# Petri Privilegium/I

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THE
CENTENARY OF SAINT PETER
AND
THE GENERAL COUNCIL:
A PASTORAL LETTER TO THE CLERGY
&c.
BY
HENRY EDWARD
ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER.
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1867.
CONTENTS.
Moral significance of the Centenary, 4; Five Special Acts, 5; Words of the Sovereign Pontiff on June 17, 1867, 6; Assembling of the Bishops, 9; The Centenary and the Council of Trent, 12; Visitation of the Limina Apostolorum, 15; Petrus in suis successoribus vivit et praesidet et judicium exercet (Concil. Ephes. sess. iii.), 16.
Privilegia Petri, four propositions from Scripture, universal tradition, the Fathers, and Councils, 17; Three classes of evidence for the infallibility of the Church, 21; Infallibility active and passive, 23; Cathedra Petri, 24; The supreme office of teaching and ruling, 27.
Allocution of the Sovereign Pontiff, June 26, 1867, 28; Answer of the Bishops, 30; Their recognition of the Supreme and Plenary office of the successor of St. Peter, 34; Allegations of Protestant critics, 35; the Encyclical of 1864, 37.
Nationalism and Gallicanism, 41; Condemned by Innocent XI. in 1682, and Alexander VIII. in 1691, 47; the Church in France of to-day, 53; The ordinary medium of Divine Faith, 57; Decrees ex Cathedra, 59.
'The order of truth is abiding,' St. Leo., 67; Reasons for convoking the General Council, 69; The Supreme Pontiff and General Councils, 71; The evidence of the first six General Councils, 73.
The Council of Trent, 75; Popular misunderstandings, 77; Two elements of the discipline of the Church, 81; The order of nature and the order of grace, 83.
The Christian society of the world menaced, 85; The wounds of the past, 87; The Protestant Reformation, 89; Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum, 91; The Pope in presence of a hostile world, 103.
Public Documents of the Centenary.
1. Allocution of His Holiness, June 26, 1867, 109. 2. Homily of His Holiness, June 29, 1867, 116. 3. Salutation or address of the Bishops, July 1, 120. 4. Reply of His Holiness, 139.
Reverend and dear Brethren,—
I should not rightly fulfil the office which binds me to you, and to the flock committed to my charge, if I were not to endeavour to make you share, so far as I am able, in the great events which have marked the Eighteenth Centenary of S. Peter's Martyrdom. I need hardly tell you that, next after the feeling of joy which filled my mind, as I looked upon the assembly of more than half the bishops of the world gathered around the throne of the Vicar of our Lord, there was nothing more present to me than the wish that you could have been eye-witnesses, with me, of these great acts of the Church; or, at least, that I might be able to convey to you somewhat of the consolation, confidence, and light which I trust they bestowed on me. This I will endeavour now to do. But at the outset I must disclaim both the intention and the power to set before you any adequate picture of the beauty, majesty, and splendour of those solemnities. I can only say that all was proportionate to the greatest kingdom upon earth, the Holy Catholic Church. Of all that spoke to the eye, therefore, I shall be silent. I could not describe it if ​I would; and I leave it to others who have the gifts of observation, and memory, and delineation required for the task. Some have already written of these great solemnities; others will do so hereafter. I shall confine myself entirely to that which did not meet the eye. I mean the moral significance, and, I may say, the moral beauty, majesty, and splendour of the late events in Rome.
The first thought which arose in my mind was the contrast of the spectacle displayed on the Janiculum eighteen hundred years ago, and the solemnity then before me in S. Peter's. On the day of the martyrdom of the Apostle, the people of Rome hurried with rude and cruel curiosity across the Tiber. A multitude of faces, distorted by hate and passion, surrounded the cross of Peter. There, tradition says, he hung head downwards in shame and agony. The other day, pastors and faithful from all the world came up to his tomb on the same Janiculum, and surrounded in loving veneration the throne of his successor. In this victory of the Cross, and in the perpetuity of the victory, there is the hand of God revealed. No human power could so change the will in man.
Although I feel it impossible to describe the events of those days, nevertheless there are five acts so marked in their character that I may at least enumerate them:
First, was the Procession on the Festival of Corpus Christi, in which the Sacrament of our Lord's Pre​sence was borne in the hands of His Vicar, attended by half the episcopate of the Catholic Church:
Secondly, the Consistory, in which the Sovereign Pontiff announced his intention to convene an Œcumenical Council:
Thirdly, the eighteenth Centenary of S. Peter's Martyrdom, held over the tomb of the Apostle. The splendour and beauty of that solemnity was probably never equalled. It was royal and pontifical in all the fulness of majestic grandeur.
Fourthly, was the Feast of S. Paul in his Basilica out of the walls, where the relics of the Apostle of the Gentiles are enshrined. This Basilica, which for grace and beauty surpasses S. Peter's as much as it is surpassed by S. Peter's for majesty and grandeur, was once under the protection of the kings of England. Since the unhappy schism of our country, no protector has been named. S. Paul's still awaits a happier time.
Lastly, on the following day, the Holy Father gave audience to the bishops, to receive from them the Address or Response, in which they united themselves in heart and mind to their supreme Head. The gravity and moral grandeur of that act we shall endeavour to estimate hereafter. When the address had been read, and when the Holy Father was about to bestow the Apostolical benediction and bid farewell to the bishops, the Angelus of noon sounded. He rose, and began the Angelical Salutation, half the bishops of the world responding. Such a Salutation ​was, perhaps, never before offered to the Mother of God on earth. At Ephesus there were four hundred and thirty bishops, but the Vicar of her Divine Son was not there. So, simply and grandly, ended the Centenary of 1867.
There was, however, one other event over which I cannot pass in silence. The 17th of June was the anniversary of the Pope's creation. After the Mass in the Sistine, the Holy Father went to unvest in the Pauline Chapel. The Cardinal Vicar, in the name of the Sacred College, made the usual address of congratulation, ending with the words that they wished the Holy Father 'health and many years to see the peace and triumph of the Church.' His Holiness immediately answered, in words which, unfortunately, were not taken down; but as nearly as possible they were as follows:—'I accept your good wishes from my heart, but I remit their verification to the hands of God. We are in a moment of great crisis. If we look only to the aspect of human events, there is no hope; but we have a higher confidence. Men are intoxicated with dreams of unity and progress; but neither is possible without justice. Unity and progress based on pride and egotism are illusions. God has laid on me the duty to declare the truths on which Christian Society is based, and to condemn the errors which undermine its foundations. And I have not been silent. In the Encyclical of 1864, and in that which is called the Syllabus, I declared to the world the ​dangers which threaten Society, and I condemned the falsehoods which assail its life. That act I now confirm in your presence, and I set it again before you as the rule of your teaching. To you, Venerable Brethren, as Bishops of the Church, I now appeal to assist me in this conflict with error. On you I rely for support. When the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness, they had a pillar of fire to guide them in the night, and a cloud to shield them from the heat by day. You are the pillar and the cloud to the people of God. By your teaching you must guide the faithful in the darkness; by your example you must shield them from the burning sun of this world. I am aged and alone, praying on the mountain; and you, the Bishops of the Church, are come to hold up my arms. The Church must suffer, but it will conquer. "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, entreat, rebuke with all patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time"—and that time is come—"when they will not endure sound doctrine." The world will contradict you, and turn from you; but be firm and faithful. "For I am even now ready to be sacrificed, and the time of my dissolution is at hand." "I have," I trust, "fought a good fight," and "have kept the faith:" and there is laid up for you, and I hope for me also, "a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just Judge, will render to me at that day."' The power and emotion with which these words were spoken moved every one who heard them.
​There is, perhaps, hardly any Pontiff who has governed the Church with more frequent exercises of supreme authority than Pius the Ninth. The creation of Hierarchies, the definition of the Immaculate Conception, the declarations on the Temporal Power, the condemnations in the Encyclical of 1864, manifest, in a singular degree, the plenitude of his supreme office as the Ruler and Doctor of the Universal Church. Nevertheless there is, perhaps, no Pontiff who has united the whole episcopate so closely to himself, or has called them so often to his side. In 1854 the bishops were invited to assist at the declaration of the dogma, for which the whole Church had so long waited with desire. Two hundred and fifty assembled about his throne in witness of the faith of the Universal Church in the Immaculate Conception of our Blessed Mother; and bore home to their flocks the pious belief of their hearts as an article of faith defined by the Vicar of her Divine Son.
Again, in 1862, when the conflict of the temporal power was at itshighest, Pius the Ninth proclaimed the canonisation of the martyrs of Japan, and invited the bishops once more to Rome. About two hundred bishops obeyed his bidding, and, in words never to be forgotten, united themselves to him in the conflict he had so long sustained for the rights and liberties of the Holy See; which are the rights and liberties of the Universal Church.
And now a third time he has summoned the bishops of the whole world. You will all remember ​when the intention was first made known. It was when the two years of the Convention were expiring; when all human help was departing from him, and men thought the time was come for the downfal of the temporal power. The French armies were to be withdrawn in December 1866. Then it was that the Holy Father invited the bishops of the world to surround him in Rome in June 1867. Men of the world counted it to be madness. While they were prophesying revolution, anarchy, and I know not what, the Holy Father, with calm confidence in God, began to make preparations for celebrating the Centenary of S. Peter's Martyrdom over the tomb of the Apostle. The event has justified his confidence, and taught a lesson both to the world and to ourselves: to us, that we be more courageous, and to the world, that it be less pretentious in its prophecies. It has manifested, with an evidence which no one has dared to deny, the life and the power of the Catholic Church. We had been listening to daily discourses on the decline and fall of the Church as a power among the nations. At the moment when men were exchanging gifts and congratulations, as they believed, over its dead body, the Head of the Church spoke, and the bishops, literally from the four winds of heaven, assembled round him. It was not a command, it was not even an injunction; it was a simple invitation, an expression of his wish. Five hundred bishops, with a multitude of the priesthood and faithful of the Church, came up from north, south, ​east, and west, over land and sea, to the Successor of S. Peter. There were bishops from China, and the far east of Asia; from California, and the far west of America; from the far north of Tartary, and of Canada; from Australia and the islands of the Southern seas. There were present the chief pastors of at least thirty races and nations. No voice but one in all the world could have called together such an assembly—the voice of the successor of Peter, to whom the whole world was committed, of the Vicar of Him to whom 'all power in heaven and on earth is given.'
It is not, then, in the majesty and splendour which meets the eye that the magnitude and grandeur of this event is to be measured. Taken only as a demonstration of moral power, and of the superiority of the moral over the material order of the world, the assembly in Rome at this moment, in the face of all menace of wars and of revolutions, has surely a significance far wider and deeper than any event in our times. More than this: no event, since the last General Council was closed, has manifested so luminously to the intellect, and, I may say, so palpably to the sense, the unity, universality, unanimity, and authority of the only true Church on earth. I am not only bound, but glad, to acknowledge the truthfulness, justice, and candour of those who, though not of the Catholic Church, have written from Rome the description of what they saw. With one or two exceptions, not worthy of notice, their narratives ​have been honourable, manly, and straightforward. Certainly the late events in Rome ought to awaken in any Christian heart a noble and a generous sympathy. They were an exhibition of the Christian Faith and Church in acts of Divine worship, and of charity to all mankind, divested of every accent of controversy. Whosoever believes in Christianity and desires the spread of the kingdom of our Divine Lord upon earth, must have a sympathy in the great assembly of the Church the other day. Even those who are separated from the Catholic and Roman Church recognise it as the great foundation of Christendom. They who reject parts of its doctrine hold the Creed of the Apostles, which it has guarded from the beginning; they who rest their faith upon Councils, Fathers, and Scriptures, know that the custody of all these is ultimately in the Catholic Church. They who repose their Christianity upon the testimony and facts of history, know that the last and highest witness for the Christian revelation, in its succession and even in its origin, is the Catholic and Roman Church. It is impossible, therefore, that they can look without sympathy upon this majestic demonstration of its indefectible life and immutable identity.
It may without exaggeration be said, not only that, since the Council of Trent, no such manifestation of the unity and universality of the Church has been seen, but that the eighteen years of interrupted and lingering toil of that Council in a valley of the ​Tyrol never exhibited at any time such a demonstration of the world-wide organisation and central authority of the Church as these last three weeks in Rome. Trent is not the tomb of the Apostle. Legates presided there: here was the Vicar of our Lord in person. At the Council of Trent, hardly a hundred bishops were present: on the Centenary of S. Peter's Martyrdom, five hundred bishops of the Church surrounded the throne of his successor. But it may be said that the Centenary was but a pageant: the Council of Trent is a power, which for three hundred years has governed the Church. This is most true: nor can three days be compared with three hundred years; nor a Canonisation and a few Allocutions be weighed against eighteen years of supreme authority in defining the faith and legislating for the Church. Let us compare, therefore, this great Pontifical act only with the visible manifestations of Trent; and it will be within the bounds of moderation to say that neither the opening nor the closing of that Council so drew to itself the eyes of the whole world, nor so reflected the unity and universality of the Church, as this Centenary.
But if it would be unreasonable to compare these few days of festival in Rome with eighteen years of legislation in Trent, it would be equally unreasonable, and most superficial, to estimate the moral significance of this Centenary by the ceremonies and solemnities of those three weeks. This event may be taken, I believe, to be the opening of ​a new period, and to contain a future which may reach over centuries: and it is to this I would call your thoughts.
And first, this solemn celebration of the anniversary of S. Peter's Martyrdom has in it a confession of faith, which must exercise a powerful action both upon the Church and the world.
The words of our Divine Master, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,' never yet received a more majestic interpretation. They are blazoned round the dome which hangs above his sanctuary. But the other day, the reality which they prophesy was there. The bishops of the Universal Church assembled round his tomb. There they were, resting upon him as the rock and foundation of their power throughout the world. Fathers, doctors, and Councils have, in all ages, saluted Rome as the Chair of Peter; but here, in honour of his martyrdom and of his successor, five hundred bishops came from the farthest regions of the earth to declare their faith in the Divine centre of the Catholic unity, and their vital adherence to it. The words of antiquity seemed to be impersonated. S. Cyprian's axiom of unity was there visible; 'There is one God, and one Christ, and one Church, and one Chair founded upon the Rock (super Petram) by the voice of the Lord.' 'To manifest unity, He has ordained by His authority that unity should take its rise from one [Apostle].' ​The words of S. Augustin were there before us: Peter 'personated [the Church] because of the primacy he held among the Disciples;' and of S. Optatus, that 'Peter alone received the keys;' and of S. Leo, that our Lord has willed that whatsoever He gave to the Apostles they should possess alone through Peter; and of S. Ambrose, 'where Peter is, there is the Church.' In the midst of this nineteenth century, when faith is waxing faint even in nations once Catholic, and men have been deriding, and foretelling the downfal of the successor of S. Peter, as a relic of mediaeval superstition, and the shadow of an old usurpation, the bishops of the world come together, to reaffirm their faith in the supremacy and prerogatives of the Prince of the Apostles, in the person of his successor; and their absolute adherence and submission to his Chair and to his authority.
In this assembly of bishops in Rome there was also contained the recognition and fulfilment of some of the highest obligations of the episcopate. By a law of great antiquity, resulting from the primacy of jurisdiction and the plenitude of pastoral care which was committed to S. Peter, and in him to his successors, the bishops, as pastors of the flock, are bound to appear personally, at fixed intervals of time, ​before the tomb of the Apostle. By the Constitutions of Benedict XIV., it is ordered that all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops shall visit the Limina Apostolorum: those of Italy and the neighbouring shores every three years; of Germany, Spain, England, and the north of Europe every four years; of the remoter parts of Europe every five years; of Asia and the more distant countries every ten years. The duty of this visit consists of three parts: first, personal presence at the tomb of the Apostle; second, the act of reverence and obedience to the Roman Pontiff; and thirdly, the account which every bishop is bound to render in writing to the Pastor of pastors, of the state of his diocese, both of his clergy and flock, descending into the minutest details of their number and condition. This visit is a recognition of the supreme jurisdiction of the Vicar of our Lord over the Universal Church. It is a direct account, rendered by each bishop to the Pastor who represents the chief of the Apostles. If the Sovereign Pontiff were at Gaeta or at Avignon, the visit would be made there, or wheresover he may be. Under the splendour and beauty of this Centenary, therefore, there was this world-wide recognition of the supreme pastoral care of the chief Pastor upon earth; and an account, minute and universal, of the state of the whole Catholic Church, as of one fold under one shepherd.
