offered him, he put it by with the 
 back of his hand, thus ; and then the people fell a shouting. ... 
 
 ^Brutus. Was the crown offered him thrice ? 
 
 ' Casra. AyOy marry, was't; and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than other.' — 
 Julius Casar, i. 2. * 
 
 So the Pope gives three reasons, as they may be called, for declin- 
 
 ^ JJer uvfehlbare Papst, Breslau, 1874-5. 
 
1(5 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 ing, or rather for not accepting; ^ every reason gentler than other.' 
 The first is that our Saviour when called ' Good Master,' replied ' that 
 God alone is good.' The second, that ^ God is great and worthy to be 
 praised.' The third admits that three truly great Pontiffs did receive 
 this title, but only when they were dead and gone, and when the judg- 
 ments of men ^vere therefore more calm and clear. Hather a broad 
 Lint for the proper time when it arrives. • 
 
 But it is time to turn, with whatever reluctance, to the truculent 
 and wrathful aspect, which unhappily prevails over every other in 
 these Discourses. 
 
 In order, however, fully to appreciate this portion of the case, it is 
 necessary to bear in mind that the cadres, or at least the skeletons and 
 relics, of the old Papal Government over the Eoman States are elabo- 
 rately and carefully maintained;' and it appears to be one of the 
 main purposes of the ' alms ' collected from the members of the Papal 
 Church all over the w^orld, as doubtless they are aware, to feed ex-cus- 
 tom-house officers, ex-postmasters, and ex-policemen. All these in their 
 turn, and the representatives of several other departments, have from 
 time to time been received by the Pope in solemn deputation, and reap 
 their full share of compliment, if not as martyrs, yet as confessors of 
 the Church. The police, indeed, who in Italy have had but an un- 
 savory reputation, and in Rome were notoriously the scum of the 
 earth, have, notwithstanding, been deemed worthy to lead the van (i. 
 46) on the 20th of January, 1871. The ex-functionaries of the Post- 
 Ofiice follow on February 5 (p. 50), and are gravely assured by his 
 Holiness that the Catholic public are every where in fond admiration 
 of the conduct of the ex-employes, ^nd that their noble conduct echoes 
 through every portion of the world ! With a force of imagination 
 such as this, it never can be difficult to make a case into what one 
 wishes it to be. The Eegister-Office follows, with the Stamp Depart- 
 ment, and alas ! the Lottery, on the 9th of March (p. 71) ; and a very 
 conspicuous place is given to the repeated military deputations (i. 09, 
 :67, 99). 
 
 ^ We ^ave seen it stated from a good quarter that no less than three thousand pei-sons, 
 formerly in the Papal employ, now receive some pension or pittance from the Vatican. 
 Doubtless they are expected to be forthcoming on all occasions of great deputations, as they 
 may be wanted, like the supers and dummies at the theatres. 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 17 
 
 We must carefully bear in mind that none of these appear at the 
 Vatican as friends, as co-religionists, as receivers of the Pontiff's alms, 
 or in any character which could be of doubtful interpretation. They 
 appear as being actually and at the moment his subjects, and his mili- 
 tary and civil servants respectively, although only in disponihilitd, or 
 (so to speak) on furlough; they are headed by the proper leading func- 
 tionaries, and the Pope receives them as persons come for the purpose 
 of doing homage to their Sovereign (pp. SS, 865). Thickly set among 
 all these appear the deputations of the Poman aristocracy. True, its 
 roll is not complete ; for by far the most distinguished member of the 
 body, the able, venerable, and highly cultivated Duke of Sirmoneta, is 
 a loyal subject of the Italian Kingdom. As to the residue (so to call 
 them), they are those of whom Edmund About sarcastically said, He- 
 las! lesjpauvres gens! Us n^07itjpas meme de vices! They constitute, 
 however, a mainstay of the Papal hope. It w^as to them he announced 
 (i. 147-8) that Aristocracy and Clergy were the true props of thrones, 
 that plebeian support was naught, and that Jesus Christ loved the aris- 
 tocracy, and belonged to it — in a somewhat wide construction of the 
 word it must be owned. 
 
 But, if we are to accept the statements of this approved Reporter, 
 the popular gatherings were frequent, and not more frequent than re- 
 markable, in the halls of the Vatican. One or two parishes would 
 yield deputations said to consist of 1000 or 1500 persons. Put the 
 numbers assembled often, as we shall see, went far beyond this mark. 
 Great masses of persons were, and, we presume, still are encouraged to 
 congregate in the Vatican for the purpose of presenting most seditious 
 and rebellious Addresses, and of hearing highly sympathetic Peplies. 
 
 We should have supposed it impossible that the language of treason 
 against Italy could go bej^ond the license of these volumes. In a few 
 cases, however, our editor informs us that it has been thought right, 
 once under the direct order of the highest personage concerned, to 
 keep back from the press some portion of the language used (ii. 299). 
 What has been published is certainly flagrant up to the highest degree 
 of flagrancy yet known in the annals of the Popedom or the world ; 
 though it may be reserved for Pius IX. in this point, as in others, to 
 surpass his predecessors, as they have surpassed the rest of. men. The 
 Discourses generally, and all the daring defiances of law which, with 
 
 B 
 
18 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 the Addresses, they contain, are ordinarily reproduced in the Osserva- 
 tore Bomano ; and words spoken in the air, or taken from private 
 manuscripts, are thus at once converted into the grossest offenses against 
 public order that a press can commit/ 
 
 And all this is borne and allowed by the tyrannical Italian Govern- 
 ment, which keeps the Pope a ' prisoner,' and under which, as the Pope 
 declares, ^ for good men and for Catholics liberty does not exist' {qiiesta 
 libertdjjper gli uomini onesti e jpei Cattolicl non esiste, ii. 25). 
 
 We have already glanced at the nature of the audiences to which, are 
 addressed the speeches we are now about to describe, as far as samples 
 can describe them. We turn to the speeches themselves. ' What bold- 
 ness,' says 'the Prince Consort, speaking of the King of Prussia in 1847,^ 
 ' in a king to speak extempore !' With his sagacious mind, had he seen 
 what a Pope could do, he would have been tempted to double or treble 
 his notes of admiration. 
 
 It is hardly possible to convey to the mind of the reader an adequate 
 idea of the wealth of vituperative power possessed by this really pious 
 Pontiff. But it is certainly expended with that liberality which is so 
 strictly enjoined by the Gospel upon all the rich. The Italian Govern- 
 ment and its followers, variously in their various colors, are wolves ; 
 perfidious (ii. 83); Pharisees (i. 254, 380) ; Philistines (ii.322); thieves 
 (ii. 34, 65) ; revolutionists (i. 365, and j9«55^*m) ; Jacobins (ii. 150, 190) ; 
 sectarians (i. 334); liars (i. 365; ii.l56); hypocrites (i. 341 ; ii.l79); drop- 
 sical (ii. ^%) ; impious {passim) ; children of Satan (ii. 263) ; of perdi- 
 tion, of sin (i. 375), and corruption (i. 342) ; enemies of God (i. 283, 332, 
 380) ; satellites of Satan in human flesh (ii. 326) ; monsters of hell, de- 
 mons incarnate (i. 215, 332; ii. 404); stinking corpses (ii. 47); men is- 
 sued from the pits of hell (i. 104, 176-— these are the conductors of the 
 national press) ; traitor (i. 198) ; Judas (ihid) ; led by the spirit of hell 
 
 ^ It is also to be observed that we know from other sources of at least one deputation to the 
 Pope which has been omitted by Don Pasquale from the record. See the Keport of the 
 Council of the League of St. Sebastian for 1872, read at General Meeting, January 20, 1873, 
 p. 5: 'On June 21 a deputation from the League had the honor of an audience with the 
 Sovereign Pontiff, and presented an address of congratulation and sympathy. The deputa- 
 tion was introduced by the Hon. and Right Rev. Monsignore Stonor, and was composed of 
 Count de la Poer, M.P., Captain Coppinger, Mr. Winchester, and Mr. Vansittart. On this 
 occasion, as on the last, the Holy Father bestowed his blessing on the League and all con- 
 nected with it.' 
 
 ' Life of the Prince Consort, i. 407. 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 10 
 
 (i. 311) ; teachers of iniquity (i. 340 — these are evangelical ministers in 
 their 'diabolical' halls); hell is unchained against him (ii. 387), even 
 its deepest pits (i. 368 ; ii. 179). Nearly, if not quite, every one of these 
 words is from the Pope's own lips ; and the catalogue is not exhaustive. 
 Yet he invites children, and not children only, but even his old postmen 
 and policemen, to keep a watch over their tongue I {oustodendo genero- 
 samente la lingua^ ii. 125). To call these flowers of speech is too much 
 below the mark — nay, they are of themselves a flower-garden — nay, 
 they are a Flora, fit to stock a continent afresh, if every existing spe- 
 cies should be extinct. It may be thought that other illustrations may 
 seem, after these, but flat and stale ; nevertheless we must resume. 
 What remains will be found worthy of what has preceded. 
 