It is certainly not without a Divine disposal that, high and above all other events at this moment, ​should be manifested the universality of the Church resting upon Peter. In an age when men are wandering, or feeling their way uncertainly, believing that a Church exists, but not knowing where to find it, the two notes which S. Augustin held up before the Donatists, the diffusa per orbem, and the Cathedra Petri, are visibly seen, not as texts in a page, but as living facts before our eyes. I hope that it will be not unacceptable to you if I draw together old truths with which, Reverend and dear Brethren, I know you to be familiar: nevertheless, this moment gives them a special seasonableness, and a new explicitness and application to our times.
What I conceive is brought vividly before us is the perpetual office and action of Peter as the source of unity and infallibility to the Church; and at the same time the eminently practical and pervading influence of this Divine order. With those who are out of the Church, Peter is a historical name, a person in the past, a subject of patristic learning, a symbol of unity and authority. To Catholics, Peter teaches and rules at this hour. His prerogatives are wielded by successors, but the powers are his. He is the source of jurisdiction, the organ of truth, the centre of unity. Pontiffs come and go, but Peter abides always. As one of the greatest of his successors has said: 'Simon may die, but Peter lives for ever.' The Catholic theology, therefore, and the Councils of the Church, when they speak of Peter and of his prerogatives, are using no rhetorical phrases, no oriental and allegorical ​exaggerations. They use the words of strict law, and of exact rights. They express the first principles of the Divine unity and authority of the Church of God. When Bellarmin enumerates the eight-and-twenty prerogatives of S. Peter, he is defining the exclusive primacy of power and office which lies at the foundation of the Church, and endures to this day. To pass over all others, there are five prerogatives exclusively belonging to him, which descend to his successors. He was the first of the Apostles, and is so always designated. He had a special name which, both in prophecy and by promise, made him the rock of foundation. He had, first and alone, the plenitude of all power. He had a special stability of faith, by the singular assistance of the prayer of our Divine Lord; and an office, of which that stability is the condition, to confirm his brethren; and lastly, he had the supreme and sole charge of the whole flock on earth. In virtue of these prerogatives Peter became, and, in his successor, is to this day, the source of mission, the centre and bond of Churches, the note of unity, the test of truth, the fountain of jurisdiction.
If there be, then, any truth evidently declared in Scripture and in universal tradition, in the writings of Fathers, and in the decrees of Councils, it is that which may be summed up in the following propositions:—
(1.) That to Peter, first and alone, was given by our Divine Lord the plenitude of all power, both of ​teaching and of ruling, together with the charge of the whole flock on earth.
(2.) That this power was so given to him that he was able to act alone and supremely, apart from the other Apostles; whereas the other Apostles were unable to act except in subordination to him.
(3.) That to him a special assistance was granted, to sustain him in the knowledge and declaration of the faith, and a special office committed to him to confirm and to sustain the faith of the Apostles; so that the deposit of faith was doubly secured, first in the person of Peter, and next in the college of the Apostles in union with him.
(4.) That this Divine foundation and institution of the Church is perpetual; that Peter lives on in his successors, and the college of the Apostles in the episcopate; so that both the Chair of Peter is indefectible and infallible, and also the episcopate in union with it.
Such are, in fact, the principles which were embodied in this great solemnity; and that I may more fully and completely express this confession of faith, I will take the words of another, more capable than I am to convey its full force.
'Rome, through its bishop, successor of the Apostle S. Peter, forms the centre of unity to the whole Church. Hence those marks and notes, which are for the purpose of designating the kingdom of God on earth, must, in virtue of such title, attach to the Roman Church, as chief among all particular Churches, ​the union of which constitutes the Church Universal. And as it is especially in this characteristic of Rome, as being the foundation, that the force of cohesion resides which makes the Church one united and harmonious whole, in Rome, too, should be found the conditions of the Church's unity, sanctity, catholicity, and apostolicity. Take from the Church the primacy which Peter brought and bequeathed to Rome, and the Church has ceased to exist; it has vanished from men's eyes, has lost its infallible teaching, and can no longer guide mankind in the way of salvation.
'It was in a visible way that Jesus Christ designated the Apostle Peter from the rest; and in like manner it is from its visible head, and from its union with him, that the Church derives that complete fulness of organisation which constitutes its beauty and its glory. The Roman Church possesses, immediately and intrinsically, the attributes which characterise the kingdom of God; all others share in them only by their union with it. For Rome is the One only Church to which all others must conform, by reason of its preeminent primacy, and because within it the Apostolic traditions have been preserved. Rome, with its arenas dyed with Christian blood, showing on the line of its Pontiffs twenty-seven confessors in the purple of martyrdom; Rome, that for centuries ​was one wide field of slaughter, to which the children of the Cross came from all quarters of the Roman world to vindicate their glorious title at the price of a cruel death. Rome is the Holy Church, which Christ has given for a foundation, in the person of him to whom His own prayer secured indefectibility of faith for all who believe in Him; the Church which has preserved, pure and intact, holiness of teaching; from which descends the order that presides over the administration of the holy sacraments; and whose holy laws guide mankind to salvation. Rome is the Universal Church, whose gospel messengers have traversed the whole world; whose faith is proclaimed throughout the earth; which has accomplished what pagan Rome attempted in vain, and subdued that world to itself, However numerous and brilliant its victories, war never subjugated so many nations to it as Christian peace has ranged beneath its laws. This unparalleled greatness and glory Rome owes to the Apostles; to the Prince of the Apostles, above all: hence it is the Apostolic Church; and more, the Princely Apostolic Church. If in ancient days it could come with a claim to the homage of mankind, and point with just and holy ​pride to its twenty-five Pontiffs, how much more to-day, when it can claim the world's reverence and admiration with its two hundred and fifty-three bishops who have sat successively in the Prince of the Apostles' Chair.
'Nor is this enough; the Church of Rome is imperishable. Placed in the swiftest stream of events, amid the vicissitudes of ages and of empires, amid the raging billows of every passion, exposed to every fury, constantly assailed by emperors, Gothic kings, Greek exarchs, Lombards, and Franks—by paganism, schism, and heresy—there it has ever remained, immoveable on that Rock of Peter: that rock, itself unshaken, of Apostolic and universal unity. What could Nero do against it, or Domitian, or Decius, or Dioclesian? What could the gates of hell do against it, or what can they now?'
The evidence from inspired and uninspired writings for the infallibility of the Church may be distinguished into three classes.
First, those which declare the perpetual stability or infallibility of S. Peter, or of S. Peter and his successors.
Secondly, those which declare the perpetual stability or infallibility of the Church with reference to S. Peter in his successors.
Thirdly, those which declare the perpetual stability ​or infallibility of the Church, without reference to S. Peter and his successors.
It would be disproportioned to this letter to quote at length the proofs of this assertion; I am compelled to limit myself to affirming that the extent and the explicitness of the evidence under the two first classes is far beyond the extent and the explicitness of the evidence under the third; and further, that the evidence under the first class is at least equal to, if it be not more than, the evidence under the two last.
The conclusion I would draw from this is, that whensoever the perpetuity of the faith and the infallibility of the Church is spoken of, the foremost and governing idea in the mind of the faithful has always been the Divine order and assistance by which S. Peter and his successors have been constituted as the perpetual teachers of the Universal Church, and guides in the way of eternal life.
The formation of the Church is traced in the order of the Baptismal Creed. God sent His Son into the world to be made man. The Incarnate Word, in Whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, became the fountain of grace and truth, of doctrine, and of jurisdiction, to the world. To the chief of His Apostles He conveyed by the Holy Ghost all His communicable prerogatives, and thereby constituted him His vicar upon earth. Peter became the head and guide, the fountain of doctrine and jurisdiction, to the Apostles. The Church sprang from him, and was formed, as S. Cyprian says, like ​the seamless robe of our Lord, from the top throughout. The texture of the robe spread downwards from the beam on which it depended. The organisation of the Church was unfolded from the plenitude of its head. The prerogatives of stability, perpetuity, and indefectibility in the head became endowments of the body united to him. But they existed in Peter before they were communicated to the Church, and before the Church was organised to which they were to be communicated. The indefectibility of truth, therefore, both in its conception and enunciation, which includes necessarily the discernment between truth and falsehood in the custody of the Deposit, or, in other words, the supernatural gift of infallibility, in the ordinary state of the Church, resides first in its head, next in the whole episcopate united with him; so that the declarations and condemnations of the head of the Church apart from the episcopate are infallible; and likewise those of the episcopate, being united with him. This constitutes what is called the active infallibility of the Church. From this, too, arises the passive infallibility; that is, the Divine security which sustains the whole Church in its faith: ​so that it is impossible for the whole Church to err in believing, because the pastors of the Church, with their head, cannot err in teaching. But it is manifest that, according to this doctrine, the fountain of infallible teaching is the Divine Head in heaven, through the organ of the visible head of the Church on earth.
In a word, then, this Centenary was the Feast of S. Peter's Chair, elevated to the highest rite and celebrated by the whole Church. The one dominant truth, idea, power, and divine institution which it set before our eyes and hearts is the Cathedra Petri. Let us recal to our minds what the studies of earlier days have made familiar, and our daily labours have verified.
The Chair of Peter is the power of Peter, and the place where it has been divinely fixed. The power of Peter is in the key of knowledge and the key of jurisdiction, committed by a divine act to him as Vicar of Christ and head of the Church on earth. The Divine warrant of this power is recorded in three declarations of our Divine Master—'Tibi dabo claves:' 'Pasce oves meas:' 'Ego rogavi pro te.' The delivery of the keys of knowledge and jurisdiction gave the plenitude of power to teach and to rule; the delivery of the flock determined the object of that power; the prayer of the Divine Head of the Church sustains the faith of Peter. I know that the world, and every heresy and schism that has rebelled against the Vicar of Christ, has denied, and does daily deny, this affir​mation of the sense and effect of these three declaratory acts of Divine power. But I know that the Church has always so believed, held, and taught: and from its tradition nothing can make us swerve. The foundation thus laid in Peter's person abides to this day. The faith which was infused into him, not by 'flesh and blood,' but by the 'Father in heaven,' was sustained by the prayer of the Son of God, and is transmitted and impersonated in his successors. The faith of Peter is, by a Divine assistance, perpetual in the Church; and is therefore, by its intrinsic stability, indefectible and infallible. 'The Chair of Peter, then, signifies the place of the power and of the doctrine of that faith; which is the foundation for which Christ prayed that it might not fail.' From this it follows 'that the Church, or See, or Cathedra, or Episcopate, or Pontificate of Peter in Rome, which things are taken for one and the same, to which the Roman Pontiffs succeed with the full authority and power of Peter, to bind, to loose, and to teach, derives its supreme power, as the Council of Florence decreed, not by concessions of Emperors or of Councils, but immediately from God.'
From this special prerogative of the Roman Pontiffs descends the special prerogative of the Roman Church—that is, of the particular Church of Rome, with its ​clergy and people, of which the Roman Pontiff is Bishop. All particular Churches, except this, may err; the particular Church of Rome cannot; for which cause it has inherited a host of titles expressive of its dignity and stability. It has been known as 'The Head of the Episcopate,' 'The Mother of all Churches,' 'The Mistress or Teacher and Ruler of all Churches,' 'The Primacy over all the Church,' 'The Primacy over all the World,' 'The Head of Religion,' 'The Guardian of the Faith,' 'The Guardian of Tradition.' The Roman Church has been regarded as the true seat of the apostolic tradition; the doctrine of Rome as the form of truth; the Roman See as the pattern for judgments in faith; the judgments of Rome as equivalent to decrees of Councils. In a word, the Chair of Peter has been held to be the test of orthodoxy, the confirmer of Councils, the supreme tribunal of faith, the destroyer of heresies, the end of controversies, an authority which is subject to no appeal, to no reversal, to no revision, to no superior upon earth.
What is the sense of all this, but that the indefectibility and infallibility of the Pontiff, by a singular privilege, pervades the Church of which he is pastor? Therefore it is that, from the earliest history, we find the Roman Church exercising this supreme office of ​teaching and ruling. The Roman Pontiffs, from the beginning, have issued decrees, sentences, judgments, condemnations, on faith, on morals, on universal discipline, without Councils, general or particular, or with the assistance of bishops chosen by themselves, or with their own clergy and theologians. And such acts of the Roman Church have always been received as objects of faith, and laws of Divine authority.
I need hardly stay to quote S. Irenæus, who lays down that all Churches must needs be 'in agreement' with the Roman Church; or Tertullian, that it had the singular happiness of receiving the whole doctrine of the Apostles, together with their blood; or S. Cyprian, that the faith of the Romans was commended by S. Paul, and that error in faith could never find access to them; or S. Jerome to Pope Damasus, 'With you alone is preserved incorrupt the inheritance of the Fathers;' or S. Augustin, 'Rescripts have come (from the Apostolic See): the cause is finished.' I will quote only Theodoret, who sums up the sense of the Western Church while he bears witness for the Eastern: 'That most holy See has the primacy and leadership of the Churches in all the world by many titles, and by this above all, that it has continued free from taint of heresy; nor has ​any one of perverse opinions ever sat in it, but it has preserved the Apostolic grace inviolate.' S. Gelasius, therefore, only expressed what the whole Church believed, when he declared that 'the See of Peter the Apostle is first, the Roman Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.'
It must here be observed that the prerogative of Peter is the cause, the fidelity of the Roman Church the effect.
These are the principles declared by the Sovereign Pontiff in his Allocution of June 26, in which he announced his intention to convoke, at some future time not yet determined, a General Council. In that allocution he dwelt upon the strength which the bishops derive from Rome. He said: 'But if the general good of the faithful be considered, what, venerable brethren, can be more timely and wholesome for Catholic nations, in order to increase their obedience towards us and the Apostolic See, than that they should see how highly the sanctity and the rights of Catholic unity are prized by their pastors, and should behold them, for that cause, traversing great distances of sea and land, deterred by no difficulties from hastening to the Roman See, that they may pay reverence in the person of our humility to the successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ on earth? For by this authority of example, far better ​than by subtil doctrine, they will perceive what reverence, obedience, and submission they ought to bear towards us, to whom, in the person of Peter, Christ our Lord said, "Feed My lambs—feed My sheep," and in those words entrusted and committed to us the supreme care and power over the universal Church.'
'Moreover, you also, Venerable Brethren, in the exercise of your sacred ministry, will reap a signal fruit from this reverence towards the Apostolic See; for in the measure in which you are bound by closer bonds of relationship, faith, and love to the cornerstone of this mystical building, in that measure, as the history of the Church in all times teaches, you will be more and more clothed with that fortitude and strength which are needed by the amplitude of your ministry against the attacks of the enemy and the adversity of events. For what else did Christ our Lord intend us to understand when he set Peter as head to defend the stability of his brethren, saying, "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not?" He intended, as S. Leo implies, that "the Lord took a special care of Peter, and prayed expressly for Peter's faith, as if the state of the others would be more certain if the mind of their chief were unconquered. In Peter, therefore, the fortitude of all was guarded, and the help of Divine grace was so ordained that the stability which was given by Christ to Peter, by Peter should be bestowed on the rest of the Apostles." Wherefore, we are always assured, it cannot be but ​that a larger measure of that fortitude which, by a special gift of the Lord, was bestowed on Peter, should be always given to you as often as you are present with the person of Peter, who lives in his successors; and touch only the soil of this City, which the toil and the triumphal blood of the sacred Prince of the Apostles has watered. Nay, venerable brethren, we have never doubted but that out of the very tomb where the ashes of blessed Peter rest for the perpetual veneration of the world, a secret power and healing virtue goes forth to inspire the pastors of the Lord's flock with daring strength, great courage, and nobleness of mind; and this, by renewing their power, makes the bold audacity of the enemy, which is no match for the virtue and power of Catholic unity, to sink and fall in a conflict so unequal.'
To this the bishops unanimously answered—
'While, looking up to the heavenly Jerusalem, that rejoices in the glory of her new Saints, we recognise and set forth the wonderful works of the Lord, we take part more fervently in the present celebration, as contemplating, in the solemnity which this day brings round again, the unshaken firmness of the Rock whereon our Lord and Saviour built His Church, solid and perpetual. For we perceive it to be an effect of the power of God, that the Chair of Peter, the organ of truth, the centre of unity, the foundation and bulwark of the Church's freedom, should have stood firm and unmoved for now eighteen ​hundred years complete, amid so many adverse circumstances, and such constant efforts of its enemies: that, while kingdoms and empires rose and fell in turn, it should so have stood, as a secure beacon to direct men's course through the tempestuous sea of life, and show, by its light, the safe anchorage and harbour of salvation.
'Led by this faith and these feelings, Most Holy Father, we spoke before, when five years ago, standing around your throne, we rendered our due testimony to the sublime office you bear, and gave public expression to our prayers for you, for your civil princedom, and the cause of right and of religion. Led by this faith we then professed, both in words and writing, that nothing was nearer to us, nor dearer, than to believe and teach those things which you believe and teach; than to reject those errors which you reject; than to walk in the ways of the Lord with one mind, under your guidance; to follow you, to labour with you, and with you to contend in the Lord's cause, at every risk and with whatever result. All these things, which we then declared, we now renew and confirm with the deepest filial piety; and we desire to testify it to the whole world; gratefully remembering also, and with fullest assent, all you have done from that time .onward for the good of the faithful and the glory of the Church.
'For, as Peter said long since, "We cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard." You have also held it to be a sacred and solemn duty; you are ​giving manifest proof that you have never held it to be otherwise. For never has your voice been silent. You have accounted it to belong to your supreme office to proclaim eternal verities; to smite with the sword of your Apostolic utterance the errors of the time, which threaten to overthrow the natural and supernatural order of things, and the very foundations of ecclesiastical and civil power; to dispel the darkness which perverse and novel teachings have shed over men's souls; and to declare, persuade to, and approve all that is needful and wholesome to the individual, to the Christian family, and to civil society: so that at length all may attain to know what it is that every Catholic should hold, retain, and profess. For that exceeding great care we render to your Holiness the deepest thanks, and with endless gratitude; and, believing that Peter has spoken by the mouth of Pius, therefore, whatsoever you have spoken, confirmed, and pronounced for the safe custody of the deposit, we likewise speak, confirm, and pronounce; and with one voice and one mind we reject everything which, as being opposed to Divine faith, the salvation of souls, and the good of human society, you have judged fit to reprove and reject. For that is firmly and deeply established in our consciousness, which the Fathers at Florence defined in their decree on union, that the Roman Pontiff "is the Vicar of Christ, head of the whole Church, and father and teacher of all Christians; and that to him, in the person of blessed Peter, has been com​mitted by our Lord Jesus Christ full power to feed, to rule, and to govern the universal Church."
'But there are other things beside which excite our love and gratitude towards you. We admire and rejoice over the heroic courage with which you have opposed this world's pernicious stratagems; and your efforts to keep the Lord's flock in the way of salvation, to guard it against the seductions of error, and defend it against the force of the powerful and the subtlety of the falsely wise. We admire that zeal which knows no weariness; with which, embracing in your apostolic care the peoples of the East and West, you have never ceased to provide for the good of the universal Church. We admire the noble spectacle of the good Shepherd which you afford to the race of mankind, that is plunging deeper into evil day by day; one which strikes the minds of the very enemies of the truth, and arrests even unwilling eyes by its intrinsic excellence and dignity.'
By these words the bishops did not confirm the acts of the Pontiff as if they needed confirmation, nor accept his declarations of truth and condemnations of error as if they needed their acceptance. They did not intend or imply that the supreme Pontifical acts since 1862, in the form of Allocutions, Briefs, Encyclicals, and the Syllabus, were of imperfect and only inchoate authority until their acceptance should confirm them. Nothing was further from the thoughts of the pastors of the Church. They recognised the voice of Peter in the voice of Pius, and the ​infallible certainty of all his declarations and condemnations, in virtue of the supreme and singular prerogative of Doctor of the Universal Church, given by our Lord Jesus Christ to Peter, and through Peter to his successors. They renewed, before the tomb of the Apostle, the adhesion they had already given, one by one, in the midst of their flocks, to the successive utterances of the Sovereign Pontiff, as these, from time to time, had reached them. The Encyclical Quanta Cura, and the Syllabus or compendium of eighty condemnations in previous encyclicals and allocutions—all these had been at once received by them as a part of the supreme teaching of the Church, through the person of its head, which, by the special assistance of the Holy Ghost, is preserved from all error. They did not add certainty to that which was already infallible. This act of adhesion was a recognition of the supreme and plenary office of the successor of S. Peter, which, as the Council of Florence defined, he has received in and through the person of Peter: not by canons, nor by councils, nor by ecclesiastical institution, as some blindly say, with the decree refuting them before their eyes, but from the direct grant and gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, before as yet a canon was made, or a council assembled.
I have lately seen it affirmed by a Protestant critic, that the truths and principles which have been ​here declared are modern: that Ultramontanism, as it is called, is a novel opinion, and that its rise is to be ascribed to 'the vulgar ambition of ruling as a despot over willing slaves,' to 'bureaucratic despotism with a well-drilled episcopal police,' to 'the Tarquinian policy of cutting down all the taller poppyheads,' to 'watchful jealousy and incessant petty persecution on the part of the Curia.'
We are told that 'the first epoch of Ultramontanism commenced with the Council of Constance, and closed with the Council of Trent;' that, unfortunately, the counsels of Pole and Contarini were not followed, and that but for their failure 'the Teutonic element would have conquered for itself its natural place and recognition in the development of the Catholic Church.' The Catholic Church, we are told, became 'the Latin Church,' which lost the Teutonic element by confirming its despotic grasp upon the Latin. The great error, we are taught, was committed by a General Council. The Council of Constance 'put the cart before the horse': or, as we should say, it determined the election of the Pope; and then, instead of ruling him and teaching him, it submitted to him as the Vicar of Christ. The main principle of Ultramontanism, therefore, was distinctly recognised and put in act by the Council of Constance. Does any one imagine that in this the Council of Constance differs from the Councils of Chalcedon or of Trent, or that its acts embody any other principles than those of the universal tradition of Christianity—namely, the supreme ​authority of the successor of S. Peter in ruling and teaching the whole Church on earth?
As to 'the Teutonic element,' a few words may be said. It would seem that some suppose the Catholic Church to be a system, like the Austrian or the British empire, in which nationalities are to play their part, balanced by constitutional checks. This Judaic notion began to rise when the idea of Catholic unity began to decline. The assimilation of all national distinctions to a higher type—the extinction, that is, of nationalities in Christ Jesus—eliminated Jew and Greek, Teuton and Latin, from the sphere of faith. It was the rise of modern nationalities which caused the great Western schism, for the termination of which the Council of Constance was assembled. The schism was healed, though the Council of Basle for a while re-opened it. The national spirit continued still to work, and in a part of Germany and England grew to a head, which in the sixteenth century issued in the Protestant schism. But for the Council of Constance, the greater part of Europe might have been involved. After the Council of Trent, a part of Germany, and England and Scotland, fell finally from the Catholic unity. But 'the Teutonic element' was not thereby lost to the Church. More than half of Germany is Catholic to this day. And the Anglo-Saxon race, in which Teuton, German, and Celt are mixed together, is spreading over a large part of the world. At this moment, the English-speaking episcopate of Great Britain and its possessions, with the ​United States of America, is more numerous than the hierarchy of any other race or language. There are not less than a hundred and sixty or seventy 'Teutonic' bishops in this 'Latin Church.' It is a mystery of God's providence that races and nations once in the Catholic unity should fall from it. But it was not Ultramontanism which separated the Lutherans of the West, any more than the Nestorians of the East. It was not the infallibility of the Pope, ex cathedrâ, which drove Protestants into schism. It was the denial of the infallibility of the Church which made them heretics.
We are often and confidently told that 'Ultramontanism can make little way with thinking men. The last resource is to appeal to the credulity or the ignorance of those who are afraid to think; and here lies the true explanation of that perplexing blunder, the Encyclical of 1864.'
The 'perplexing blunder' of 1864 gives me the occasion for which I have been waiting. In the touching recital of the last days of our illustrious Cardinal, we read these words. Hearing that some of the French bishops had ordered the Encyclical to be read to the people, he said: 'I am very glad the French bishops are standing out so bravely for the liberties of the Church. That will console the Holy Father very much.' He added that he had hoped to say something on it. 'The French bishops have spoken, but as yet I have said nothing.'
​I have felt that this duty devolves as an heirloom upon me; and it has been my intention to treat of the Encyclical and Syllabus fully and explicitly. But the urgency of other duties has delayed it till now; and I have been compelled to content myself with publishing those two Pontifical acts in our fifth Diocesan Synod, as a part of the supreme and infallible teaching of the Church, both in the declarations and in the condemnations contained in them.
And now that half the Episcopate of the Church has spoken, proclaiming that, from the moment the voice of Peter reached them, all the declarations and condemnations of his successor were to them the rule of their teaching, I know not what I have to add. Nevertheless, I may hope at a future day to treat of some of the propositions of the Syllabus which are either most assailed, or nearest in their bearing upon us. I have no hesitation in saying that the Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864 are among the greatest acts of this Pontificate. The Encyclicals which preceded them had condemned many of the chief anti-Christian and anti-social errors of the day. They had prepared for the unanimous declaration of the Episcopate in 1862, on the subject of the temporal power, to which afterwards the whole number of the absent bishops adhered. Deny it who may, that act stemmed the tide of public opinion in Europe. It extinguished within the unity of the Church the few who murmured against the temporal power, or spoke laxly or erroneously about it. The unanimity of Catholics ​told upon those without, and a change of tone is perceptible since that date. Next came the Encyclical and Syllabus, which summed up in one act the declarations of so many years, giving them a new promulgation and a sensible accession of power over the minds, not only of the faithful, but even of opponents, by the concentrated force and weight of their application. This, again, prepared for the declaration of the bishops at this Centenary of S. Peter's Day. Every bishop in the world had the Encyclical and Syllabus in his hands. Upon that summary of the acts of this whole Pontificate five hundred bishops proclaim their adhesion to every declaration and every condemnation therein contained, and to every other act of doctrinal authority since their last assembly in Rome. It is the Encyclical and Syllabus which gives such force and import to the words of the episcopate the other day. It is the basis of their Salutation, as they style the address. It will be also the basis and the guide of the General Council, prescribing and directing its deliberations and decrees. That it should be 'perplexing' to those who refuse to learn of the Church throughout the world is not wonderful. Light is perplexing to eyes that are only half open, or, from disease, are again half shut. The greatest blunder in the world's eyes is Catholicism: the next greatest is Christianity. Ultramontanism is Catholic Christianity.
I will make but one more remark on these popular errors, on which already I have said more than their intrinsic worth demands. We are told: 'In one Roman ​Catholic country the struggle between the rival systems was continued for two centuries after the Reformation; and the great name of Bossuet is not more illustrious for his eloquence than for his bold vindication of the national as opposed to the ultramontane theory of Catholicism.' There is a truth in this passage. Gallicanism is nationalism: that which the Gospel casts out; that which grew up again in mediæval Christendom. It is the Christian Judaism which strove to elect its own High Priest; the national factions which rent the Sacred College; the nationalism which set up two or three uncanonical Popes, and two or three national obediences; the spirit of egotism, worldliness, and avarice, which caused whole nations of Europe to apostatise from the Divine will, from the unity of the Church, and to erect Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism on the schismatical basis of national Churches. The same spirit in France tempted Louis XIV. and a handful of courtiers, ecclesiastical and civil, to the verge of schism, from which they were saved by the. authority of the Pontiff, by the Catholic fidelity of the majority of the French bishops, and by the Catholic instincts of the French people. The great name of Bossuet, as I will show, was darkened by his contact with this error, and might have incurred a censure which would have attached to it for ever. Much as we respect the memory of Bossuet, reverence for the Divine order of the Church constrains us not to praise him when his illustrious name is under a cloud.
​The boldness or the unconsciousness with which Gallicanism is sometimes put forward as an opinion which Catholics are free to hold without blame, and as a basis on which Churches are to unite under the shelter of Bossuet, and as a standard of Catholic moderation in rebuke of Ultramontane excesses, makes it seasonable to tell its history. Gallicanism is no more than a transient and modern opinion which arose in France, without warrant or antecedents in the antient theological schools of the great French Church: a royal theology, as suddenly developed and as parenthetical as the Thirty-nine Articles; affirmed only by a small number out of the numerous episcopate of France, indignantly rejected by many of them; condemned in succession by three Pontiffs; declared by the Universities of Louvain and Douai to be erroneous; retracted by the Bishops of France; condemned by Spain, Hungary, and other countries, and condemned over again in the bull 'Auctorem Fidei.' To this may be added, that the name of Bossuet escaped censure only out of indulgence, by reason of his great services to the Church; and that even the lawfulness of giving absolution to those who defend the Gallican Articles, has been gravely questioned.
To justify these assertions, I will briefly give the proofs; with the references, which may be easily consulted.
In order to maintain against Innocent XI. the pretended claims of the Regale in matters of ecclesiastical ​benefice, Louis XIV. commanded the bishops and clergy to assemble in 1682. Thirty-four bishops out of a hierarchy of some hundred and twenty assembled. A majority of these not all, for it is known that De Brias, Archbishop of Cambray, resisted passed the four famous Gallican Articles, and published them on the 19th of March. They were immediately con​demned by the University of Louvain. They were assailed by the theologians of Liege. The professors of Douai at once petitioned the King that they might ​not be required to affirm the propositions; they declared that they and all the faithful 'detested the doctrine in respect to ecclesiastical power contained in the declaration of the Gallican clergy;' they affirmed these opinions, which are destructive of the absolute primacy and infallibility of the Supreme Pontiff, to be erroneous; and that they should believe themselves to be numbered among schismatics if they were to derogate from the supreme authority of the Vicar instituted by Jesus Christ, in defining what doctrine is sound and true, and what is false and evil. 'We have consulted,' they add, 'the most learned theologians, both regular and secular; and we have not as yet been able to find even one solid ground to form a conscience which would dictate the lawfulness of teaching these propositions.' In Spain, the Inquisition issued a decree in which each proposition was branded with a particular censure. In Hungary, in the year 1686, the propositions were condemned in the following words. After ​describing the four propositions as 'absurd to Christian ears, simply detestable,' the plenary Council of Hungary proceeds: 'After invoking the name of God with our venerable brethren the bishops, with the abbots, provosts, chapters, and professors of theology and of the sacred canons, we condemn and proscribe the four propositions aforesaid, and we interdict and prohibit all the faithful of the kingdom from reading, retaining, much more from teaching them, until the infallible sentence of the Apostolic See, to which alone, by a Divine and immutable privilege, it belongs to judge of such questions of faith, shall have been published.' Add to this, that even the theological faculty of Paris refused to accept the propositions.
But we must proceed to higher condemnations. The acts of the Gallican Assembly were no sooner published than they were condemned. On April 11th of the same year 1682—that is, three weeks after they appeared Innocent XI. addressed the Brief Paternae Charitati to the bishops of France, of which the two following passages will suffice:—'That part of your letter in which it is said that you, yielding your own rights, conferred them upon the King, we could not read without horror of mind; as if you were the masters, not the guardians, of the Churches committed to your care, and as if those Churches and their rights could be subjected to the yoke of the secular power by the bishops, who ought for the liberty of those Churches to go into bondage.' And ​again: 'Wherefore, by these present letters, by the authority delivered to us by Almighty God, we condemn, rescind, and annul whatsoever was done in your assemblies in the matter of the Regale, together with all its consequences, and whatsoever hereafter may be attempted, and we declare the same to be for ever null and void; although, forasmuch as they are in themselves manifestly null, they need no annulment or declaration of this kind.'