 After wliat we have shown of the relation which the Pontiff imag- 
 ines to subsist between himself and the person of our Lord, it may 
 seem to be a condescension on his part when he compares himself, 
 or complacently allows himself to be compared, to such characters as 
 David or Tobias or Job. Perhaps these are introduced by way of 
 set-off to the representations of the unfortunate Victor Emmanuel, who 
 in the mouth sometimes of the Pope, and sometimes of those who ad- 
 dress his delighted ear, is Ilolofernes, as in ii. 143, or Absalom (in con- 
 duct, not in attractions), as in ii. 143, or Pilate, Hei'od, Caiaphas (i. 461), 
 or Goliath (ii. 301), or Attila. Put it may be thought our citations 
 thus far have been mere phrases torn from the context; and the 
 height to which the inflammatory style of speech is capable of soaring 
 will be more justly understood if we quote one or two passages. Let 
 us begin with vol. ii. p. 77 : 
 
 ' Woe, then, to him and to them who have been the authors of so great scandal. The soil 
 usurped will be as a volcano, that threatens to devour the usurpers in its flames. The peti- 
 tions of millions of Catholics cry aloud before God, and are echoed by those of the protecting 
 saints who sit near the throne of the Omnipotent himself, and point out to Him the profana- 
 tions, the impieties, the acts of injustice, and make their appeal to God's remedies ; but to 
 those remedies which proceed forth from the treasures of His infinite justice.' 
 
 The Papal thought, shall be allowed to develop itself by degrees. 
 Giving his blessing to a deputation of youths, he desires it may ac- 
 company them through life, and when they yield their souls to God. 
 
 ' The soul, too, will the impious yield ; but will yield it, as Abraham said to the rich Glut- 
 ton' (Did he ? Not in Luke xvi. 2a, 20), ' to pass into an eternity of suffering, amid the din 
 of the blasphemies of the devils who bear that soul to hell ' (i. 4-'30). 
 
 But who, it may be asked, are these ' impious,' whose breath has the 
 
20 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 stencil of a putrid sepulchre ? (i. 341.) The answer is more easy than 
 agreeable. They -are simply the Liberals of Italy. This is the favor- 
 ite word for them, and a phrase almost exclusively indeed appropri- 
 ated to their use. One passage in particular fixes the meaning beyond 
 doubt. The Holy Father says (i. 286): 'In Rome, not only is it at- 
 tempted to diffuse impiety all around, but men even dare to teach 
 heresy, and to spread unbelief.' l!s"ow as impiety proper is the last 
 and worst result of heresy or unbelief, it is strange at first sight to 
 find it placed on a lower grade in the scale of sins. But when we 
 remember that in these volumes it simply means Italian liberalism., the 
 natural order of ideas is perfectly restored. 
 
 To a popular audience, from the parish of San Giovanni de' Fioren- 
 tini, he says (i. 374) : 
 
 ' At the top of the pyramid is One, who depends on a Council that rules him ; the Coun- 
 cil is not its own master, but depends on an Assembly that threatens it. The Assembly is 
 not its own master, for it must render an account to a thousand devils who liave chosen it, 
 and who drive it along the road of iniquity ; and the whole of them together, or at any ]-ate 
 the chief part, are bondmen, are slaves, are children of sin : the Angel of God follows them 
 up, and with bared sword menaces those who pretend to be so much at their ease. The day 
 will come when the destroying Angel will cause to be known the justice of God, and the ef- 
 fect of His mercies.' 
 
 What and for whom His mercies are wdll be seen shortly. To cer- 
 tain Clubs Pius IX. says (ii. 421, his) : 
 
 ' The Cross, appearing in that valley of final judgment, will crush, with the mere view of 
 it, both Deputies and Ministers, and some one else (altri) set higher still ; and all those who 
 have abused the patience of the Eternal. At the sight of that Tree will tremble all the 
 world, and the peoples bowed down to earth will implore the mercy of the divine Redeemer, 
 and will trust in him ; but certain persons, to whom I have alluded, and that are now in 
 power for the ruin of Church and people, will utter cries of despair and trouble, inasmuch as 
 there will be no mercy for them.' 
 
 The door of conversion and return indeed is not yet closed, and fre- 
 quent prayers are offered for them; but the continued support of 
 Liberalism and Italian nationality can only end in the manner of 
 which the Pope has given so telling a description. Thus, for example 
 (i. 224) : ^ _ 
 
 ' Ah ! even upon these I invoke, yet again, the mercy of the Lord, that He may convert 
 them, and they may live ! But I say at the same time, if at all hazards they persist in re- 
 fusing the light of divine grace, well may God at length accomplish that which in His justice 
 He has resolved to do. ' 
 
 A word in summing up this portion of our notice. It was not by 
 words of scorn that Christ began the Sermon on the Mount. It is not 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 21 
 
 by words of scorn that the Pope will revive the flagging and sinking 
 life of Christian belief in Italy, or will put down the spirit of nation- 
 ality now organized and consolidated, or will convert the world. It 
 would be well if he would take to himself the words of a living En- 
 glish poet : 
 
 'For in those days 
 No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn ; 
 But if a man were halt or hunched, in him 
 By those whom God had made full-limbed and tall 
 Scorn was allowed as part of his defect, 
 And he was answered sofily by the King 
 And all his table.' ^ 
 
 As might be expected, the Addresses to the Pope are not tuned to 
 a lower pitch than his Eeplies. There are liardly any among them 
 which do not contain the language, commonly the most burning lan- 
 guage, of treason and of sedition. Manhood, womanhood, childhood, 
 all sing in the same key. Innocence and sedition, as we have already 
 observed, join hands. The little one, who has but just completed a 
 single lustre, announces in the poem she recites (ii. 406) the restol'ation 
 of the Temporal Power over Italy and the whole w^orld : 
 
 *Poco tempo ancora, e Pio 
 Regnera sul mondo intiero.' 
 
 The lips are the lips of infancy, but the tune has the true ring of 
 the Curia. But there are important distinctions to be observed. 
 Even distant observers may appreciate the wisdom with which the 
 Government of Italy leaves to the Pope a perfect freedom to speak 
 his mind on the laws, the throne, and the constituted order of the 
 country. If such freedom exists we can not well expect it to be used 
 in any way but one, though the use certainly might have well been 
 restrained to less frequent occasions and a more civilized range of 
 language. However, let this pass ; and let every allowance be made 
 for Papal partisans among those once his subjects. But what are we 
 to say of the sense of public propriety among foreigners — Englishmen, 
 we regret to say, included in the number — who travel from distant 
 countries, and abuse the immunity thus accorded to offer public and 
 gross insult to the Italian Government, under whose protection and 
 liospitality they are living ? Perhaps the most inordinate example of 
 
 ' Tennyson's Guinevere. 
 
22 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 this very indecent abuse is in tlie ^ most noble Catholic deputation of 
 all nations,' which made its appearance in the Vatican on the 7tli of 
 March, 1873, and which was headed by Prince Alfred Lichtenstein 
 (ii. 257). In their address tliey denounce 'the most ignoble violation 
 of the law of nations' by the Italian Government, their 'execrable 
 crime,' their 'hypocritical assurances,' and so forth. Not content even 
 with this outrage, they proceed to denounce, of their own authority, all 
 ideas of compromise or adjustment, for which the Government of 
 Italy had always been seeking. 
 
 ' With the enemies that rage against you, Holy Father, and against the religious orders, 
 no reconciliation is possible. War, waged by such enemies, is not terrible : the only thing 
 to be dreaded in this case is peace. [Bravo! bravo! bravo!] No doubt they would be 
 right glad to conclude with you a perfidious compromise; they ardently desire it.' 
 
 And then with incomparable taste on the. part of such Englishmen 
 as were present towards the King of Italy, the Ally of Her Majest}^, 
 ' Iso, no ; Peter, alive in your person, will be ever admirable in his 
 heroic resolution against Herod' (ii. 257-9). 
 
 After more slang of the same kind — from persons acting thus en- 
 tirely beyond their right, this language deserves no better name — and 
 a glowing eulogy on the Syllabus and the Encyclical, the addressers 
 give place to the addressed, who assures them that all they have, said 
 is true, though some of it severe {ibid. 261). Have any of these gen- 
 tlemen, princes and others, considered what sort of protection their 
 own Governments would be able to afford them if the Italian Gov- 
 ernment should think fit to take proceedings against them, or to expel 
 them summarily, and rather ignominiously, from its territory, as ene- 
 mies of the public peace ? 
 