To Innocent XI. succeeded Alexander VIII., who in 1688 condemned as temerarious, scandalous, ill-sounding, proximate to heresy, erroneous, schismatical, and heretical, twenty-one propositions, of which one was as follows:—'The assertion of the authority of the Roman Pontiff over Œcumenical Councils, and of his infallibility in questions of faith, is futile, and has been often refuted.'
In 1690 he signed the Constitution Inter Multiplices, but deferred its publication, in the hope that the Court and clergy of France would retract the Gallican propositions. But in January 1691, being on his death-bed, he summoned twelve cardinals and two proton otaries apostolic, and in their presence promulgated the Constitution, in which, after reciting the whole cause, the Pope proceeds as follows:—'We who have been constituted by the Lord to be the vindicators in this world of the rights of the Church, meditating on these things day and night in the bitterness ​of our soul, have lifted up our hands with tears and sighs to the Lord, and have besought Him with all our heart that He would be with us in the power of His grace, in order that we may be able effectually to fulfil our duty in so arduous an act of the apostolic office committed to us: and moved by the thought lest we, who are soon to render account of our stewardship to the Supreme Judge, should be convicted of negligence in the trust committed to us'—'following in the footsteps of Innocent, our predecessor of happy memory, who,'—'in certain letters in the form of brief, on the 11th day of April 1682, condemned, rescinded, and annulled whatsoever was done in the aforesaid assemblies in the affair of the Regale of our own motion we declare and decree that all and every one of the things which were done in the aforesaid assemblies of the Gallican clergy in the year 1682, as well concerning the extension of the Regale—as also concerning the declaration in respect to the ecclesiastical power, and the four propositions contained therein, together with all and each of the mandates, arrests, &c., are by the force of law null, invalid, and void, and destitute of all force and effect from the first, and now, and hereafter …' &c. Dated on the 4th day of August 1690, and published as above in January 1691. At the same time, and from his death-bed, the Pontiff addressed to Louis XIV. a pathetic letter of paternal authority, in which he says: ​'While we are standing upon the awful confines of this mortal life, and meditating on the account we must give of the supreme administration of the Church of God which has been committed to us, to the strict Judge Who is knocking at the door, we have deemed it to be altogether our duty to declare null and void all things, with all their consequences, past and future, which some years ago were done and declared in thy kingdom against the rights of churches, persons, and foundations in the same kingdom, and also against the authority of the Roman Pontiff, the Apostolic See, and the Universal Church, as will manifestly appear from the brief promulgated on the subject.'
To Alexander VIII. succeeded Innocent XII., in whose time the contest with the King of France was terminated. In the letter of Louis XIV. to the Pontiff, on his elevation, the King retracted the acts of 1682 in these words:—'And, inasmuch as I desire to testify (my filial respect) by the most effectual proofs in my power, I most gladly make known to your Holiness that I have given the necessary commands that the things contained in my edict of the 22nd day of March 1682, concerning the declaration of the Gallican clergy (to which past circumstances drove me), shall not be observed.'
It was also required that the bishops of France who had participated in those acts should retract the same. ​This they did in a letter to Innocent XII., in which they say: 'We declare that we vehemently, and beyond all that can be expressed, lament from our hearts the acts which were done in the aforesaid assemblies, which have so profoundly displeased your Holiness and your predecessors. And therefore, whatsoever things can be held as decreed by those assemblies respecting the ecclesiastical power and the authority of the Pontiffs, we hold as not decreed, and declare that they ought so to be esteemed.' Lastly, they conclude as follows:—'Meanwhile, to your Holiness, as to the successor of blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, to the Vicar of Christ our Lord, and to the Head of the whole Church militant, that same true and sincere obedience which we have already promised, we again promise, vow, and swear.'
Further, the same might be confirmed by the allocution of Innocent XII., and the briefs of Clement XI. of June 15 and August 31, in 1706. But enough has been said. I will add only the three following facts:—First, that in the Constitution Auctorem Fidei, Pius VI. condemns the Synod of Pistoia for incorporating the four Gallican Articles in its decrees, expressly because they had been already condemned by Pontifical authority; and declares that the insertion of those Articles in the Synod was 'temerarious, scandalous, and greatly injurious to the Apostolic See.'
​Secondly, it is certain that the illustrious Bishop of Meaux has only escaped an explicit censure for his part in the four Propositions of 1682, through the benign and paternal forbearance of the Holy See. Benedict XIV., in a letter to the Grand Inquisitor in Spain, on the subject of the works of Cardinal Henry Norris, adds: 'No doubt a work will be known to you, printed and published not many years ago, which, though it bears no author's name, all men well know to be by Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, which he had written at the command of Louis XIV., King of France, but left in manuscript in certain libraries. The whole work is taken up with asserting the Propositions affirmed by the Gallican clergy in the Assembly of 1682. It is difficult, indeed, to find any other work equally opposed to the doctrine, which is received everywhere out of France, concerning the infallibility of the Supreme Pontiff, when defining ex cathedrâ, his superiority over Œcumenical Councils, his indirect power, if the high interests of religion and the Church require, over the supreme power of temporal princes. In the time of Clement XII. of happy memory, our immediate predecessor, there was serious consideration of proscribing the work; and at length it was decided to refrain from proscribing it, not only on account of ​the memory of an author who had deserved well in so many points respecting religion, but on account of the just fear of new dissensions.'
Thirdly, it is to be remembered that, so far from Gallicanism being an opinion open and recognised, which theologians and Catholics may hold and teach as freely as any other, it has been a question whether they who defend the four Articles after the repeated Pontifical condemnations are capable of sacramental absolution. 'N., a confessor in France, asks whether he can and ought to absolve those ecclesiastics who refuse to submit themselves to the condemnation which the Holy See promulgated, of the four celebrated propositions of the Gallican clergy.' The reply was as follows: 'After diligently weighing the question proposed, the S. Penitentiaria decided in answer; The declaration of the Gallican Assembly in the year 1682 was indeed condemned by the Holy See, and the acts of the Assembly were rescinded, and declared to be null and void; but no note of theological censure was affixed to the doctrine contained in that declaration: wherefore nothing hinders that sacramental absolution be given to the priests who in good faith, and being so persuaded in mind, still adhere to that doctrine, so they be otherwise worthy of absolution.—Rome, Sept. 27, 1825.' From this, two things are evident. First, that if a ​note of theological censure had been attached to those propositions, no one could hold them without sin. And secondly, that good faith is required to clear a person of fault in holding opinions which have been condemned by the Holy See, although no such note of censure be attached.
Such is the history of the origin and immediate condemnation of the Gallican opinions. They had no antecedent traditions, no roots in the theology of the great Church of France. Cardinal Aguirre has abundantly shown that the Saints, doctors, episcopate, and schools of France taught one uniform doctrine with the Church of all other countries, as to the supremacy and infallibility of the Chair and successor of Peter. The Gallicanism of 1682 was a feeble imitation of the preamble of the 24th of Henry VIII., by which the schism of England was accomplished. The four Articles were imposed by Royal decree upon universities and schools, and continued to infect the teaching of France down to the end of the last century, as morbid humours run long in the blood. But the terrible scourge of the great Revolution finally expelled this and many other diseases engendered by the royal and secular corruption of the old French monarchy. The Acts of 1682 were succeeded by the Organic Articles; and the hierarchy and clergy of France have learned by a terrible and glorious conflict to rest upon the only Rock of ecclesiastical unity and truth. From time to time, here and there, the Gallican spirit may have shown itself, but in mitigated ​and more temperate forms. The revolution of 1830 again passed over the Church in France. Its rejection by the State threw it finally upon the Holy See; and though royal and imperial influences have at times striven to warp the minds of a few distinguished prelates, the hierarchy of France has borne a foremost and a noble testimony to the supremacy, infallibility, and sovereignty of the Chair and successor of St. Peter. The Church in France of to-day is in perfect harmony with the theology of its ancient councils and doctors, of S. Bernard, S. Anselm, ​S. Thomas, and S. Bonaventure, who owed their nurture to her schools, and especially of the ancient University of Paris, where Gallicanism was unknown till the first seeds were sown by Gerson, in the fifteenth century. The stream of Catholic tradition is too deep and strong in that great people to be turned aside by so slight an obstruction. Its course was troubled for a while; but Gallicanism is now carried away by the return of the ancient and lineal belief. The prelates of France are at this time as little likely to return to the four propositions of ​Bossuet, as the Royal Astronomers are to the Ptolemaic system. The world has moved onward, and the Church has released itself from the servitude of royal patrons. The voice which went forth from the whole French episcopate when Pius IX. called upon them to contend with him for the rights and liberties of the Chair of Peter, and again when he published to the world the Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864, is proof of the profound adherence of the bishops in France to the supreme prerogatives of the Vicar of Christ, which the world calls Ultramontanism.
And now, lest it should be thought that what has here been said is remote from our present needs and duty, I will add the reasons which prompted me to dwell upon these topics. The one is, that a full and perfect belief of the authority of the faith is essential to the mission of the Church, especially in England; the other is, that the convoking of a General Council makes this subject timely, for reasons I will endeavour to give hereafter.
It is certain that the action of Catholic truth upon England has been weakened by the Gallican opinions. Although it is both true and self-evident that Gallicans maintain the infallibility of the Church; nevertheless the inconsistency of their theories, their incompatibility with the whole action and attitude of the Holy See, and the divisions they have apparently introduced among Catholics, have hindered the full effect of the Catholic theology upon the public opinion of this country. False as it is, nevertheless ​the retort, 'What is the use of infallibility if you do not know where it resides?' has sufficed for two centuries to evade the force of the argument in which both Ultramontanes and Gallicans are agreed. A year ago, we had a notable proof of this. Bossuet's position was claimed as the justification for rejecting the unity and infallibility of the Universal Church. So long as these relics of the theology of a few French courtiers are suffered to pass without censure, we shall be exposed to this irrelevant but popular retort. Now I am well aware that Gallicanism has no place among us. It has no existence in any of our colleges; it is not to be found in our clergy, secular or regular. It has no part in our laity. The faithful in England are united to the Holy See with all their hearts and minds. There is between it and them no national or worldly interest to warp or to sway them. The highest, purest, and truest conception of the office of the Church, and of its head, as the Divinely-appointed channel of the faith, and as the guide of men in the way of salvation, is either explicitly or implicitly the faith which governs the Catholic Church in England. The Reformation has robbed it of the multitude of souls who ought to be its children; but it has, at least, delivered it from the personal, local, national, and secular traditions which infect and weaken the tone and spirit of some Catholic countries. England and Ireland are debtors, above all people, to bear their testimony to the highest and purest Catholic truth. In propor​tion as we do so, the English people will listen to us. They have no sympathy in accommodations or compromises. Downright truth, boldly and broadly stated, like the ring of true metal, wins their confidence. If we believe the Holy Spirit of God to guide and to speak through the Church, by whom shall we hear His voice if not by the Head of the Church, in whom the plenitude of authority resides? The intimate relation of this question with the deepest and most vital parts of religion may be seen from the fact that it belongs to the subject of Divine Faith. The infallibility of the Church is the ordinary medium through which the material object, that is, the doctrine, of Divine faith becomes known to us. It is, therefore, of the highest necessity that we should clearly understand what is that medium, or order, which God has ordained for the promulgation and perpetuity of His revelation. The dotes, or endowments, of the Church and the prerogatives of its head, as the teacher of the Church, enter therefore directly into the subject of Faith. They are not mere ecclesiastical, nor, as many say, constitutional or external questions. They involve the certainty upon which we know what God has revealed; and therefore, if in one aspect they may be included in the treatise De Ecclesia, they belong intrinsically to the treatise De Fide Divina. It was the violation of this Divine economy which let in the flood of error upon our country. It is the restoration of this Divine economy in the intellect and the ​conscience of men that will restore it to the truth. Let it not, then, be imagined that this subject is remote from our pastoral work; or that we can declare the truth, or guide souls as we ought, unless we clearly and firmly comprehend the Divine procedure in revealing and perpetuating the faith of Jesus Christ.
Thus much I have thought it well to say, because it would seem that the authoritative condemnation of Gallicanism, though known to students, and publicly notorious in days nearer to the event, has appeared to be at times forgotten. It has been thought to be a probable and time-honoured opinion, deriving itself from a high antiquity, and protected by great names. The episcopal spirit of English Protestantism has made it very acceptable in this country: and it has, indeed, no little affinity to it. The opinion which limits the prerogative of infallibility to S. Peter, and denies it to his successors, is, as Orsi well points out, akin to that which admits the primacy of S. Peter, and denies it to his successors. The consequence of the latter opinion is to introduce anarchy in the place of order. The consequence of the former opinion is to introduce doubt in the place of certainty. The Divine order has united the supremacy of truth and of jurisdiction in the same person; and from the tradition of Fathers and Councils, it is evident that ​the whole Church has believed the successor and the See of Peter to be not only supreme in power, but infallible in faith.
It is upon this basis that the decrees and declarations of the Pontiffs teaching ex cathedrâ bind the universal Church, not only to exterior submission but also to interior assent. Sfondratus expresses this truth as follows:—
'The Pontiff does some things as man, some as prince, some as doctor, some as pope; that is, as head and foundation of the Church: and it is only to these (last-named) actions that we attribute the gift of infallibility. The others we leave to his human condition. As, then, not every action of the pope is papal, so not every action of the pope enjoys the papal privilege.'
'This, then, is to act as Pontiff, and to speak ex cathedrâ, which is not within the competency of any (other) doctor or bishop.'
Gregory de Valentia teaches that, 'As often as the Roman Pontiff uses in defining questions of faith the authority with which he is invested, the judgment ​which he decrees to be the judgment of faith ought to be received by all the faithful, by divine precept, as a doctrine of faith. And he is to be believed to use that authority, so often as, in controversies of faith, he determines an opinion in such a way as to oblige the whole Church to receive it.' Gonzalez says: 'Precisely the same is to be said of the Roman Pontiff, whenever he speaks to the whole Church from the Chair of Peter, and expounds to it, as supreme doctor, what it must believe as Catholic doctrine, what it must avoid as heretical falsity; what teaching it is to embrace as sound, what it is to beware of as noxious; and whenever, in his office of universal pastor, he points out to the sheep committed to him by Christ the pastures of virtues on the one hand, that they may be fed by them to everlasting life, and the poisonous growth of vices on the other, lest by tasting them they should bring upon themselves everlasting death. Under this view, then, we are to lay down and prove in the present treatise, by various arguments, as a thing most certain, that the Roman Pontiff, when he addresses the universal Church from the Chair of Peter, as the common ​teacher and supreme judge of questions appertaining to faith and morals, can never err. For to us it appears evident, either that there is no supreme judge in an assembly, or that the office belongs to him who presides over the whole; so that, in fact, it is not less certain, to our minds, that the Pontiff speaking ex cathedrâ to the whole Church cannot err, than that the Pontiff presides over the whole Church.'
Suarez is equally explicit: 'Nevertheless, it is a Catholic truth, that the Pontiff defining ex cathedrâ is the rule of faith, which cannot err, when he authoritatively propounds anything to the whole Church, as to be believed of divine faith: such is the teaching ​of all Catholic doctors at this day, and it is, I think, a thing certain by faith.'
'But the said Rogerus ventured to answer, both as to this definition (that of Boniface VIII. in Extrav. "Unam Sanctam," "De Major," etc.) and as to other pontifical decrees, that it is not certain de fide that the Pontiff defining without a General Council cannot err. But this answer is not only rash in the extreme, but also erroneous: for although formerly some Catholic doctors may have doubted or erred in this without pertinacity, yet at this day there is so consistent an agreement in the Church, and so concurrent a sense of Catholic writers as to this truth, that it is in no wise lawful to call it in question.'