 It is now time to examine by such lights as we possess what is real- 
 ly the actual state of things in Pome, which furnishes the occasion for 
 the violent and almost furious denunciations of the Pope; and to in- 
 quire also what w^ould be the state of things which he desires to have 
 established in its stead. 
 
 The condition in which he thinks himself to be is that he is a pris- 
 oner in the Vatican ; while outside its walls are ruin, oppression, rev- 
 olution, confusion, and unrestrained blasphemy and profligacy. And 
 what he desires is simply the restoration of freedom and of peace. It 
 will not be at all difficult to perceive what the Pope signifies by free- 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. . 23 
 
 dom and peace, or by what means they are to be attained ; but first a 
 word on the actual condition of Eome. It never had the name, undei- 
 the Popes, of a very well-ordered city. The Pontiff, however, speaks 
 of it as having been under his dominion holy ; whereas now it is a sink 
 of corruption, and devils w^alk through the streets of it. Now, except 
 upon this authority of. one who knows nothing except at second-hand, 
 notliing except as he is prompted by the blindest partisans, it seems 
 totally impossible to discover any evidence that Kome of 1874 is wo^se 
 than Rome before the occupation, or worse than other large European 
 cities. And this really is a question, not of dogmatism or of declama- 
 tion, but of testimony; and not of the testimony of prejudiced asser- 
 tion, but of facts and figures. To this test the condition of every city 
 can be brought, with more or less of approach to precision ; except, 
 indeed, under a system like that of the Papal Government, when the 
 press was enslaved, and \he stint of public information was such that 
 even a copy of the Tariff of Customs Duties was not to be had in 
 Rome (as happens to be within our knowledge) for love or money. 
 Now these odious charges that a peculiar immorality and utter disor- 
 der prevail in Rome are launched by the Pope with such vagueness 
 that if they came from a less exalted personage they would at once be 
 called scurrilous and scandalous, and it would be said, here is a com- 
 mon railer who, having no basis of fact for his statements, takes refuge 
 in those cloudy generalities, under color of which fact and figment are 
 indistinguishable from each other. After taking some pains to make 
 inquiry from impartial sources, we are able to state that the police of 
 the national Rome is superior to that of Papal Rome, that order is well 
 maintained, crime energetically dealt with. . 
 
 It is known that at the time of the forcible occupation in 1870 a 
 number of bad characters streamed into the city; but by energetic 
 action on the part of the Government, ill -supported we fear by the 
 clergy, they were, by degixjes, got rid of, and soon ceased to form a 
 noticeable feature in the condition of the place. For ostensible mo- 
 rality the streets will conipare fa\'orably with the Boulevards of Paris, 
 and for security they may generally challenge the thoroughfares of 
 London. We cite a few words from a very recent and dispassionate 
 account : 
 
 ' The police of Rome is far better than the old Papal police ; order is better kept, and out- 
 
24 
 
 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 rages in the streets are of rare occurrence. Crime is promptly repressed. . . . Tlie theatres 
 are not much frequented, and are neither worse nor better than such places elsewhere. The 
 city is clean and well kept. There are not half the number of priests or friars in the streets, 
 and mendicancy is not a tenth part of what it was formerly.' 
 
 We are entitled, indeed, to waive entering upon any rnore minute 
 particulars until the charges liave been lodged, with some decent at- 
 tention to presumptions of credibility. But it has been our care to ob- 
 tain from Rome itself some figures, on which reliance may be placed. 
 They indicate the comparative state of Roman crime in the two last 
 full years of the Papal rule (1868, 1869), and the three full years (1871, 
 1872, 1873) of the Italian rule : 
 
 
 1868. 
 
 1869. 
 
 1871. 
 
 1872. 
 
 1873. 
 
 Highway robberies 
 
 236 
 802 
 938. 
 
 123 
 714 
 
 886 
 
 103 
 
 785 
 i)72 
 
 85 
 859 
 861 
 
 26 
 698 
 603 
 
 Thefts 
 
 Crimes of violence 
 
 Total. 
 
 1976 
 
 1723 
 
 1860 
 
 1805 
 
 1327 
 
 
 
 
 In 1870, which was a mixed year, and does not assist the compari- 
 son, and which was also a year of crisis, the total was 2118, and the 
 crimes of violence (rectti di sangiie) were no less than 1175. It will 
 be observed that these figures confute the statements of the Pope. 
 The two first of the Italian years were affected by the cause to which 
 we have referred ; but still their average is lower than that of the two 
 last years in which Rome was still the ' holy ' city, and in which devils 
 did not walk the streets of it. The average of the three years is 1665, 
 against 1723 in the last Papal year. The year 1873, in which alone we 
 may consider that the special cause of disturbance had ceased to oper- 
 ate, shows a reduction of 391, or more than 22 per cent., on the last 
 year of the Pope. Yet more remarkable is the comparison if we sti'ike 
 out the category of thefts, the least serious of the three in kind. We 
 then obtain the following figures : For the last Papal year, 1869, 1009 ; 
 for 1873, 634 ; or a diminution of nearly 40 per cent. 
 
 But while the accusations are thus shown to be utterly at variance 
 with the facts, still they are intelligible. The cursing vocabulary, so to 
 call it, which has been given, exhibits their character, tliough in a wild 
 and wholly reckless manner. Where the passion shown is rather less 
 overbearing, there is more of the daylight of ideas. And the idea 
 every where conveyed is briefly this — that a state of violence prevails. 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 25 
 
 There is no liberty for honest men or for Catholics (ii. 25) : matters go 
 from bad to worse. What is wanted is that God should liberate his 
 Church, give her the triumph (this is the favorite phrase) whicli is her 
 due, and re-establish public order (i. 44) ; it is to escape from this state 
 of violence and oppression, which, in simple truth {davvero),m insup- 
 portable and impossible for human nature (ii. 54). As for the Pope 
 himself, who does not know, so far as Ultramontane organs all over the 
 world can convey knowledge, that he is a prisoner ? Although, it myst 
 be confessed, that a new sense of the word has had to be invented to 
 serve his turn ; for, as he himself has explained, his prison is a prison 
 with only moral walls and bars, since he admits there are neither locks 
 nor keepers (i. 298). How, with his sense of humor — how, in making 
 these statements, must he inwardly have smiled the smile of the Harus- 
 pex at the gross credulity of his hearers ! He can not go out ; and he 
 will not (i. 75). He would be insulted in the streets (i. 298) ; and here, 
 fortunately, he has a case in point to adduce, for once upon a day it 
 happened that a priest, had actually been pelted ; and somewhere else 
 (i. 467) it appears that an urchin or two had been heard to shout ' 7norte 
 ai jpreti ' — down with the priests : though in no instance does he show 
 that, even if a stone were thrown, the public authority had refused or 
 tampered with its duty to afford protection to layman and priest alike. 
 However, as we have seen, the Pope's allegations of oppression and 
 violence are in terms very grave. But his own lips and his own vol- 
 umes unconsciously supply the confutation ; and this in two ways : for, 
 lirst, it is clear, if we accept the statements of this curious and daring 
 work, that the people of Rome are almost wholly on his side against the 
 Government, not on the side of the Government and the nation against 
 liim. A careful computation of the editor (ii. 187) reckons, certainly to 
 the full satisfaction of all Ultramontane readers, that seventy-one thou- 
 sand of the inliabitants of Rome (in a city of some two hundred thou- 
 sand, old and young, men and women, all told) have given their names 
 to addresses against the suppression of the religious ordere (ii. 187) — a 
 certain sign of Papalism. But there is yet more conclusive evidence. 
 On January 16, 1873, the whole College of the Parish Priests of Rome 
 presented an address, in which they state that, notwithstanding the in- 
 fluence of intruded foreigners, almost the whole of their former parish- 
 ioners {nella quasi totalitd), whom they know by name, still keep the 
 
26 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 right faith, send their children to the right schools, and remain, subject 
 to but few exceptions, ' with the Pope, and for the Pope.' * I thank 
 Thee, my God, for the spirit that Thou imparteSt to this excellent peo- 
 ple : I thank Thee for the constancy that Thou givest to the peo2)le of 
 Kome' (i. 352, also 229). And yet an urchin, or perhaps two, or even 
 three, cry ' morte ai preti,^ and the Pope dare not go out of the Vati- 
 can, although he has seventy-one thousand Eomans declared by their 
 sio^natures, and 'almost the entire body of parishioners,' except the 
 new-come foreigners, for his fast allies and loyal defenders! It is 
 really idle to talk of dark ages. There never was, until the nineteenth 
 century and the Council of the Vatican, an age so deeply plunged in 
 darkness wortliy of Erebus and Styx, as could alone render it a safe 
 enterprise to palm statements like these on tlie credulity even of the 
 most blear-eyed partisanship. 
 
 But then, it may be said, in vain are the people with the Pope; 
 a tyrannical Government, supported by hordes of sbirri and a brutal 
 soldiery, represses the manifestations of their loyalty by intimidation. 
 But this allegation is cut to pieces, and if possible rendered even more 
 preposterous than the other, by the evidence of the volumes themselves. 
 One exception there appears to have been to the good order of Rome : 
 one single form, in which a kind of anarchy certainly has been permit- 
 ted. TJiis flagrant exception, however, has been made, not against, but 
 in favor of the Pope. For, strange and almost incredible as it may ap- 
 pear, his partisans are allowed to gather in the face of day, and proceed 
 to the Vatican for the purpose of presenting addresses to the Pontiff 
 kilown to be almost invariably rife with the most flagrant sedition, and 
 this- in numbers not only of a few tens or even hundreds, but even up 
 to 1500, 2000. (i. 242, 258, 353), 2600 (i. 362, 411), 3000 (ii. 92), who 
 shouted all at once, and even (ii. 94) 5000 persons ; and again (i. 43S), 
 a crowd impossible to count. It may be asked with surprise, Has the 
 Pope, then, at any rate a presentable train of five thousand adherents in 
 Pome? Far be it from us to express an implicit belief in each of our 
 friend Don Pasquale's figures^ at the least until they arc afiirmed by a 
 declaration ex cathedra or a Conciliar}^ Decree. But in Pome, where 
 the vast body of secular and regular clergy have held so large a pro- 
 portion of the real, property, where all the public establishments wei-e 
 closely associated ^^ith the clerical interest and class, where even the 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 27 
 
 inimerons functionaries of the civil departments, and where the aris- 
 tocracy, inchiding families of great wealth, have been, and continue to 
 be, of the Papal party, a long train of dependents must necessarily be 
 found on the same side ; and, judging from what we have seen and 
 known, we deem it quite possible that in the entire city a minority of 
 Papalini numberiiig as many as, or even more than, five thousand might 
 be reckoned, though of independent citizens we doubt whether there 
 are five hundred. To these civic adherents would add themselves for- 
 eigners, whose zeal or curiosity may have carried them to Kome for the 
 purpose. We have, indeed, learned from an authoritative source that 
 on June 16, 1871, when there were no less tlian eight Deputations, the 
 Pope received at the Vatican in all about 6200 persons. We find also 
 that the total number of those who waited on him in 1871, on only four- 
 teen separate days (which, however, certainly included all the occasions 
 of crowded gatherings), were estimated carefully at 13,893 ; and in 1872, 
 on the same number of occasions, at 17,477. In the two following years 
 the numbers have been much less, namely, 8295 and 9129 respectively. 
 It is quite plain that large crowds — crowds sufiicient to give ample 
 ground for interference on the score of order to any Government look- 
 ing for or willing to use them — again and again have filled the vast 
 halls of the Vatican, as Don Pasquale assures us. That they went there 
 to stir up or prepare (as far as it depended upon them) war, either im- 
 mediate or eventual, against the Italian Government, is established by 
 every page of these volumes. Going in such numbers, and for such a 
 purpose, it is not disputed that they have gone and returned freely, 
 safely, boastfully, under the protection of the laws they were breaking 
 and of the Government they reviled. 
 
 It may perhaps seem sti-ange that, while the Italian Government is 
 treated as if the Pope were a Power in actual war with it, yet the 
 Curia apparently can stoop to communicate with it for certain purposes, 
 which it will be interesting to observe. We have, for instance, in the 
 Appendix (ii. 419) a letter of the Cardinal Vicar to the Minister Lanza, 
 complaining, as the Pope in his Speeches complains, of the immorality 
 of the lioman theatres. 
 
 It complains also that the clerical orders are not spared in the ex- 
 hibitions of the stage. This is a subject on which the Curia has al- 
 ways been very much in earnest ; and some day it may be necessary to 
 
28 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 bring before the modern public the ahnost incredible, but yet indubita- 
 ble, history of the negotiations and arrangements which were made by 
 the State of Florence with the See of Rome in relation to the 'Decam- 
 eron ' of Boccaccio. But for the present let us take only the point of 
 immorality. The broadest accusations on this subject are lodged by 
 the Cardinal Yicar, without one single point or- particular of places, 
 pieces, persons, or times which would have enabled the Italian Govern- 
 ment to put their justice to the proof. The Minister, in his reply, 
 could not do more than he has actually done. lie declares that the 
 Italian Censorship is remarkable for strictness ; and that in Italy, and 
 particularly in Rome, many pieces are prohibited which are permitted 
 in France and in Belgium. And of this there is no denial. With a 
 thorough shabbiness of spirit, the complaint is neither justified nor re- 
 tracted, but is sent forth to the world with the full knowledge that the 
 good {i huo7ii) will take it as a demonstration that the Italian Govern- 
 ment is wholly indifferent to morals (ii. 419-424:). 
 
 Again, we have a complaint of the non-observance of Sundays and 
 feast-days; but the effort of this kind which most deserves notice is 
 one relating to blasphemy. It appears that the newspaper La Cajpi- 
 tale had been publishing piecemeal a Life of our Lord, WTitten in the 
 Unitarian sense. The Cardinal Yicar represented to the Procurator- 
 General (ii. 520) that this ought to be prosecuted as blasphemous and 
 heretical. It is not stated that he founded himself on the manner of 
 the writer's argument, and therefore it may be presumed that the charge 
 lay against his conclusions only. The Procurator-General replied that 
 the law granted, liberty of religious discussion, and that accordingly he 
 could not interfere. The Advocate Caucino, of Turin — whose Address 
 to the Pope is almost the only one in the whole work that does not con- 
 tain direct incentives to sedition (ii. 313) — gave a professional opinion 
 to a contrary effect. He pointed out that the Roman Catholic religion 
 was by the Constitutional Statute the religion of the State, and that 
 other laws actually in force provided punishments for offenses against 
 religion. Consequently, as he reasoned, these writings are illegal. Over 
 nine hundred of the Italian lawyers have countersigned this opinion. 
 One of his arguments is, to British eyes, somewhat curious. The laws, 
 he says, declare the person of the Pontiff sacred and inviolable. 'But 
 if you take away the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the Pontiff is reduced 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX, 29 
 
 to a nonentity (il Pontefice non ^ piii nidla).^ It is difficult to avoid 
 saying, one wishes that were the only consequence. 
 
 It w^ould, perhaps, be uncharitable to suggest that this well-arranged 
 endeavor was nothing else than a trap carefully laid for the Italian 
 Government. But it certainly would have served the pui-pose of a 
 trap. Had the denial of our Lord's Divinity been repressed b;;^ law, 
 by reason of its contrariety to the religion of the State, tlie next step 
 would of course have been to require the Government to proceed in 
 like manner against any one w^lio denied the Infallibility of the Pope. 
 Under the Vatican Decrees this is as essentially and imperatively a part 
 of the Eoman Creed as is the great. Catholic doctrine of the Divinity 
 of Christ. And the obligation to prohibit the promulgation of the ad- 
 verse opinion would have been exactly the same. Kor is it easy to sup- 
 pose that the Curia was not sharp enough to anticipate this consequence, 
 and prepare the way for it. 
 
 Independently of such a plot, the paltry game of these representations 
 is sufficiently intelhgible. It seeks to place the King's Government in 
 a dilemma. Either they enforce restriction in the supposed interest of 
 religion, or they decline to enforce it. In the first case, they diminish 
 the liberties of tlie people, and provoke discontent ; in the second, they 
 afford fresh proof of ungodliness, and fresh matter of complaint to be 
 turned sedulously to account by the political piety of the Vatican. 
 But let us pass on from this small trickery ; jpaullo majora canamics. 
 
 Considering, on the one hand, the professedly pacific and unworldly 
 character of the successors of the ' Fisherman,' -and on the other the 
 gravity of those moral and social evils which are indeed represented as 
 insupportable (ii. 54), an unbiased reader would expect to find in these 
 pages constant indications of a desire on the part of tlie Pope and 
 Court of Pome to effect, by the surrender of extreme claims, some at 
 least tolerable adjustment. There was a time, within the memory of 
 the last twenty years, when Pius IX. might have become the head of 
 an Italian Federation. When that had passed, there was again a time 
 at which he might have retained, under a European guarantee, the 
 siizerainete, as distinguished from the direct monarchy, of the entire 
 States of the Church. When this, too, had been let slip, and after an- 
 other contraction of the circle of possibilities, it was still probably open 
 to him to retain the siizerainete of the city of Pome itself, with free 
 
i^^^CAUFO^Si^ SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 access to the sea ; it was unquestionably within his clioice, at any period 
 down to 1870, to stipulate for the Leonine City, with a like guaranteed 
 liberty of access, and witli a permanent engagement that Home never 
 should become the seat of government or of Koyal residence, so that 
 there should not be two suns in one firmament. There was, in truth, 
 nothing which the Pope might not have had assured to him, by every 
 warranty that the friendliness of all Europe could command, except 
 the luxury of forcing on the people of the Eoman States a clerical 
 government w^hich they detested. The Pope preferred the game of 
 * double or quits.' And he now beholds and experiences the result. 
 