So also Sylvius teaches: 'The answer is certain de fide, that the judgment of the Roman Pontiff is infallible in determining matters of faith. So ​that when he defines ex cathedrâ, or when as Pontiff he proposes to the Church anything to be believed of faith, he can in no case err, whether he defines with a General Council or without it.'
Duval, of the Sorbonne, says: 'No one can deny that the proposition, "the Pontiff as Pontiff can decree contrary to the faith," opens a way to disobedience, and gives occasion to doubt of many things which have been already received by the whole world, and determined by Pontiffs: a thing not without some appearance of temerity.
'It is absolutely certain, that the Supreme Pontiff cannot err in decreeing ex cathedrâ either on faith or morals; and that immediately on his canonical election he is endowed by Christ with the privilege of infallibility.'
Macedo in like manner affirms: 'In my opinion, ​whoever believes the authority of the pope defining ex cathedrâ to be absolutely infallible, and does not believe in what he defines, without doubt errs in faith, and, should he obstinately persist in his error, would be a heretic. And I confidently assert that those who either deny the Roman Pontiff to have succeeded to Peter in authority of faith and teaching, or at least lay down that the supreme pastor of the Church can err in judgment on faith, bring into the Church what is pestilent and pernicious.'
Toletus affirms: 'The Roman Pontiff, in his judgment on faith and morals, that is, while he judicially determines what is to be believed, or in morals what is to be done, cannot err. This conclusion is not one to be held (merely) as an opinion, but the opposite is a manifest error in faith, and Cano rightly says he does not doubt that, if it were proposed to a Council, it would be condemned as heresy.'
Gonzalez sums up the doctrine of theologians as ​follows: 'Therefore the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, although it is not expressly defined by the Church, is yet proximately definable; because it is a theological truth, altogether certain, contained in the scriptures, and confirmed by the perpetual tradition of the Church, and the common consent of the fathers and doctors: and, as Bellarmin said, the opposite doctrine "appears altogether erroneous, and proximate to heresy, so that it might well be declared heretical by the judgment of the Church." And though it be not de fide, as to the obligation of believing it, imposed on all by the Church, yet it is de fide as to its object; and also as to its obligation with regard to those who are certain, on grounds which form their conviction, that this truth is revealed: and this certainty almost all Catholic doctors have, except some few in France. But in a thing of so much weight, a]l are bound to examine the grounds on which rests the proof that the Roman Pontiff defining ex cathedrâ cannot err: for whosoever denies to the Roman Pontiff the privilege of infallibility granted to him by Christ, whether from not having diligently examined the controversy, or because he is carried away by some human motive, and so errs in forming his judgment, would not be held guiltless before God; inasmuch as his error would be culpable, and his ignorance vincible.'
​If it be said that this has not been defined and proposed by the Church as de fide, it may be answered first, that many truths of Divine revelation have not been defined. All that is defined is indeed de fide, but not all that is de fide has been defined. The revelation of Christianity extends far beyond the definitions which, in condemnation of error, the Church has made progressively from age to age. The infallibility of the successor of Peter, speaking ex cathedrâ, as universal teacher, was not contradicted till the preludes of the so-called Reformation began to work. And wheresoever the contradiction has gained a hold, a decline of faith has followed. The events of the last century in France issued naturally from ​the Declaration of 1682. The incoherence of admitting a Supremacy and denying its infallible action encouraged and provoked the spirit of scepticism and mockery in the bad, and of doubt and hesitation in the good, which prepared for the Encyclopedia and the Voltairian unbelief. Gallicanism was a political aberration, and France has dearly expiated it. With this before our eyes, it is our duty towards the faith, towards the Divine order of the Church, towards the flocks committed to us, and towards our country for which we labour and pray, to testify to the whole revelation of truth, and to the whole Divine economy ordained for its perpetuity and its preservation in purity and integrity. It is not then needless, or gratuitous, still less is it polemical and hostile, to declare in the fullest and most explicit way the truths which are embodied in this great Centenary. They may be summed up in the words of S. Leo: 'The solidity of that faith which was commended in the Prince of the Apostles is perpetual; and as that which Peter believed in Christ abides for ever, so does that for ever abide which Christ instituted in Peter. … The order of truth, therefore, is abiding, and Blessed Peter, persevering in the firmness which he had received as of a Rock, has not forsaken the helm of the Church.'
Or in the words of S. Peter Chrysologus, 'Blessed Peter, who lives and presides in his ​own See, holds out to all who seek it the true faith.' Or in those of one who, with a profusion of learning and irresistible evidence, has destroyed for ever the Acts of 1682: 'This tradition of the Fathers does not only derive from Peter to his successor a general primacy, but also a firmness which never fails in propounding the dogmas of faith from Peter's Chair; nay, it exhibits Peter himself, that is, the immoveable Rock of Faith, the pillar and foundation, as still living and teaching in his Chair and See; it regards the Roman Pontiffs as one person with Peter; and it describes them with the same honours, and invests them with the same titles, as Peter himself.'
I will now go on to the second reason which suggested what has hitherto been said.
Subordinate in importance to the Primacy and Chair of Peter, but far beyond that of the celebration of the Centenary, is the other subject announced by the Holy Father in the Allocution of June 26; namely, the intention to convene a General Council. The words which fell from his lips will be long remembered, and the intense response of heart and mind with which they were heard.
The Holy Father spoke as follows:—'Nothing is more desired by us, venerable brethren, than that we should gather from this your union with the Apostolic See the fruit which we hold to be the most salutary ​and auspicious. We have, indeed, long pondered in our mind, as was known to many of our venerable brethren, as occasion needed, a purpose which, so soon as the opportunity we desire shall come, we trust to be able to effect, namely, that we may hold a Sacred Œcumenical and General Council of the bishops of the whole world, in which, after united counsels and labours together, the necessary and healing remedies, by God's help, may be applied to the many evils which the Church is suffering. From this, as we greatly hope, it will come to pass that the light of Catholic truth may diffuse its saving illumination in the darkness by which the minds of men are enveloped, so that they may see and press onwards, by the grace of God, in the true path of salvation and of justice. From this, also, it will come to pass that the Church, like a conquering army set in array, may repel the hostile assaults of adversaries, break their power, and triumphing over them, propagate and spread more widely the kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth.'
We have here, in his own words, the reasons of this greatest act of Pontifical government over the Church; namely, the union of counsels and labours to find and apply remedies to the evils of our time; to manifest more luminously to those who are in darkness the light of truth; to consolidate and concentrate more and more closely the force and power of the Church, for the twofold work of breaking the power of its adversaries, and of spreading far and wide the kingdom of Jesus Christ upon earth.
​Hitherto, in what I have said, we have been contemplating the perpetual supremacy of Peter, both in truth and jurisdiction, throughout the Church diffused in all the world. Now, we have to contemplate a higher and more sovereign exercise of his prerogatives in the Church congregated in Council.
It belongs to the successors of Peter alone to convoke, to direct, to prorogue, to translate, to confirm, and to dissolve the Œcumenical Councils of the Church. The highest prerogatives of the Pontificate are partly dormant while the Church is diffused, but are fully exercised when the Church is congregated. More than this; the prerogative of Peter as the confirmer of his brethren is never so explicitly manifest as in the direction and confirmation of Councils. Every Council of the Church, from Nice to Trent, has reflected more visibly and vividly the supremacy and infallibility of the Chair of Peter. The Council of Constance, with an exceptional and explicit act, recognises and declares the same Divine order. Supreme while as yet the See of Peter was vacant, or was claimed by competitors of doubtful election, it submitted at once when the person of the Apostle was visible upon his Chair. It would be too long to draw out in full the historical proofs of the fact, that in no part of his action upon the Church has the successor of Peter more supremely exercised his singular prerogatives than in the series of the Œcumenical Councils. For such as doubt this assertion I may give reference to proofs, which will be ​found more than enough. The three following works will suffice. Let any candid man examine 'Turrecremata de Conciliis,' 'Orsi de Eomani Pontificis Auctoritate,' 'Brancatus de Lauræa De Decretis Ecclesiæ.' All that can now be done is to sum up briefly a few of the chief heads, and to mark the outline of the subject.
Although General Councils, apart from the Pontiff, have the assistance of the Holy Spirit, yet they are not thereby necessarily infallible: but when directed by their head in the definitions they make, or when confirmed by him, they cannot err.
The decrees of General Councils, made apart from their head, or not confirmed by their head, even though they be true, yet do not impose the obligation of belief or obedience upon the Church.
A Council is not truly general, nor does it represent the Universal Church, if it be apart from its head, or act without him, or without subordination to him: for then it would be a headless body. Therefore, it is by the influx of the head into the body that the Council acts, and by the assistance of the Holy Ghost it acts infallibly, so as to bind all the faithful. Hence, S. Leo the Great says of the Decree of the Council of Chalcedon against Eutyches: "What things the Lord had defined before by our ministry, He confirmed by the irreversible ​assent of the whole brotherhood (i.e. episcopate) that He might show that it (the dogma) truly proceeded from Himself, that what had been first confirmed by the first See of all, the judgment of the whole Christian world received; that in this also the members should be in accordance with the head." Therefore, in the judgment of S. Leo, by the influx of the head of the Church, that is, of the Pope, into the Council, it decides infallibly, so as to oblige (the faithful); and the confirming of the judgment of Councils is proof that they have not erred, but have spoken by the dictate of the Holy Ghost.' 'This uninterrupted practice (of asking confirmation) signifies that the whole Church well knows that from the head the influx (of infallible truth) descends into the members. And thus it is, that if the decrees of faith made in Councils are infallible, so as to oblige the faithful to belief, they should know that it comes principally from the head, infallibly attesting that the Councils have been directed by the Holy Spirit.'
In proof and exemplification of this influx of the infallible direction of the head in General Councils, Brancatus de Lauræa gives the following:
The Council of Nice was presided over by the Roman legates, and confirmed by S. Sylvester.
The Council of Constantinople was guided in its ​condemnation of the Macedonian heresy by the decree of Pope Damasus, who had already condemned it in a Synod at Rome. The Council was in part confirmed, so far as the condemnation of the Macedonian heresy and the declaration of the Nicene faith; but Pope Damasus rejected its canons.
The Council of Ephesus was directed by the letters of Pope Cœlestine to condemn Nestorius, whom he had already condemned in a Council at Rome.
The Council of Chalcedon was directed by S. Leo to condemn Eutyches, whom he had already condemned. The Fathers of the Council would define nothing until they had heard the Tome, or dogmatic letter of the Pontiff. They then answered in words which since then have become a sacred tradition and a theological principle: 'Peter has spoken by Leo.'
The Second Council of Constantinople would make no decree respecting the Three Chapters till Pope Vigilius had condemned them.
The Third Council of Constantinople, by direction of Pope Agatho, who in a Council at Rome had already condemned the Monothelite heresy, again condemned it. Pope Agatho wrote to the Council, exhorting them to liberate the Church from error, and to declare the true faith, 'which was founded upon the firm rock, that is, of this Church of blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, which by his favour and protection remains pure from all error.' To this the Fathers answered, as at Chalcedon, 'Receiving the suggestions directed … by the most holy and ​blessed Agatho, Pope of the ancient Rome; and another suggestion made by the Council, subject to him, and following closely the things contained in it, we so judge, profess, and believe,' &c. Domitius, Bishop of Prusa, declared that the 'suggestions of our Father Agatho were to be received as dictated by the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of the holy and blessed Prince of the Apostles, Peter.' Finally, the emperor, writing to a synod of Western bishops, declares that all the Fathers of the Council were of one faith both in mind and in speech, and venerated the letter of Agatho 'as the voice of the Divine Peter himself.'
Such is the evidence of the first six General Councils, before what is called the division of the East and West. It is not necessary, and it is not now possible, to descend lower in the series; but all acknowledge that in proportion as we advance, the evidence of the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiffs is more explicitly and undeniably found. It is to be here ​observed, that the ruling idea present to the Councils was the See of Peter and the Faith of Peter: that the Councils did not claim to themselves infallibility, in virtue either of the promise 'Where two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them,' nor 'Behold, I am with you all days.' The Divine promise always before them was, 'I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.' It was the presence and faith of Peter, both of them indefectible, by Divine assistance, in the person of his successor, to which they turned as the source of direction in their deliberations and the seal of confirmation to their decrees. It is to be observed, also, that before the Councils of Constantinople I., Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Constantinople III. met, the Roman Pontiffs had already condemned the heresies in question. Their subsequent condemnations added publicity, notoriety, promulgation, not certainty or validity, to the previous condemnations of the Pontiffs. But those previous Pontifical acts gave infallible direction to their decrees, and made them of obligation to all the Churches.
The whole doctrine and practice here expressed was summed up in the Council of Trent. It recognised more amply than any other Council of the ​Church, even than those over which the Sovereign Pontiffs in person had presided, the supreme legislative and executive authority of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. It was directed in all its sessions by his guidance. It was closed and confirmed by him. The execution of its decrees rested in his hands. The reigning Pontiff, Pius IV., by three supreme Pontifical acts, provided: First, that all ecclesiastical prescriptions and customs contrariant to its decrees should be null and void. Secondly, that no prescription or custom thenceforward should ever acquire force against the Council of Trent. Thirdly, that no one, under pain of excommunication, should interpret its decrees; reserving all interpretation to himself and his successors.
The supreme authority of the successor of Peter over the Church can hardly be more visibly proved than by the fact that of the Councils claiming to be General, eighteen are approved as such, eight are condemned and annulled, six are partly approved and partly annulled; and this by the sole authority of the Roman Pontiff.
With these principles before us, we shall be better able to appreciate the facts of this time, and to dispose of certain popular misunderstandings, which have been laid down with great confidence, and with claims to superior knowledge. We are told that the holding of a General Council was not the spontaneous intention ​of the Pope, but was forced upon him; and that if he is willing to convene it, he is the only person in Rome that is so; that Rome hates Councils, and that Councils are fatal to Rome; that the future General Council is a reaction against excessive pretensions, and will impose limits on them; that it will confirm the past acts of Popes on Gallican principles, and review or modify the Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864.
For the first three hundred years no General Council ever met: for the last three hundred no General Council has been convened. In the eighteen centuries of the Church only eighteen General Councils have been held. It is clear, therefore, as Bellarmin teaches, that though General Councils are useful, and sometimes necessary for particular times, they are not necessary to the office of the Church. The Church is not infallible in virtue of General Councils, but General Councils are infallible in virtue of the infallibility of the Church. The whole Church, both the Ecclesia Docens and the Ecclesia Discens, diffused throughout the world, is infallible at all times. The Church discharges its office as witness, judge, and teacher always, and in all places. The See of Peter and the episcopate diffused throughout the world are so assisted by the perpetual presence of the Spirit of truth that they can never err as witness, judge, or teacher. In the three hundred years before the Council of Nice, the infallible voice of the Church sufficed for the promulgation and diffusion of the faith; in the intervals between Council and Council ​the Church was perpetually infallible in its declarations of truth, and in its condemnations of error. In the three hundred years since the Council of Trent, the Church has taught with the same infallibility. The line of Pontiffs, from Pius IV. who confirmed the Council of Trent, to Pius IX. who defined the Immaculate Conception, have taught with the same supreme and infallible voice. Witness, as a few out of many, the condemnations of Baius, Jansenius, Molinos; the Bull Unigenitus; the condemnation of the Synod of Pistoia and, more recently, of Lamennais, Hermes, Frohschammer, and of the errors enumerated in the Syllabus. To the declaration of these truths, and to the condemnation of these errors, no act of the Church in Council is required. They are already full and perfect by the plenitude of the Pontifical authority. Peter has spoken by Innocent, by Alexander, by Clement, and by Pius. If, at any time, in an Œcumenical Council, any dogma be defined which has been already defined by the Pope, or by other General Councils, the bishops act as judges, but are already bound to judge in conformity to what is already defined. But if the defining of anything not yet defined is in question, they are the judges in such sense that their judgments have no force to bind the conscience until the assent and confirmation of the Supreme Pontiff has been given. It was thus that the fathers at Chalcedon declared that Peter spoke by Leo; and the Fathers of Constantinople recognised his ​voice in the letter of Pope Agatho. In this they acknowledged that which Leo and Agatho had already promulgated, by their prerogative of supreme and universal teachers, to be the Catholic Faith. It was thus also that the Fathers of Trent defined the doctrine of original sin; which, till then, had rested upon the infallible declarations of S. Innocent I. It was thus they declared the Canon of the sacred books, which till then had rested upon the authority of S. Gelasius; and also condemned the errors of the so-called Reformers, already condemned by Leo the Tenth.