 Put, notwithstanding what he sees and feels, that game is too fasci- 
 nating to be abandoned. Instead of opening the door to friendly com- 
 promise, this is the very thing for the treatment of which the furnace 
 of his wrath is ever seven times heated. ' Yes, my sons,' he says in a 
 'stupendous' (i. 268) discourse, and himself 'resplendent with a gran- 
 deur more than human' (269), to an ' innumerable multitude of the faith- 
 ful, Eoman and foreign' (266), whom he has already congratulated (283) 
 on their readiness to give all, even their blood, for him — ' Yes, my sons, 
 draw into ever closer union, nor be arrested even for a moment by ly- 
 ing reports of an impossible " reconciliation." It is futile to talk of 
 reconciliation. The Church can never be reconciled with error, and 
 the Pope can not separate himself from the Church. . . . Ko ; no 
 reconciliation can ever be possible between Christ and Eelial, between 
 light and darkness, between truth and falsehood, between justice and 
 the usurpation.' ■ : 
 
 This passage, by no means isolated, is, it must be admitted, rather 
 ' superhuman.' The wrath of the aged Pontiff had, in fact, been stirred 
 in a special way by some abbominevoli hnmagini^ some execrable 
 
 * Even from the heart of the Order of Jesuits there sounds a voice of protestation against 
 the insane policy of the Pope: it is that of Curci, a well-known champion, for many long 
 years, of the Papal cause against Gioberti arid others. We learn from a pamphlet published 
 on the part of the Italian Government, in reply to a violent and loosely written attack by the 
 Bishop of Orleans (on the merits of which, in other respects, we are not in a condition fully 
 to pronounce), that Padre Curci says it is idle to mako a bugbear of conciliation ; that much 
 as he laments the departure of the mediaeval ways (which perhaps he does not quite under- 
 stand), they are gone ; it is idle to suppose the past can be re-established in the Koman 
 States, either by diplomatic mediation, political rearrangement, 'or even foreign intervention.' 
 — Les Rois Ecclesiastiques de V Italic (Paris, 1874), p. 74. It seems, then, that there is at 
 least one way in which a Jesuit can forfeit his title to be heard at Rome, and that is if he 
 speaks good-sense. 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 31 
 
 pictures, wliicli were for him most profane. The editor explains to us 
 what they were. Sucli is the unheard-of audacity of Italian Liberal- 
 ism, and such its hatred and persecution of the Pope, that (ii. 285) a 
 certain Yerzaschi, living in the Corso No. 135, had for several days ex- 
 hibited to public view a picture in which the Pope and the King of 
 Italy were — we tremble as we write — embracing one another ! 
 
 But if the Holy Father is thus decisive on the subject of visible rep- 
 resentations which he conceives to be profane, we should greatly value 
 his judgment, were tliere an opportunity of obtaining it, on another 
 commodity of the same class, an Italian work, sold in Rome, and not a 
 production of the hated Liberals. It is stamped 'Diritto di propriety 
 di Cleofe Ferrari,' with an address in Rome, of which the particulars 
 can not be clearly deciphered, but it is manifestly authentic. 
 
 It is a photograph of 6i by 4J inches, and it represents a double 
 scene — one in the heavens above, one on the earth below. Above, and 
 receding from the foreground, is one of those figures of the Eternal 
 Father which we in England view with repugnance; but that is not 
 the point. On the right hand of that figure stands, towards the fore- 
 ground, the Blessed Virgin JVTary, with the moon under her feet (Rev. 
 xii. 1) ; on the left hand, and also towards the front, is Saint Peter, 
 kneeling on one knee ; but kneeling to the Virgin, not to God. In the 
 scene below we have an elevated pedestal, with a group of figures nearer 
 the eye and filling the foreground. On the pedestal is Pope Pius IX., 
 in a sitting posture, with his hands clasped, his crown, the Triregno, on 
 his head, and a stream of light falling upon him from a dove forming 
 part of the upper combination, and representing of course the Holy 
 Spirit. The Pope's head is not turned towards the figure of the Al- 
 mighty. Round the pedestal are four kneeling figures, apparently 
 representing the four great quarters of the globe, whose corporal adora- 
 tion is visibly directed towards the Pontiff, and not towards the opened 
 heaven. We omit some other details not so easily understood ; and, 
 indeed, the reader will by this time have had a sickening sufliciency 
 of this sort of 'abominable images.' We commend this most profane 
 piece of adulation to the notice of the Cardinal Vicar, as it will supply 
 him with a very valuable topic in his next demand upon the Italian 
 Government to prevent the public exhibition in Rome of what conveys 
 an insult to religion. 
 
32 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 The outburst we have quoted against all reconciliation is, as we have 
 said, not an isolated one. Declarations essentially similar may be 
 found in vol. i. 291 (Dec. 7, 1871), 498 (Letter to Cardinal Antonelli) ; 
 ii. 279 (March 7, 1873, in an address of Bishops, accepted and lauded 
 by the Pope). 
 
 Out of these two hundred and ninety Speeches, about two hundred 
 and eighty seem to be addressed to the great political purpose which is 
 now the main aim of all Papal effort — that of the triumph and libera- 
 tion of the Church in Rome itself, and the re-establishment of peace. 
 
 When the Pope speaks of the liberation of the Church, he means 
 merely this, that it is to set its foot on the neck of every other power ; 
 and when he speaks of peace in Italy, he means the overthrow of the 
 established order — if by a reconversion of Italians to his way of think- 
 ing, well; but^f not, then by tlie old and favorite Poman expedient, 
 the introduction of foreign arms, invading the land to put dowm the 
 national sentiment and to re-establish the temporal government of the 
 clerical order. 
 
 Every where, when he refers to the times which preceded the an- 
 nexations to Sardinia, and the eventual establishment of the Italian 
 Kingdom, he represents them as the happy period of wdiich every good 
 man should desire the return. Even at the moderate suggestions of 
 practical reform which were recommended to Gregory XYI. in the 
 early part of his reign by the Five Great Powers, including the Austria 
 of Metternich, he scoffs; and he appears to think that they brought 
 down upon several of the recommending Sovereigns the judgment due 
 to impiety. 
 
 Thus, on June 21, 1873, he says (ii. 356): /Let ns pray for all; let 
 us pray for Italy, that w^e may see her set free from her enemies, and 
 restored to her former repose and tranquillity.' 
 
 Now there can be no doubt what he means by calm and tranquil- 
 lity. He explains it in a passage when he has occasion to refer to 
 the opening times and scenes of his ill-omened and ill-ordered reign : 
 * Those times were troublous, just as are the present ; but notwithstand- 
 ing they produced, after no long while, an era of tranquillity and 
 quietude ' (ii. 23). 
 
 The troubles, for troubles there were, arose from the efforts of a peo- 
 ple, then without political experience, to right themselves under the un- 
 
SPEECHES OF TOPE PIUS IX. .33 
 
 skillful handling of a ruler, who prompted movements he had no strength 
 to control, and made promises he had no ability to perform. The tran- 
 quillity and quietude were found in the invasion of the State by a 
 French army ; in the siege and capture of the city, which its inhabit- 
 ants and a few Italian sympathizers in vain struggled nnder Garibaldi 
 to defend ; and in an armed occupation which effectually kept down 
 the people for seventeen and a half years; until there came, in 1866, a 
 winter's morning, when at four o'clock the writer of these pages, by 
 help of the struggling gas-lights in the gloom, saw the picked regi- 
 ments of France wheel round the street corners of the queenly city, in 
 their admirable marching trim, on the way to the railway station, and 
 bethought him that in that evacuation there lay the seed of great 
 events. 
 
 To those who have not carefully followed the fortunes of Italy and 
 her rulers, it may seem strange that this last and worst extreme of 
 tyranny, the maintenance of a Government, and that a clerical Govern- 
 ment, by bayonets, and those foreign bayonets, should be spoken of by 
 any man in his five senses, even though that man be a Pope, in any 
 other terms than those of pain and shame, even if it were at the same 
 time, as a supposed necessity, palliated or defended. But the Pope 
 speaks of it wdth a coolness, an exultation (ii. 248), a yearning self- 
 complacent desire, which would deserve no other name but that of a 
 brutal inhumanity, were it not that he simply gives ntterance to the in- 
 veterate tradition of the Roman (Juria^ and the tradition of a political 
 party in Italy, which, as long as it had power, made foreign occupation 
 an every-day occurrence, a standing remedy, a normal state. 
 
 In 1815, the Pope was brought back to Rome by foreign arms. But 
 at that time it was by foreign arms that .he had been kept out of his 
 dominions. Cardinal Pacca, in his Mejnoirs, gives ns to understand 
 that the Pontiff was received by the people with their good will. It 
 may have been so. But unhappily, after the great occasion of this 
 restoration, all the mischief was done. Much of local self-government 
 had existed in the Pontifical ^States before the French Revolution. 
 It was now put down. Of the French institutions and methods the 
 Pope retained only the worst — the spirit of centralization, and a po- 
 lice, kept not to repress crime, but to ferret out and proscribe the 
 spirit of liberty. The high sacerdotal party prevailed over the moderate 
 
 C 
 
34 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 counsels of Gonsalvi. And Farini, in his dispassionate History, gives 
 the following account of the state of things even under Pius YII. : 
 
 ' There was no care for the cultivation of the people, no anxiety for public prosperity. 
 Uome was a cesspool of corruption, of exemptions, and of privileges : a clergy, made up of 
 fools and knaves, in power ; the laity slaves ; the treasury plundered by gangs of tax-farmers 
 and spies ; all the business of government consisted in prying into and punishing the notions, 
 the expectations, and the imprudences of the Liberals.'* 
 
 The result was that, as the ±'ope's native army w^as then worthless 
 and even ridiculous, and his foreign mercenaries insufficient in strength, 
 the country was always either actually or virtually occupied by Aus- 
 trian forces : virtually w^lien not actually, because at those periods 
 when the force had been withdrawn, it was ready, on the first signal 
 of popular movement and Papal distress, to return. So. we pass over 
 the interval until the accession of Pius IX., and until the month of 
 July, 1849. Then the Government of France, acting as we believe 
 without the sanction of the public judgment, and in order to reward 
 for the past and purchase for the future the electoral support of the 
 Ultramontane party, assumed the succession to Austria in the dis- 
 charge of her odious office of repression, and thus left it doubtful to 
 the last wdiether her splendid services to Italy in 1859 were or were 
 not outweighed by the cruel wrong done for so many years in the vio- 
 lent occupation of liome. That offiee has long ago been finally and 
 in good faith renounced by Austria, now the friend of Italy. Let us 
 hope, for the sake of the peace of Europe, tJiat it will never again be 
 assumed by any other Power. It was, hcAvever, only the war of 1870 
 which caused the removal of the French force from Civita Yecchia. 
 That seaport had been re-occupied shortly after the relinquishment of 
 Pome in 1869. In July, 1870, the remonstrances of the Papal Govern- 
 ment were met by a neat and telling reply from France. * The for- 
 tunes of the war will be favorable, or they will be adverse. If the 
 former, we can then protect you better than ever ; if the latter, we 
 must surely have our men to protect ourselves.' 
 
 Sad, then, as it is, and scarcely credible as it may appear, that this 
 great officer of religion, who guides a moiety or thereabouts of Chris- 
 tendom, who 
 
 'Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world,' ^ 
 
 » Farini, Hist, of Home, bk. i. ch. i. ; English translation, vol. i. p. 17. 
 ' Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 35 
 
 is liopelessly implicated in the double error :. firsi;, that he makes the 
 restoration of his temporal power a matter of religions duty and ne- 
 cessity; secondly, that he seeks the accomplishment of that bacrend 
 through the outrage of a foreign intervention against the people of 
 Rome, and through the breaking up of the great Italian Kingdom. 
 
 For, indeed, it is plain enough that the assaults of the Pope^ though 
 especially directed against that portion of Italy which once. formed the 
 States of the Church, are by no means confined to such a narrow range. 
 This approved work describes the Italian Royal Family, at the epoch 
 of the occupation of Rome, as the Principi di Piemonte (i. 58); and 
 the Pope assures a deputation from Naples that in his daily prayer he 
 remembers the city, its people, its pastor, and' its king — meaning the 
 ex-king Francis II. (i. 118). What he prays is that the longed-for peace 
 may be restored to that ' kingdom.' And in order that we may know 
 what this peace is, another speech at a later date tells us he prays the 
 Lord that that unfortunate kingdom may return to be that which it 
 was formerly, namely, a kingdom of peace and prosperity (ii. 338). 
 This is the language in which the Pope: is not ashamed to speak of a 
 Government founded upon the most gross and abominable perjury, 
 cruel and base in all its detail to tlie last degree, and so lost in the 
 estimation of the people, notwithstanding the existence of its powerful 
 army, that Garibaldi was able in a red shirt to traverse the country as 
 a conqueror, enter the capital, and take peaceable possession of the 
 helm of State. 
 
 The kingdoms and states of the world are, in Romish estimation, 
 divided into several classes. Let us put Italy alone in the first and 
 lowest, as a State with which the Pope is undisguisedly at war. Next 
 come the States which pursue a policy adverse to the Ultramontane 
 system; after them, in the upward series, those not very numerous 
 States with whiclx Rome has no quarrels ; ijext those from which it re- 
 ceives active adhesion or support. And at the head of all comes the 
 Pope's own vanished possession, now represented in his imaginary 
 title to the States of the Church. For whereas tlie others rule by a. jus 
 Aumanum, he ruled by a jus divirium ; and what is mere revolt or 
 treason or rapine elsewhere, has in the Roman States the added guilt 
 of sacrilege. And, indeed, as to revolt or rapine, the Pope treats them 
 lightly enough. Nothing can be more curious in this respect than his 
 
30 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 references to Germany. The territory of tlie German Emperor was 
 made up by acquisitions yet more recent than those which set np the 
 Italian Kingdom, such as it existed before the war of 1870; and by a 
 like process of putting down divers Governments which were in the 
 Eoman sense legitimate, and of absorbing their dominions. But the 
 Pope boasts that he had not been at all squeamish on this score (i. 457), 
 for he had announced to Prince Bismarck that tlie * Catholics' had 
 been in favor of the German Empire. When, however, the policy of 
 that Empire, was developed in a sense adverse to the Roman views, 
 very different ideas as to its basis came into vogue; and the Pope's au- 
 thorized editor denounces it as the embodied Paganism of Prussia, 
 boldly predicts its early fall (ii. 135, Comp. Q6\ and, speaking of the 
 meeting of the three great potentates on a recent occasion, calls them 
 the Em'peror of Austria, the Emperor of Russia, and * the new one 
 called of Germany' (^7 nxiovo detto di Germania)) which, by the way, 
 he is not, for his title is, Ave believe, the German Emperor. In truth 
 it seems that the legitimacy of every Government is measured by the 
 single rule of its propensity to favor the policy of Rome. And while 
 other Governments generally are here and there admonished, even 
 when they are guilty of no sin of commission, as to the neglect of 
 their duty to restore the Pope (i. 113), there is one which receives his 
 warmest commendations. It is the 'glorious' Republic of the Equator, 
 which, 'amid the complicity, by silence, of the Powers of Europe,' sent 
 its • poor, feeble bark (we mean its vocal bark, probably it possesses no 
 other) across the Atlantic to proclaim— 
 
 'Auditum admissi risura teneatis, amici?' — 
 
 the principle of the restoration, by foreign arms, of the Papal throne. 
 
 In his desire for the realization of this happy dream, the Pope ap- 
 pears to be wound up -to a sensitive irritability of expectation, and ac- 
 cordingly prophecy is liberally scattered over the pages , of these vol- 
 umes. Sometimes he does not know when it will be ; sometimes it can 
 not be long ; sometimes he sees the very dawning of the happy day. 
 These varying states of view belong, indeed, to the origin of what is 
 called pious opinion, but to believe that the day will come is a matter 
 of duty and faith. 
 
 ' Yes, this change — yes, this triumph, will have to come ; and it is matter of faith (ed e di 
 fede). I know not if it will come in my lifetime, the lifetime of this poor Vicar of Jesus 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 37 
 
 Christ. I know that come it will. The rising again must take plaCe — this great impiety 
 must end ' (ii. 82). 
 
 It is with glee that he inculcates the great duty of prajer, when a 
 hopeful sign comes up on the far horizon : though that sign be no 
 more than some notice given in tlie Chamber of France. On February 
 18, 1872, he says: 
 
 'At the earliest moment, offer prayer and sacrifice to .God for another special object. 
 About this time my affairs are to be the subject of discussion in the National Assembly of a 
 great people ; and there are those who will take my part. Let us, then, pray for this As- 
 sembly.' 
 
 And so forth (i. 352). 
 