The future General Council, then, whensoever it be convened, will not turn back upon any of the acts of the Church or of its head; which already, in virtue of the Divine assistance, are, as it is called, irreformable and infallible. Its office will be of another kind, bearing upon the present and the future relations of the Church to the world.
If it be asked, then, what need is there of a General Council? it may be answered at once that the state of the whole Christian society of the world is such that no other remedy is proportioned to its need.
For three hundred years, perpetual changes have been working; a series of revolutions has swept away the old usages of the Christian world; an accumulation of errors and of evils, intellectual and moral, has gathered in every country.
Bellarmin enumerates six causes for which General Councils are usefully convened. The last is exactly in point:—'The sixth cause is the general reformation ​of abuses arid vices which creep into the Church; for although the Pontiff can of himself make laws for the whole Church, nevertheless these things are far more acceptably carried through when the Supreme Pontiff makes such laws with the assent of a General Council.'
Even in the natural order, the benefits are obvious. More is seen by many eyes; and the conflict of many opinions, when men are scattered, is allayed by their coming together in counsel. Councils have a special efficacy against heresies and schisms; above all, when the authority of the Pontiff is the point chiefly denied, as in the Greek and the Protestant separations. The decisions of such Councils, if they do not satisfy the authors of heresy and of schism, nevertheless confirm both truth and unity, and set a mark upon their opposites which wither their growth and ensure their fall.
Every General Council has been convened to meet some special heresy or evil of the day. The first six were convened to condemn heresies, the seventh to condemn the Iconoclasts, the eighth for the cause of Photius, the ninth for the recovery of the Holy Land, the tenth against the claims of anti-popes, the eleventh against the Waldenses, the twelfth against heresies and for the Holy Land, the thirteenth against the usurpation of the Emperor Frederick II., the fourteenth against the errors of the Greeks, the fifteenth against various heresies, the sixteenth for the reunion ​of the East, the seventeenth for the healing of schisms and for questions of public law, the eighteenth against the great Lutheran heresy, and for the correction of moral evils.
The mediæval Councils had to deal not so much with heresies as with mixed matters of secular power and abuse; and that because, from the time of S. Gregory the Great, a Christian world, with all its complex relations to the unity of the faith and the Church, had been growing and ripening to maturity. The contest for investitures and immunities belongs to a later period of the work and warfare of the Church. Every age, therefore, has its needs and dangers; and these constitute the reasons for new laws, and, if so judged expedient, for a Council. What, then, are the causes requiring a General Council at this time?
The first and most obvious cause for the convening of a General Council is the internal state of the Church itself. Of the last General Council, the greater part had relation to the discipline and administration of the Church in the states and kingdoms of the Catholic world. Of the twenty-five Sessions of Trent, many are headed 'De Reformatione;' that is, for the correction of evils, usurpations, and abuses, and for the readjustment of the practices and institutions of the various Catholic countries to the immutable laws and principles of the Catholic Church. In the discipline of the Church there are, therefore, two elements: one which is fixed and changeless, namely, the Divine law, both moral and positive, of which the Church is ​the witness and the guardian; the other is variable and accidental, depending upon the conditions of society and of nations. Of the former, the Holy Sacraments, and all that attaches to their administration in form and matter, may be taken as example; of the latter, the laws of benefice and patronage, the forms of tribunals and of procedure. It is obvious that in this latter kind, the last three hundred years have rendered necessary an extensive revision of the Catholic discipline. Benefices, patronage, and tribunals have been swept away in almost every country. The Church has to reorganise itself upon its changeless principles, but in contact with new conditions of society.
Another cause requiring the deliberation of the Church, is the change of its relations, both those of the Holy See, and of the several churches of its communion, to the civil powers of every country. Since the Council of Trent, the revolutions in France, Austria, and Italy have separated the civil powers from the unity of the Church. The nations remain Catholic as before, but many public laws are at variance with the laws of the Church. The old forms of usage and of arrangement need revision, in order to bring into peaceful co-operation the two supreme authorities on which the welfare of society reposes. If the governments of the world know their own highest interests, they will recognise the necessity of entering into loyal and honourable relations of confidence and co-operation with a power ​which pervades, sometimes a large proportion, sometimes the whole population, subject to their civil rule. The Church pervades at least one-fourth, if not a third, of the population of Great Britain and its colonies; about a fifth of the United States; nearly a half of the Prussian monarchy; and almost the entire population of other great kingdoms; and the influence of religion is that which most deeply affects the loyalty and fidelity of nations. It is of the highest moment to the civil powers of the world to readjust their relations with the Catholic Church; for so long as the public laws are at variance with its divine rights and liberties, internal peace and fidelity are hardly to be secured. Poland and Ireland are proofs beyond question.
Again, the Church has at all times endeavoured to sustain the Christian society of nations from the downward tendency which is always carrying it towards the mere natural order. Human society is the creation of God in the order of nature. But Christian society is the creation of God in the order of grace. Political society, in its natural state, rests upon humanity and the moral law known by the light of nature. Christendom rests upon the Incarnation; and was created by the faith, sacraments, unity, and authority of the Church. The confederation or family of nations is natural society elevated to the order of grace, and governed by laws which flow from both natural and supernatural fountains. The union of these two laws and jurisdictions, and the supreme ​direction of the supernatural over the natural law, constitutes the Christian order of the world, as expressed in the old formulas of the concord of the Church and the empire, or of the Church and the civil powers. Such is and always will be the Christian and Catholic jurisprudence. If it cease to live in the kingdoms of the world, their public laws and actions, it will always remain indelible in the theology and principles of the Catholic Church. The theory of the separation of Church and State, and the independence of the two, and of free Churches in free states, if enunciated as an absolute truth, is an error at variance with the mission of the Church to mankind. If it be affirmed only as a statement of the tendency of the world, and of the events before our eyes, it is an undoubted fact. The civil powers everywhere for these three hundred years have striven, first, to establish a superiority of the civil over the spiritual, as in France and Austria, and failing this, to separate themselves and to claim an independence of all spiritual authority. The effect of this is to reduce the Christian society of the world to the natural order; to divest the State of all religious character; to make it external to the faith, and to the Church; or, in a word, to desecrate that which the providence of God through the action of His Church had consecrated. I will not stop here to point out the application of all this to the temporal power of the Sovereign Pontiff; nor to show how large and luminous an interpretation it affords of the inflexibility with which he has for ​twenty years refused all cession and compromise of this Christian order, of which the Holy See is the source and guardian. It is inevitable that a General Council, in which the relations of the Church in all lands to the civil powers throughout the world must be calmly revised by men of the maturest wisdom and calmest temper, under the heaviest private and public responsibility, cannot fail to disperse the clouds of empty declamation which have obscured the truth. Men are coming to perceive that the Christian society of the world is menaced; and that its preservation depends upon a firm and fearless maintenance of the great laws and principles of Christianity, as the providence of God has ordained them.
So much of the causes internal to the Church.
But there are to be found other reasons of great interest to every one who is animated by a love of souls and of the truth and honour of our Divine Lord, in the state of Christian nations separated from the unity of the Catholic Church. It is impossible to look at the East without a profound sorrow for the desolate Churches of Persia, Armenia, Palestine, Egypt, Asia Minor, and of Greece. The memories of saints and doctors hang like a light over their spiritual children now in the darkness of schism and heresy. The old sanctuaries, desecrated and forsaken, still stand, awaiting the day of their reconciliation. The Mahometan power is wasting away. There was a time when all the Christian powers of Europe could ​not expel it from the Holy Land. Now, it could not maintain itself an hour, if the jealousies of Christians did not secure its dominion over the Christian inheritance. The time of its fall, or of its migration, cannot be far off. But as it is now, there might be no bar to the return of the East to the unity of Jesus Christ. It is but just to acknowledge that the Porte has manifested of late to its Christian subjects a singular toleration and equity. What the Council of Florence failed to do, another Council, by the help of the Spirit of God, may accomplish. There is a bond between the East and the Holy See which has never been broken; the love and worship of the Immaculate Mother of God; and by this bond, Pius IX. has drawn more closely than any other Pontiff the Churches of the East to the See of Peter. The definition of the Immaculate Conception has been recognised by Orientals to be no more than their constant and universal belief. The indiction of the Council, in whatsoever year it be, will be fixed for the 8th of December, a day of augury and power. The patriarchs and bishops of the East who surrounded Pius IX. the other day, brought to my mind the first-fruits of the nations who came up to Bethlehem. There were some who had travelled forty days—one who had travelled longer still—before he could reach an ordinary road. When I saw them surround the Vicar of our Lord and kiss his feet, almost by force, I prayed God that the day might be hastened when the sun shall arise upon Asia restored to the unity of the only fold.
​And, lastly, there are thoughts nearer home, and more intimate to our hearts. The great separation of the West cannot continue for ever. If the General Council call on the East to return to the peace of Jesus Christ, the West will not be forgotten. And the voice which calls will not call in vain. There is a movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of those who, in Germany and England, for the last three hundred years have been separated from the centre of Christendom. Men are weary of uncertainties, contentions, disappointments. They are beginning to be convinced in intellect of the wrongs which have been done in ages past to the unity of the faith and to the authority of the Church; they are disturbed in conscience at the evident incoherence of the state they have inherited with the great laws of Divine revelation. There is a desire to heal the wounds of the past, to be reconciled with the great family of Christendom, to receive once more the benediction of the first pastor of the Christian Church, to worship again in the midst of the world-wide sanctuaries and solemnities of the Word made flesh. All these things may be mingled with emotion and imagination, with unreality and a superficial piety. But even so they are in the main, in their origin, and in their end, right and good. If, however, this be true of some, very certainly of a large number we may believe with joy and thankfulness that their desires and aspirations are heartfelt and real, and spring from the inspirations of grace. A General Council has been the desire and ​dream of multitudes of the highest and noblest minds, out of the Catholic Church, in England in these last three hundred years. I hardly dare to speak with the precision of truth, lest I should seem to be severe and unkindly. But the suppression of truth is not charity; and silence in such times as these is suppression. The General Council which will be held hereafter, if God so permit, will be convened by the Roman Pontiff; and will be composed of those who believe, as an article of Divine faith, the visible unity and infallibility of the Catholic and Roman Church. Its first act will be to reaffirm, in all its amplitude, the Holy Catholic Faith as defined and declared by the sacred canons of the Council of Trent.
'The Council of Trent was a Council of recapitulation. It was the heir of all the definitions of the Church. The heresies of old assailed here and there a doctrine of the faith: but God had permitted now a heresy to assail, in a whole line of errors, not only the whole line of the faith, but also the Divine authority of the Church itself. The Council of Trent, therefore, summed up in its decrees what other Councils had declared. All their voices spoke by its one voice, as, on the day of Pentecost, all the Apostles spoke by Peter. The Councils of Africa again promulgated their decrees of original sin; the Council of Orange, of preventing grace; the Council of Vienne, of the infusion of spiritual habits in regeneration; the Council of Toledo, of the Procession of the Holy Ghost; the Council of Lateran, of the mystery ​of transubstantiation; the Council of Florence, which was itself the summary of the Councils of the East, spoke in all their names; all these received their expression in the decrees of Trent. … The profession of faith promulgated by Pius IV. recapitulates the doctrine of the whole Church, East and West, in one, and presents it to the world in ample array, bright and resplendent, over against the prolific errors of these later days restless with a perverse intellectual activity and fronts its advance, reaching from wing to wing.'
We gladly recognise whatever zeal for doctrinal truth is to be found among Protestants of every denomination; among Anglicans, for many Catholic truths, and for approximations to Catholic doctrine; among Protestant Dissenters, for those primary and personal truths relating to our Divine Lord and His redemption, and to the soul and its union with Him. All these truths, in the main, and apart from imperfections of conception and statement, are Christian and Catholic; portions of our inheritance of faith, and of the deposit committed to the Church. The Reformation, which shattered so much of the order of Christian truth, preserved all these. But the tendencies called into activity by the Reformation have been continually destroying the belief of these truths in every Protestant country. Nevertheless, there remains in Germany, England, and Scotland a strong ​traditional belief in many great Christian verities; which, though undermined and menaced, are still held and revered piously by multitudes. Such persons are becoming daily sensible that so far, at least, a common belief unites them to us; and that we oppose to the infidelity which threatens them, a firm and unyielding front. All such minds cannot fail to see in a General Council a powerful witness in support of Christianity. They will know that we are strengthening and confirming the truths which they retain. They will feel to have a share in what is passing, and a sympathy in our acts. It is certain, also, that upon a multitude of minds who are wavering and doubtful, seeking for a foundation on which to rest, and an authority to which to listen, the voice of a General Council will have great power. The condition of Germany, England, and Scotland is in marked contrast to their state three hundred years ago. Protestantism has varied, changed, put off its original type, and unfolded itself into a multitude of irreconcilable forms. It has been always in flux, and is now evidently in rapid dissolution. In such a moment the immutability of the faith manifests itself; and the intellectual and moral action of the Church in Council cannot fail to penetrate both the intellects and the wills of men. The Council of Trent fixed the epoch after which Protestantism never spread. The next General Council will probably date the period of its dissolution. It is certain that the influence of the Church so assembled to deliberate and to legislate for ​the needs and perturbations of the Christian world will have a powerful effect to convince and to persuade, to mitigate and to subdue. If the proclaiming of an amnesty dissolves the organisation of political sedition by appealing to the hearts of men, how much more must the call of the Church of Jesus Christ to peace and charity attract the elements of faith and piety which are scattered among the divisions of Christendom? It is a heavenly invitation to 'men of good will,' and by some it will be surely heard. Call it superstition or dreaming, as men may, I am confident that the spectacle of the Church deliberating in Council on the wounds and miseries of the Christian world, will sink into their hearts. A virtue will go out of it, and a manifold influence will spread from it which will powerfully affect the intellect, the conscience, the will, the whole spiritual nature. The sun and the shower ripen the fruits of the earth, whether we will or no. The seed of the kingdom springs even among the tares, while men sleep. The action of the Church upon the world is beyond the power of man to exclude or to control. He may shut his eyes, but he cannot cover the sun. He may turn his back to the light, but he cannot darken the earth. Moreover, there is another power which will work with us. 'Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum.' The Spirit of God is working internally in all men. And when the Church speaks to their ear, the Spirit moves their hearts to answer. There will be lights in the reason, promptings in the conscience, aspirations in ​the heart, movements in the will, which flow from the Spirit of Truth and Grace upon all to whom the presence and the voice of the Church in Council reaches; and of these, some will refuse, many will obey. It is a time of visitation, in which, by a special intervention, God calls to the nations. It is a providential renewal of the declaration, God 'will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth;' and of the invitation, 'The Spirit and the Bride say, come: and he that heareth, let him say, come. And he that thirsteth, let him come; and he that will, let him take the water of life freely.'
I do not pretend, Reverend and dear Brethren, to know the motives which have determined the Holy Father to convene a General Council, further than his Allocution has expressed them; but those I have touched on are some which we may ourselves easily conceive. We may also anticipate many other reasons for thankfulness and hope as to the consequences of such an event.