 Taken by itself, a passage of this kind might be perfectly w^ell un- 
 derstood as contemplating nothing beyond the limits of a simply diplo- 
 matic and even amicable intervention. But then the question arises, 
 why, if diplomacy be in contemplation, are compromises and adjust- 
 ments so passionately denounced 1 The answer is, that diplomacy is 
 not in contemplation or in desire, but what is now perfectly well known 
 in Europe as 'blood and iron.' No careful reader of this authoritative 
 book can doubt that these are the means by which the great Christian 
 Pastor contemplates and asks— aye,' asks as one w^ho thinks himself en- 
 titled to command — the re-establishment of his power in Rome. There 
 is indeed a passage in which he, addressing his ex-policemen ! depre- 
 cates an armed reaction, and declares the imputation to be a calumny. 
 And so far as the gallantry of those policemen is concerned, according 
 to all that used to be seen or heard of them, he is quite right. The re- 
 action he desires, in this speech, is good education, respect to the Church 
 and the priests. But this is the local reaction, the reaction in piccolo. 
 ' As to what remains, God will do as He w^ills : reactions on the great 
 scale {reazioni in grande) can not be in my hands, but are in His, on 
 whom all depends.' 
 
 He shows, however, elsewhere and habitually, not only a great activ- 
 ity in seconding the designs of Providence in this matter, but a con- 
 siderable disposition to take the initiative, if only he could. In words 
 alone, it is true ; but he has no powder other than of words. Let us 
 hear him address his soldiers, on the 27th of December, 1872 (ii. 141) : 
 
 'You, soldiers of honor, attached by affection to this Holy See, constant in the discharge 
 of your duties, come before me ; but you still come unarmed, thus proving how evil are the 
 times. 
 
38 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 * Oh, were I but able to conform to that voice of God which so many ages back cried to a 
 people, "Turn your spades, turn your plowshares and your plows, turn all your instruments 
 of husbandry into blades and into swords, turn them into weapons of war, for your enemies 
 approach, and for many arms, and many men with arms, will there be need." Would that 
 the blessed God would to-day in us repeat these very inspirations ! But He is' silent ; and I, 
 his Vicar, can not be otherwise— can not employ any means but silence.' 
 
 Here we should certainly, with these volumes of loud speech before 
 us, desire to interpolate a skeptical note of interrogation. lie proceeds, 
 however, to say it is not for him to give authority for the manufacture 
 of weapons ; and that probably the revolution in Italy wall destroy it- 
 self. But if that be his idea, why the ferocious passage about blades 
 and swords which has just been presented to the reader, and the many 
 references to forcible restoration in which he delights ? It is probable 
 that the Pontiff relents occasionally, and gives scope to his better mind; 
 but habitually, and as a rule, he looks forward with eagerness to that 
 restoration by foreign arms in the future, which forms to him, as we 
 have seen, so satisfactory a subject of retrospective contemplation for 
 the period from 1849 to 1866, and again from 1867 to 1870. 
 
 Many may desire to know, in concluding this examination, what are 
 the utterances of the Pontiff with respect to the burning questions of 
 the Vatican Decrees. It must be at Rome that the fashions are set in 
 regard to infallibility, to obedience, and to the question of the relation 
 between the Roman See and the Civil Power; and the work under 
 review is perfectly unequivocal on this class of subjects, though less 
 copious than, in regard to that cardinal object of Papal desire, the res- 
 toration of the Temporal Power. 
 
 In times of comparative moderation, not yet forty-five years back, 
 when Montalembert and Lamennais dutifully repaired to Rome te seek 
 guidance from Gregory XYI., that Pontiff, in repudiating their projects 
 through his Minister, paid them a compliment for asking orders from 
 ' the infallible mouth of the Successor of Peter.' We are often told 
 that the Pope can not be held to speak ex cathedra unless he addresses 
 the whole body of Christians, whereas in this case he addressed only 
 two. Now to the outer world, who try these matters by the ordinary 
 rules of the human understanding, it seems to be a very grave incon- 
 venience that the possessor of an admitted Infallibility should formally 
 declare himself infallible in cases where he is allowed in his own title- 
 deeds to be only fallible like the rest of us. One chief mark, however, 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 39 
 
 of declarations ex cathedra is that they are made to all the Faithful ; 
 and we observe in the title of these Discourses that they are addressed 
 *Ai Fedeli di Boma e deW Orbe. 
 
 In the work of Don Pasquale, the term * infallible' is very fre- 
 quently applied to the Pope by the deputations. A crowd of three 
 thousand persons. shouts Viva il Pontefice Infallibile (i. 372, comp. i. 
 407) ; a lawyer, speaking for a company of lawyers (ii. 313), reveres 
 * the great Pope, the superlatively great King, the infallible master of 
 his faith, the most loving father of his soul;' and the like strain pre- 
 vails elsewhere {e. g. ii. 160, 165, 177, 190, 256) in these Addresses, 
 which are always received with approval. Whether advisedly or not, 
 the Pontiff does not (except once, i. 204) apply the term to himself ; 
 but is in other places content with alleging his superiority (as has been 
 shown above) to an inspired Prophet, and with commending those who 
 come to hear his words as words proceeding from Jesus Christ (i. 335). 
 
 On the matter of Obedience he is perfectly nnequivocal. To the 
 Armenians, who have recently resisted his absorbing in himself th,e 
 'nationalprxvileges of their Church, he explains (ii. 435) that to him, as 
 the Successor of Saint Peter, and to him alone, is comn^itted by Divine 
 right the Pastorate of the entire- Church ; plainly there is no other real 
 successor of the Apostles, for Bishops, he says, have their dioceses, it is 
 true, but only by a title ecclesiastical, not Divine. To limit this power 
 is heresy, and has ever been so. IsTot less plain is his sense of his su- 
 premacy over the powers of the w^orld. His title and place are to be 
 the Supreme Judge of Christendom (i. 204). It is not the office of 
 any Government, but the sublime mission of the Roman Pontificate, to 
 assume the defense of the independence of States (ii. 498) ; and so far 
 from granting to nations and races any power over the Church, God 
 enjoined upon them the duty of believing, and gave them over to be 
 taught 1}y the Apostles (ii. 452). 
 
 Pinally, as respects the Syllabus and its mischievous contents, that 
 document is not only upheld, but upheld as the great or only hope of 
 Christian societ3\ We hear (i. 444) of .the advantage secured by the 
 publication of the Syllabus. The Chair of Peter has been teaching, 
 enlightening, and governing from thfe foundation of the Church down 
 to the Syllabus and the Decrees of the Vatican (ii. 427, his). The two 
 are manifestly placed on a level. And, grieved as is the Pontiff at the 
 
40 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 present perversion of mankind, and especially of the yonng, he is also 
 (convinced that the world must come to embrace the Syllabus, which is 
 the only anchor of its salvation iVimica ancora di salute, i. 58, 69). 
 
 One of the main objects of the Syllabus is to re-establish in the 
 mass all the most extravagant claims which have at any time been 
 lodged by the Church of Rome against the Christian State. Hardly 
 any greater outrage on society, in our judgment, has ever been com- 
 mitted than by Pope Pius IX. in certain declarations (i. 193, and else- 
 where) respecting persons married civilly without the Sacrament. For, 
 in condemning them as guilty of concubinage, he releases them from 
 the reciprocal obligations of man and wife. But of all those which 
 we have described as the burning questions, the most familiar to En- 
 glishmen is, perhaps, that of the Deposing Power; which, half a 
 century ago, we were assured was dead and buried, and long past the 
 possibility of exhumation or revival. It shall now supply us with our 
 last illustration ; for true as it is that, with reference to the possibilities 
 of life and action, it remains the shadow of a shade, yet we have 
 lived into a time when it is deliberately taught by the Ultramontane 
 party generally, and not, so far as we know, disavowed by iiny of 
 them. 
 
 Lord Robert Montagu, who was in the last Parliament the High 
 Church and Tory Member for the orthodox county of Huntingdon, and 
 is in this Parliament transformed into an ardent neophyte and cham- 
 pion of the Papal Church, in a recent Lecture before the Catholic 
 Union of Ireland,^ took occasion, among other extravagances, to set 
 forth with all honor a passage from a Speech of the Pope, delivered 
 on the 21st of July, 1871, in which he justified and explained the doc- 
 trine of the Deposing Power. According to the version he gave of the 
 Italian Discourse, this Power was an ^authority, in accordance with 
 public right, which was then vigorous, and with the acquiescence of all 
 Christian nations.' 
 
 In the Tablet newspaper of November 21 and December 5, 1874, 
 a writer, who signs himself C. S. D., assails Lord Robert Montagu for 
 erroneous translation ; and, with undeniable justice, points out that the 
 words secondo il diritto puhhlico* allora vigente do not mean ' in ac- 
 
 > Dublin : M'Glashan and Gill, 1874, p. 10. 
 
SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 41 
 
 cordance with public right, which was then vigorous/ but *in accord- 
 ance with the public law ' (or right) * then in force.' He also quotes 
 words not quoted by Lord Eobert, to show that the Popes exercised 
 tins power at the call of the Christian nations {chiamati dal voto dei 
 jpojpoli) ; which, as he truly says, gives a very different color to the pas- 
 sage. His citation is, he states, from the Voce delta Verita of 22d July, 
 1871, the day following the Speech, confirmed by the Civiltd Cattolica 
 of August 19. 
 
 Amid these grave discrepancies of high authorities, our readers 
 may desire to know what a still higher authority, the Pope himself, 
 really did say; and we have, happily, the means of informing them 
 from the volumes before us, which contain the ' sole authentic ' report. 
 The Speech was delivered, not on the 21st, but on the 20th of July, and 
 will be found at vol. i. p. 203. We need not trouble the reader with a 
 lengthened citation. The passage, as quoted by Lord Kobert Montagu, 
 wdll be found in Mr. Gladstone's ' Vatican Decrees,' p. 19. The essen- 
 tial point is that, according to C. S. D., the Pope justified the Deposing 
 Power on this specific ground, that they were called to exercise it by 
 the desire, or voice, or demand, of the nations. What will our readers 
 say when we acquaint them that the passage given by C. S. D. in the 
 Tablet is before our eyes as we write, and that the words ' called by 
 the voice of the people' {chiaraata dal voto dei jpojpoli) are not in it? 
 Whether they were spoken or not is another question, which we can not 
 decide. What is material is that from the fixed, deliberate, and only 
 authentic report they have been excluded, and that the Pope himself 
 sustains, and therefore claims, the Deposing Power, not on the ground 
 of any demand of the public opinion of the day, but as attaching to his 
 ofiice. 
 
 And now, in bidding farewell to Don Pasquale, we offer him our 
 best thanks for his t\\;o volumes. Probably this acknowledgment may 
 never meet his eyes. But lest, in the case of its reaching him, it should 
 cause him surprise and self-reproach that he should have extorted praise 
 from England and from Albemarle Street, "sve will give him * the reason 
 w^hy.' We had already and often seen InfalUbility in full-dress, in 
 peacock's plumes ; Infallibility fenced about with well-set lines of the- 
 ological phrases, impenetrable by us, the multitude, the uninitiated. 
 But Don Pasquale has taken us behind the scenes. He has shown us 
 
42 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 Infallibility in tlie closet, Infallibility in deslidbille^ Infallibility able to 
 cut its capers at will, to indulge in its wildest romps with freedom and 
 impunity. . And surely we have now made good the . assurance witli 
 which we began. If ever there was a spectacle, strange beyond all 
 former experience, and charged with many-sided instruction for man- 
 kind, here it is. AYe will conclude by giving our own estimate, in few 
 words, of the central figure and of his situation. 
 
 In other days, the days of the great Pontiffs who formidably compete 
 in historic grandeur with Barbarossa, and even with Charlemagne, the 
 tremendous power which they claimed, and which they often contrived 
 to exercise, was weighted with a not less grave and telling responsi- 
 bility. The bold initiative of Gregories and Alexanders, of Innocents 
 and Bonifaces, hardly indeed could devise bigger and braver words 
 than now issue from the Vatican : 
 
 ' Quae tuto tibi magna volant, dum distinet hostem 
 Agger murorum, nee inundant sanguine fossie.' ^ 
 
 ■ But their decisions and announcements did not operate as now 
 through agencies mainly silent, underground, clandestine ; the agencies, 
 foi' example, of affiliated monastic societies — the agency of the consum- 
 mate scheme of Loyola — the agency, above all, of that baneful- system 
 of universal Direction, which unlocks the door of every household, and 
 inserts an opaque sacerdotal medium between the several members of 
 the family, as well as between the several orders of the State. Their 
 warfare was the warfare of a man with men. It recalls those grand 
 words of King David, * Died Abner as a fool dieth ? Thy liands were 
 not bound nor thy feet put into fetters : as a man falleth before wicked 
 men, so fellest thou ' (2 Sam. iii. 33). When they committed outrage 
 or excess, at least they were liable to suffer for it in a fashion very 
 different from the ' Calvary ' of Pope Pius IX. They had at their 
 very gates the Barons of Pome, who then, at Igast, were barons in- 
 deed; and the tramp of the mailed hosts of tlie Hohenstaufens was 
 ever in their ears. But now, when the Pope knows that his income is 
 secured by a heavy mortgage upon the credulity of millions upon mill- 
 ions, to say nothing of the offers of the Italian Government in reserve, 
 and that his outward conditions of existence are as safe and easy as 
 
 ^ jEndd, xi. 383. 
 
SPEECHES OF POPS: PIUS IX. 43 
 
 those of any well-to-do or luxurious gentleman in Paris or in London, 
 his denunciations, apart from all personal responsibility for conse- 
 quences, lose their dignity in losing much of their manhood and all 
 their danger ; and the thunders of the Vatican, though by no means 
 powerless for mischief with a portion of mankind, yet in the generality 
 can neither inspire apprehension nor command respect. 
 
 Let us revert for" a moment to the month of June, 1846. , 
 
 A provincial Prelate, of a regular and simple life, endowed with de- 
 votional susceptibilities, wholly above the love of money, and with a 
 genial and tender side to his nature, but without any depth of learn- 
 ing, without wide information or experience of the world, without origi- 
 nal and masculine vigor of mind, without political insight, without the 
 stern discipline that chastens human vanity, and without mastery over 
 an inflammable temper, is placed, contrary to the general expectation, 
 on the pinnacle, and it is still a lofty pinnacle, of ecclesiastical power. 
 It is but fair towards him to admit that his predecessors had bequeathed 
 to him a temporal polity as rotten and effete in all its parts as the wide 
 world could show. At the outset of his Pontificate, h^ attempted to 
 turn popular emotion, and the principles of freedom, to account in the 
 interests of Church power. As to ecclesiastical affairs, he dropped at 
 once into the traditions of the Curia. He was and is surrounded by 
 flatterers, who adroitly teach him to speak their words in telling him 
 that he speaks his own, and that they are the most wonderful w^ords 
 ever spoken by man. Having essayed the method of governing by 
 liberal ideas and promises, and having, by a sad incompetency to con- 
 trol the chargers he had harnesserfto his car, become (to say the least) 
 one of the main causes of the European convulsions of 1848, he rushed 
 from the North Pole of politics to the South, and grew to be the parti- 
 san of Legitimacy, the champion of the most corrupt and perjured Sov- 
 ereignties of Italy — that is to say of the whole world. Had he only had 
 the monitions of a free press and of free opinion, valuable to us all, 
 but to Sovereigns absolutely priceless, and the indispensable condition 
 of all their truly useful knowledge, it might have given him a chance ; 
 but these he denounces as impiety and madness. As the age grows on 
 one side enlightened and on another skeptical, he encounters the skepti- 
 cism with denunciation, and the enlightenment with retrogression. As 
 he rises higlier and higher into the regions of transcendental obscurant- 
 
44 SPEECHES OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
 ism, he departs by wider and wider spaces from the living intellect of 
 man; lie loses Province after Province, he quarrels wdtli Government 
 after Government, he generates Schism after Schism ; and the crown- 
 ing achievement of the Vatican Council and its decrees is followed, in 
 the mysterious counsels of Providence, by the passing over, for the first 
 time in history, of his temporal dominions to an orderly and national 
 Italian kingdom, and of a German Imperial Crowii to the head of a 
 Lutheran King, who is the summit and centre of Continental Protest- 
 antism.i 
 
 But w^hat then ? His clergy are more and more ah arm}^, a police, 
 a caste ; farther and farther from the Christian Commons, but nearer 
 to one another, and in closer subservience to him. And they have 
 made him ^The Infallible;' and they have promised he shall be made 
 ' The Great.' And, as if to complete the irony of the situation, the 
 owners, or the heirs, of a handful of English titles, formerly • unre- 
 claimed, are now enrolled upon the list of his most orthodox, most ob- 
 sequious followers ; although the mass of the Britit^h nation repudiat'^s 
 him more eagerly and resolutely than it has done for many genera- 
 tions. 
 
 Such is this great, sad, world-historic picture. Sometimes .it will 
 happen that, in a great emporium of Art, a shrewd buyer, after hear- 
 ing the glowing panegyric of a veteran dealer upon some flaming and 
 pretentious product of the brush, will reply. Yes, no doubt, all very 
 true ; but it is not a good picture to live with. So with regard to that 
 sketch from the halls of the Vatican, which w^e have endeavored faith 
 fully to present, we ask the reader in conclusion, or ask him to ask 
 himself. Is it a good picture to live with? 
 
 ' See the remarkable Ti*act of Franz von Loher, Ueher Deutscldands Weltstellung. Miin- 
 chen, 1874. 
 
 ^ 
 
 THE END. 
 
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