(1.) And, first, it is evident that the conscious unity, universality, and power of the Church must be indefinitely elicited and strengthened by meeting in Council. As has been already said, no Pontificate for three hundred years has so brought the Church together as that of Pius IX. Three times the bishops have met, have become known to the Sovereign Pontiff and to each other, and have been united in solemn ​public acts, and in the unanimous declaration of great Catholic principles. A consciousness of absolute unanimity and mutual support pervades the episcopate of all nations at this time more intensely than, perhaps, at any period in past history. The Church has acted and spoken three times in these last years; and the unity of mind and spirit which, by the grace of Divine faith, pervades it, has been extended even to matters which, though not of faith, are in contact with faith. It may be affirmed, therefore, that there never was a moment when the episcopate was so compact, so prepared for action, and so closely united to its head. Of this it is thoroughly conscious, and this consciousness gives a vast force to all its acts. Firm and inflexible as the Sovereign Pontiff has ever been, he has not hesitated to declare that the unanimous support of the bishops has added to him a greater courage and strength. The bishops of Italy, in these last ten years, have exhibited a fortitude and a fidelity, in the midst of every kind of danger, which sets a luminous example to the world. The presence and sympathy of their colleagues from all parts of the earth cannot fail to sustain them. The great Churches of France and Spain, and the younger Churches of England and America, still more the Missionary Churches in the ends of the earth, all both give and receive an impulse of conscious power from their contact with each other and with Rome. It is impossible that this should not react powerfully upon the whole Church throughout the world. All who have ​been assembled at the centre of authority will carry back with them a consciousness of power which will spread through the whole Catholic unity; and this consciousness of unity is strength. It is the one thing which the world cannot give, nor imitate. God alone is its Author; and it makes His Church fearless and invincible.
(2.) And this must powerfully vindicate the liberty of the Church in all its spiritual action. Since the year 1862, and especially since the Allocution of September 1865, men have come more clearly to understand that the question of the temporal power is not one of a few provinces and towns, much less of a royal title or of a royal revenue. It is the condition by which Divine Providence has secured the liberty of the person and of the office of the Vicar of Christ, and of his supreme and independent direction of all civil powers in matters which fall within the Divine law. In proportion as the Church is conscious of its unity, it will make itself felt on the public opinion of every country. So long as the Church is kept apart by the jealousies of governments and nations, it remains unconscious of the vast strength which arises from the unity of co-operation. Despots hate popes, and love patriarchs; for popes are sovereigns, and inflexible; patriarchs may become courtiers, and dependents. In this is seen the difference between the highest power which is only of ecclesiastical creation, and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. The 'Non possumus' of S. Peter is absolute. Frederick the Great of Prussia, with the keen in​stinct of an infidel, recommended the erection of national churches as the true solvent of Catholic unity; and of patriarchates as a guarantee of subserviency to the royal will, and a barrier to exclude the Pontifical supremacy. Civil governments, so long as their Catholic subjects can be dealt with in detail, are strong, and often oppressive. When they have to deal with the Church throughout the world, the minority becomes a majority, and subjects, in all matters spiritual, become free. We are approaching a time when civil governments must deal with the Church as a whole, and with its head as supreme; and a General Council, which makes itself felt in every civilised nation, will powerfully awaken civil rulers to the consciousness that the Church is not a school of opinion, nor a mere religion, but a spiritual kingdom, having its own legislature, tribunals, and executive.
(3.) A further effect will be to hasten the extinction of the spirit of nationalism which for many centuries has troubled the Church. The Church has already had three periods: first, when it was made up of individuals, or at most of households, before as yet an entire nation was converted to the faith; secondly, when the nations were gathered into the Catholic fold, and the laws of unity and authority kept in check the ambition, jealousy, and encroachments of princes and rulers; thirdly, when the rise of modern nations began to develop the seeds of insubordination and schism; lastly, we have now entered a period in which hardly a Catholic nation exists. The kingdoms of Europe ​have either separated altogether, like Prussia and England, from the fold: or, like France and Belgium, having lost their internal unity of faith, they have separated their public laws from the unity of the Church. It is evident that at this moment there is hardly a government on earth which acknowledges the Catholic Church to be its guide. Governments, the public law of States, and international law, have all departed, some more and some less, from the laws of the Church. Nations, as political societies, are no longer Catholic. But the masses of the people in many countries, and a large proportion in others, remain firmly and vividly Catholic. Gallicanism, Josephism, Anglicanism, were devices of government, and diseases of the ruling classes. The people never shared them, never understood them; would have rejected them if they had; and do reject them as soon as they come to see that the choice lies between a State religion and the faith of Christendom, between a royal supremacy and the authority of the Vicar of Christ. To this clearer understanding a General Council will contribute. The supreme spiritual independence of the Church, convened by its head, without dependence on any civil power, freely legislating for the whole Catholic unity, must appeal to every pure instinct of Christians.
The withdrawal of Christian nations, or of their public laws, from the unity of the faith, has produced in past times prolonged conflicts between the supreme spiritual and civil powers. In England, to pass over all other countries, the penal laws in matters ​of religion, by which not only Catholics but Protestant Nonconformists were persecuted, is a page of our history over which we are happy to be able now to draw a veil. So long as the civil power exacted conformity and obedience in matters spiritual, the conscience of Catholics placed them in an unnatural state of passive opposition to supreme authority. It is the dictate of our conscience, founded upon the words of our Lord and of His Apostles, upon the precepts of the Fathers, and the decrees of Councils, that we should render true and faithful obedience in all civil matters to our lawful prince. An oath of pure civil obedience Catholics are bound by their religion to make, from their hearts, to the person of their sovereign. Happily, all the elements of religious and ecclesiastical matter, which used to be mixed up with these civil oaths, have gradually been purged away. The laws of England, with the exception only of a few lingering stains of the old ​anti-Catholic animosity, have become purely civil, and therefore equal and just to all: and within that sphere of civil life and civil obedience it is impossible that collision or conflict should arise. The purely spiritual action of the Church in a General Council will tend to dispel the panic fears and traditional suspicions in respect to the authority of popes, and to confirm the relations of freedom and of co-operation which have arisen between the Catholic Church and the civil powers, both in Catholic and Protestant countries.
(4.) Further: a General Council, by purifying the external status of the Church from local and national taints which enfeeble its action, must add greatly to its spiritual power. It is the genius of the Church to unite its action to that of the civil power; to uphold, direct, and consecrate it. But if civil governments invade its spiritual office, it knows how to hold itself aloof from all civil power, and to keep itself pure from all contact with it. This is a condition favourable to the Church, but adverse to society. Ireland is a sad and sufficient proof. It has been well said that the spiritual and civil powers are united in one person in Rome, that they may be separated everywhere else. The day seems to be past for the Church to unite itself with the civil state of modern nations. They have shattered their unity of religion, and have broken up their public law, to conform it to their religious divisions. Over such mixed states the Church has little disposition to assume control. They are too alien from ​its mind and essence. This separation of Church and State, abnormal, and replete with moral and spiritual dangers, is an established fact in the larger part of the modern world. The Church can at least draw from it this advantage, that if the State will no longer invite it to save the people, its own spiritual action is left free and pure.
(5.) Another change which demands an adjustment of the laws of the Church is to be found in the spoliations which the last centuries have perpetrated. The Church has a divine right to hold property. This right it has originally from its Divine Founder, not from any human law. It is therefore lawful, good, and expedient that it should hold and transmit endowments which are the patrimony of the poor, and the means of spiritual good to the millions of Christendom. The sixteenth century began to spoil, and the revolutions of the last fifty years have swept those endowments away in one half of Europe. The spoiler is again busy to rob the Church in Italy of its birthright. The spoliation of the Church is always, and everywhere, a sin and a sacrilege; nevertheless, the Church knows how to draw power and strength even from spoliation. There is no doubt that it will rise in Italy, as it has risen in France and in Ireland, over all robbery and wrong; and rule the hearts of men with a renewed power. The destruction of benefices has at least released us from patronage, secular interference, lay abuses, with all the moral parasites which infected the old order of nations. A General Council will know ​how to deal with Regales, Sicilian monarchies, and Organic Articles.
(6.) Lastly. Why should it seem to be the vision of a dreamer to hope that from these things may arise a new order, and a new Christian world? Christendom is not more sick and shattered now than it was when S. Gregory went to his rest. He died mourning over its apparent dissolution; and yet all the glories of the Christendom of a thousand years arose out of the ruins over which he sorrowed. The world is always changing, rising and falling, swaying to and fro like the currents of the great deep. Kingdoms, empires, confederations of Christian States, have formed, dissolved, and passed by together. The Church alone stands steadfast and changeless. It has withstood, and it has made new relations with, a Byzantine, a Frankish, a German Empire, with Christian Europe, in its gradual rise, its many vicissitudes, its perpetual instability. We are but in a new crisis of the old work and conflict. A new European order, with new frontiers, new centres, new powers, new dynasties, may spring up around the See of Peter; and the Pontiffs, calm and changeless in their supremacy, will enter into new relations with a new world, upon old laws which are changeless as the succession of seasons and of tides. We are not shaken nor alarmed by revolutions. We protest against them; we may be crushed by them; but we rise again. The Sovereign Pontiff, in the last proposition of the Syllabus, condemned the pert audacity of those who call upon the Pope to ​reconcile himself with modern progress. It is for modern progress to reconcile itself with the Pope. The Christian world was founded upon the unity of faith, the unity of Christian matrimony, the unity of communion, the unity of one supreme authority in the Church of God. The world seems to be putting off its Christian unity, and returning to the divisions and dissensions of the natural order. The Church cannot yield a jot or a tittle of its divine laws of unity and truth. The world may renew its ten persecutions; but the Pontiffs will be inflexible to the end. They have counselled, warned, and entreated Princes and Legislatures. If rulers will not hear their voice, the people will. And this, it would seem, may be the future. The pastors know their flocks, and their flocks know them. Through these, the Vicar of Jesus Christ has spoken from the beginning, to the nations and people of the world; and the nations know his voice. The Governments of the world may be Febronian or Voltairian; the spirit of Pombal and of Kaunitz may survive in bureaus and portfolios; but the instincts of the masses are Christian, and the tendency of political society is everywhere to the people. Of this we have no fear. The Church is nowhere more vigorous than where it is in closest sympathy with the people; as in Ireland and Poland, in America, Australia, and in England.
Such, then, Reverend and dear Brethren, seems to be, in outline at least, the moral import of this eighteenth Centenary of S. Peter's martyrdom. It ​has had great results already; it will have greater still. We are at a period of singular moment. The nineteenth century is more than half spent. It opened with a series of revolutions which for fifty years have been shaking, not Europe only, but the world. But there is a turn in the tide of events. The moral and intellectual power of the Catholic Church has been steadily rising in the public opinion of every country. Its action was never more wide-spread nor more kindly: witness its expanding influences in the United States, and in the colonies of the British Empire. At home it is, perhaps, less kindly viewed, less kindly dealt with. The tradition of the Tudor spirit, which survives the Tudor statutes, swept away though they be because now obsolete, and obsolete because too unjust to be put in execution; the historical prejudice, suspicion, fear, and hatred against the Catholic Church, into which we English are born, as into the fall of Adam;—all this still survives to keep up a religious bitterness which has been the disease and humiliation of our country. Nevertheless, a clearer sky is opening. These things are almost relegated now from the sphere of legislation and from public opinion to the haunts of moles and bats, to anti-Catholic factions, to sections of religious parties, or to knots of individuals who have dropped behind the spiritual and intellectual changes of our times.
But I cannot here do more than touch these things in passing. To do more would need a treatise. What has been said is enough to mark the importance ​and the power of the events before us. They appeal to our faith, and demand of us to act with courage and with confidence in God and in the great laws by which His Church is governed. A year ago, few believed that at this time the Holy Father would be in Rome. It was when the protection of earthly power was about to leave him that he summoned this great gathering. When Jerusalem was surrounded by the Assyrians, Jeremias bought land in Anathoth. In the face of all danger, and in defiance of all menace, he gave this witness of his immoveable confidence in the promise and power of God. And now, in the presence of a hostile world and all its perturbations, the Pope proclaims a General Council. Let us not be unworthy of this example. The highest conception and enunciation of Catholic truths and principles, without compromise or transaction of any kind, and a calm confidence that God will accomplish His own work in His own time and way, by His own instruments and power, is our duty. What these next years may bring forth, none can say. The Holy Father has declared that the General Council shall be opened on a day marked in his Pontificate and in the history of the Church for ever—the Feast of the Immaculate Conception—but he has not fixed the year. We cannot tell what winds and waves may sweep over Europe and Italy. At any time the whole continent may be on fire from east to west with a terrible war of nations, embittered sevenfold by the working of anti-Christian revolutions. Italy, for its wanton ​infidelity to the exuberant mercies of God in nature and in grace, may receive its heaviest scourge. It may be delivered over to its own will, and be deprived for a time of the presence which makes it the first of Christian nations. On all these contingencies the mind of the Pontiff meditates. Calmly and surely he will bide his time, in supernatural confidence that no power of man can bind him when the hour of liberation comes. Peter was bound with chains in Jerusalem, and again in Rome, and men have striven for eighteen hundred years to bind his successors. Persecutors in Rome, emperors in Constantinople, heretics in high places, Lombard kings, Counts of the Marches, Norrnan dukes, Roman factions, French monarchs, Infidel republics, Imperial conquerors, Gallican assemblies, secret societies, diplomacy without faith,—all in succession have thought to bind the hands of Peter, and in him to bind the Church of God. It is an old tale. When men least look for it; when all seems surest for their policy, on a sudden, without warning, and as by the touch of unseen might, the fetters fall off from the sacred hands. And in Peter the Church goes forth free and sovereign.
Miris modis repente liber, ferrea, Christo jubente, vincla Petrus exuit. Ovilis ille Pastor, et Rector gregis, Vitæ recludit pascua et fontes sacros, Ovesque servat creditas, arcet lupos.
Peter reigns still, Chief Shepherd of the one fold, opening the pastures of life and the sacred fountains, ​guarding the sheep, keeping off the wolves. The General Council will meet when he sees the time, and it will do its work. 'Verbum Dei non est alligatum.' 'Ubi Spiritus Domini ibi libertas.'
Already the preparations for this event are making under the eye of the Holy Father. You will pray daily that the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost may rest abundantly upon him, and upon all who are around him. When the Indiction of the Council reaches me, I will call upon you to unite in a special invocation of the Holy Ghost, the Author of unity and the Spirit of Truth and Charity, and to offer the Most Holy Sacrifice for the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff.
I remain, Rev. and dear Brethren,
Your affectionate Servant in Christ,
✠ HENRY EDWARD, ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER.
Sept. 8, 1867.
* ↑ S. Cypr. Epist. xl. ad Plebem, &c. Ed. Baluz.
* ↑ De Unit. Eccl. Opp. p. 195.
* ↑ Enarr. in Ps. 108, tom. v. p. 1215.
* ↑ S. Optat. De Schismate Donat. Lib. 1. Opp. p. 10.
* ↑ S. Leon. Serm. in Die Assumpt. suæ. iii. Opp. p. 52.
* ↑ S. Ambr. in Ps. xl. tom. i. p. 879, ed. Ben.
* ↑ Lupoli, Jur. Eccl. præl. vol. I., p. 70, sqq. Th. Stapleton, Vere admiranda, seu de magnitudine Romanæ Ecclesiæ libri duo. Ant. 1599, in 4to.
* ↑ S. Iren. adv. Hær. III. 3, § 21, note 27.
* ↑ Stapleton, loc. cit. pp. 22, 23. Arringhi, Roma Subterranea, lib. i. Blaëtter, Bd. xi., s. 155, u. ff.
* ↑ Prosper, Lib. de Ingratis:— Sedes Roma Petri, quæ pastoralis honoris Facta caput mundi, quicquid non possidet armis Relligione tenet.
* ↑ S. Leo, Serm. 82, in Natal. Petri et Pauli, t. I. col. 321.
* ↑ Bellarmin. de Notis Ecclesiæ, lib. iv. c. 8.
* ↑ Phillips, Du Droit Eccles. &c., translated by Crouzet. Paris, 1855. Vol. i. pp. 156–159.
* ↑ It is impossible to treat in this place of the extraordinary condition of the Church, such as occurred in what is called 'the great Western schism.' It is enough for the present to quote the words of Bellarmin: 'Etsi Concilium sine Papa non potest definire nova dogmata fidei, potest tamen judicare tempore schismatis, quis sit verus Papa, et providere Ecclesiæ de vero pastore, quando is nullus aut dubius est: et hoc est, quod recte fecit Concilium Constantiense.'—De Concil. Auct. lib. ii. c. 19, sect. 22.
* ↑ L. Brancatus de Lauræa, De Virtute Fidei Disp. v. Art. vii., de Decretis Eccles. Ed. Rom. 1673. Typis S. C. de Prop. Fid. This portion of the treatise may be found also in Roccaberti, Bibl. Max. Pontif. tom. xv. p. 48.
* ↑ Ibid., or Roccaberti, ut supra.
* ↑ L. Brancatus de Lauraea, De Decretis Eccles. Art. iii., or Roccaberti, tom. xv. p. 24.
* ↑ Schrader, De Unitate Romana, pp. 223, 225–6, 273, 279. Orsi, De irreformabili Rom. Poutif. Judicio, tom. ii. pp. 300, 310, 324.
* ↑ S Iren.: Contra Hær., lib. iv. 38.
* ↑ Tertull. De Praescr. c. xxxvi.
* ↑ Epist. lv. Opp. p. 86. Ed. Baluz.
* ↑ Epist. xv. Opp. tom. i. P. I, p. 38. Ed. Ven. 1766.
* ↑ S. Aug. Opp. Serm. cxxxi. s. 10, tom. v. 645.
* ↑ Ad Renat. Presbyt. ep. cxvi. Schrader, De Unitate Romana. Tom. ii. 217.
* ↑ Ibid. tom. ii. p. 217.
* ↑ Gerdil. Per la Bolla Auctorem Fidei. Sez. 2. Art. vii., viii., ix. Op. inedit., tom. v. p. 256–259. Napoli, 1855.
* ↑ 'Cardinal Wiseman's Last Illness,' pp. 24, 25 (Burns).
* ↑ Zaccaria Antifebronius Vindicatus, Dissert V. c. v. 2. Romæ 1848. The following account, given by Fenelon, respecting the part taken by Bossuet in the Articles of 1682, is too interesting to be omitted:— 'Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, lately deceased, often narrated to me, before witnesses worthy of confidence, the things which passed in the Assembly of the Gallican Clergy in 1682. The narrative was as follows: 'Choiseul, Bishop of Tournai, had been chosen to draw up the Declaration of the Gallican Clergy on the authority of the Pope. He wrote it, and it was read. At once Bossuet strongly opposed him, because he declared that both the Apostolic See and the Pope personally might fall into heresy. Choiseul answered: Unless you say so, whether you will or no, you necessarily affirm the infallibility of Rome. Bossuet replied: But you cannot deny that the faith of Peter shall never fail in his See. That is clearly proved by the promises; that is most evident from universal tradition. If that be so, Choiseul said, absolute infallibility is ascribed not indeed to the man who sits in the See, but to the See itself. And so it must be admitted that every decree which emanates from the Apostolic See is altogether irreformable, and confirmed by infallible authority. 'Bossuet tried to answer the objection in this way: The faith of this See is indeed indefectible; nevertheless its judgments are not infallible. How do you prove, Choiseul asked, that the faith of this See is indefectible? I prove it, said Bossuet, from the promises of Christ; forasmuch as Christ expressly says, "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." This is the faith of Peter, which shall never fail in his See. … 'While Choiseul endeavoured to refute these arguments, Bossuet urged him sharply. He said, with a peremptory voice, Answer: can the Apostolic See become heretical or not? Whatever you say will be contrary to yourself. If you say that the Apostolic See can become heretical, and, in defending its heresy, schismatical, then by your doctrine it may come to pass, that the head of the Church may be torn from the body, and the truncated body become lifeless; and therefore the centre of unity in faith become the centre of corrupt belief and of heresy. But if you say, this See cannot fail in the faith, of which it is the centre and head, therefore the faith of this See is indefectible. 'After much direct controversy of the same kind, Choiseul added: Under this milder name of indefectibility you are insinuating that very infallibility of the Ultramontanes which you deny, and most dangerously delude yourself. Show therefore precisely and clearly in what this indefectibility of yours differs from that Ultramontane infallibility. The Bishop of Meaux answered, that it was promised to the Apostolic See that it should be for ever the foundation, centre, and head of the Catholic Church, and that therefore it could never become schismatical or heretical, like many Oriental Churches, which, once enjoying Catholic communion, had at length lapsed into schism and heresy. It is proved by the promises (these are Bossuet's words), that to the Apostolic See this can never happen. 'When this altercation between the two bishops ended, the Bishop of Tournai withdrew from the office of drawing up the Declaration. The Bishop of Meaux was substituted to fulfil this duty, and immediately drew up the Four Propositions as they exist at this day. 'These are the particulars which witnesses worthy of confidence, and still living, have with me very often heard narrated by the Bishop of Meaux.' Fenelon, De Summi Pontificis Auctoritate, c. 7. Œuvres complètes de Fénélon. Vol. ii. Paris, 1852. Fenelon, in refuting Bossuet's opinion, says: 'The great use of the controversy between the Bishops of Tournai and Meaux is as follows: that out of their propositions may be constructed an invincible argument for the Apostolic See. The major is laid down by the Bishop of Tournai, the minor is defended by the Bishop of Meaux; the conclusion is mine, and is inevitable. The indefectibility in faith of the Apostolic See, … said the Bishop of Tournai, is identical with the doctrine which the moderate school of Transalpines labour to prove, under the less mild name of infallibility. But the indefectibility of faith in this See, answered the Bishop of Meaux, can be denied by no instructed Catholic. 'Therefore, I say, this gift promised by God, which Cisalpines call indefectibility, and Transalpines call infallibility, can be denied by no instructed Catholic.'—Ibid. c. 8.
* ↑ Zaccaria Antifebronius Vindicatus, Dissert V. c. v. 5, note.
* ↑ Romanus Pontifex tanquam Primas Eccles. Roskovány, tom. ii. pp. 223–227. Nitriæ et Comaromii, 1867.
* ↑ Ibid. p. 239.
* ↑ Romanus Pontifex tanquam Primas Eccles. Roskovány, tom. ii. p. 237. Nitriæ et Comaromii, 1867.
* ↑ Roskovány ut supra, tom. ii. p. 239.
* ↑ Ibid. p. 240. The French text is given by Sfondratus, Regale Sacerdotium. Appendix.
* ↑ Roskovány ut supra, tom. ii. p. 243.
* ↑ 'Multo fortius exigit a nobis pastoralis sollicitudo recentem horum factam in synodo tot vitiis affectam adoptionem, velut temerariam, scandalosam, ac prsesertim, post edita prædecessorum nostrorum decreta, huic Apostolicæ Sedi summopere injuriosam, reprobare ac daranare.'—Const. Pii VI. Auctorem Fidei, s. lxxxv.
* ↑ Bullarium Ben. XIV. ed. Mechlin, xiii. Suppl. p. 105.
* ↑ Scavini Theol. Moral. Univ., tom. iv. pp. 297–8, ed. Milan. 1865.
* ↑ Peter de Marca, Archbishop of Paris, speaking of the Jesuits, who had publicly maintained the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, says: 'This is the opinion which alone is taught in Spain, Italy, and all other provinces of Christendom; so that the other, which is called the opinion of the Parisian School, is to be referred to that class of opinions which is tolerated. … The authority of pronouncing an infallible sentence in causes of faith is ascribed to the Supreme Pontiff by the consent of all universities, excepting only the ancient Sorbonne,' that is, in the time when Gerson began to sow the seeds of the contrary opinion. De Marca adds, 'The majority of Doctors, not only in Theology but even of Laws, adhere to the common opinion as resting upon foundations most difficult to disturb, and deride the opinion of the old Sorbonne.' Gonzalez De Infall. Roman. Pontiff, disp. xvii. § 2. Aguirre, Defensio Cath. S. Petri, disp. vii. §§ 1, 2, 3. The same is abundantly proved by Soardi, De Supremâ Rom. Pont. Auct., Præf. viii,, ix. Neque quemquam alium e Theologis Parisiensibus alicuius nominis allegatum invenio pro eadem opinione, saltem ex iis qui scripserunt usque ad initium huius sæculi, quin et Theophilus ipse loco citato, puncto 11 initio, testatur, demptis iis paucis, nimirum, Gersone, Petro Alliacensi, et Jacobo Almaino, cæteros pene omnes docere, definitiones Pontificum in iis quæstionibus esse fide divina certas.—Aguirre, Def. Cathed. S. Petri. Tract. 1, Disp. vii. 9. Nullus enim eousque, nisi forte heterodoxus aut schismaticus, invenitur, qui auctoritatem infallibilem negaverit Romano Pontifici, quoties ex cathedra sedis Apostolicæ definit aliquid, tamquam credendum ab omnibus fidelibus circa fidem aut mores, ut diserte ostendit Ruardus Tapper Orat. 3. Theologica Columna 8 pag. mini 339, ubi testatur opinionem contrariam fuisse noviter introductam a quibusdam Parisiensium, contra doctrinam veterum omnium scriptorum, qui Romani Pontificis iudicium in quæstionibus fidei esse prorsus infallibile concorditer ex Scripturis tradunt. Itaque allegatione prædictorum, sive Patrum Galliae, sive Conciliorum, sive Theologorum Parisiensium, et quorumlibet aliorum antiquiorum Concilio Constantiensi supersedeo, ne actum agam.—Ibid. § 13, ad fin. 'Cette idée nouvelle. qui représente un ordre de choses diametralement contraire à ce que le mot exprime, puisque, en réalité, sous le nom pompeux de libertés de l'Église gallicane se cachait 1'oppression la plus tyrannique de cette même Église par le pouvoir civil, est éclose en France, dans le seizième siècle. Le veritable noyau de ces prétendues libertés, c'étaient ces mêmes tendances schismatiques que nous avons déjà signalées, formulées en maximes législatives, auxquelles on avait ajouté quelques particularités réelles ou imaginaires de la discipline ecclésiastique de France.'—Phillips, Du Droit Eccl. tom. iii. p. 194.
* ↑ De Rom. Pontif. Auctoritate, tom. ii. 337.
* ↑   Quid sit Pontificem e Cathedra docere. 'Pontifex aliqua facit ut homo, aliqua ut Princeps, aliqua ut Doctor, aliqua ut Papa, hoc est, ut caput et fundamentum Ecclesia3: et his solis actionibus privilegium infallibilitatis adscribimus: alias humanæ conditioni relinquimus: sicut ergo non omnis actio Papæ est Papalis, ita non omnis actio Papæ Papali privilegio gaudet. 'Hoc ergo est, pontificem agere, et e Cathedrâ loqui, quod nulli doctorum aut episcoporum convenit.'—Sfondrati Regale Sacerdotium, lib. iii. sec. 1.
* ↑ Quotiescumque Romanus Pontifex in fidei quaestionibus definiendis, ilia qua est praeditus auctoritate utitur, ab omnibus fidelibus tanquam doctrina fidei recipi divino praecepto debet ea sententia, quam ille decernit esse sententiam fidei. Toties autem eum ipsa auctoritate uti credendum est, quoties in controversia fidei, sic alterutram sententiam determinat, ut ad eam recipiendam obligare velit universalem Ecclesiam.—Greg. de Val. disp. v. q. 1. De Objectis Fidei, p. vii. q. 6.
* ↑ 'Idem prorsus de Romano Pontifice dicendum est, quoties è Cathedrâ Petri totam Ecclesiam alloquitur, eique ceu supremus Doctor exponit, quid tanquam Catholicum dogma credere debeat, quid tanquam hæreticum figmentum vitare: quam doctrinam amplecti ceu sanam, quam cavere ceu noxiam: et quoties, pro universalis Pastoris officio, commissis a Christo sibi ovibus salubria hinc demonstrat pascua virtutum, ut ad immortalem iis vitam alantur; venenifera inde vitiorum, ne iis degustandis sempiternam sibi mortem consciscant. 'Juxta hunc itaque sensum probandum statuendumque nobis in hac Tractatione omni argumentorum genere est, tanquam omnino certum, Romanum Pontificem, dum è Cathedrâ Petri universam Ecclesiam, ceu communis Magister, et supremus quæstionum ad mores atque fidem spectantium Judex alloquitur, errare neutiquam posse. Evidens namque nobis apparet, vel nullum in aliquo cœtu supremum Judicem esse, vel hoc munus ad eum, qui toti præest cœtui, pertinere; ut sane non certum minus nobis sit, Pontificem è Cathedrâ toti Ecelesiæ loquentem errare non posse, ac certum sit, Pontificem toti Ecclesiæ præesse.'—Gonzalez de Infallibilitate Rom. Pontif. Disp. i. sect. 1.
* ↑ 'Nihilominus veritas Catholica est, Pontificem definientem ex Cathedrâ esse regulam fidei, quse errare non potest, quando aliquid authenticè proponit universæ Ecclesiæ, tanquam de fide divinâ credendum; ita decent hoc tempore omnes Catholic! doctores, et censeo, esse rem de fide certain.' Suarez, Disp. v. de Fide, sect. 8, n. 4. At vero tam de hac definitione (Bonifacii VIII. in Extravag. "Unam Sanctam," " De Major:" &c.) quam de aliis decretis Pontificum ausus est dictus Rogerus respondere, non esse de fide certum, Pontificem definientem sine Concilio General! non posse errare. Sed est responsio, non solum nimis temeraria, sed etiam erronea: nam licet olim fortasse aliqui Doctores Catholic! sine pertinacia in hoc dubitaverint, vel erraverint, jam vero tarn est conMans Ecclesiæ consensus, et Catholicorum scriptorum concors de hac veritate sententia, ut earn in dubium revocare, nullo modo liceat.' Suarez, De Fide, disp. xx. s. 3. num. 22.
* ↑ 'Responsio fide certa est, infallibile Romani Pontificis judicium in rebus fidei determinandis esse. Ita ut quando è Cathedrâ definit, sive quando ut Pontifex proponit Ecclesiæ quidpiam fide credendum, nullo casu possit errare, sive cum Generali Concilio definiat, sive sine illo.'—Sylvius, De Fidei Controv. lib. iv. quæst. 2, art. 8.
* ↑ 'Nemo negare potest, quin hæc propositio, quod Pontifex ut Pontifex contra fidem possit decernere, viam faciat ad iuobedientiam, occasionemque præbeat dubitandi de multis, quæ jam toto orbe recepta sunt, et a Pontifice judicata: quod non vacat specie aliquâ temeritatis.—Duvall. ap. Suar. p. 590. 'Absolute certum eat, summum Pontificem neque in fide neque in moribus ex Cathedrâ decernendis errare posse, statimque a suâ Canonicâ electione infallibilitatis privilegio a Christo donari.'—Duvallius, De Infallibilitate Rom. Pont. pars ii. quæst. 1, p. 751, ap. Gonzalez.
* ↑ Censeo, qui absolute infallibilem esse Papæ ex Cathedrâ definientis auctoritatem, ac defmitis non credat, eum liaud dubie errare in fide; 'et si in errore obstinatus perse veret, hæreticum fore. Et fidenter assero, pestem eos Ecclesiæ, ac pernieiem afferre, qui aut negant Romanum Pontificem Petro in fidei doctrinæque auctoritate succedere, aut certe adstruunt, summum Ecclesiæ pastorem errare in fidei judicio posse.'—Macedo, Tessera Romana, quæst. v. art. 1.
* ↑ 'Romanus Pontifex in judicio fidei et morum, id est, dum determinat judicialiter credenda, aut per mores facienda, non potest errare. Non est ista conclusio opinative tenenda, sed opposita est error manifestus in fide: et dicit Cano bene, se non dubitare, si Concilio proponeretur, quòd damnaretur ut hæresis.'—Toletus, in Sec. Secund. S. Thom. quæst. 1, art. 10, contr. 8, concl. 15.
* ↑ 'Itaque infallibilitas Romani Pontificis, licet non sit expresse definita ab Ecclesiâ, est tamen proxime definibilie, quia est veritas theologica, omnino certa, contenta in Scripturis, et perpetuâ Ecclesiæ traditions et communi consensu Patrum ac Doctorum firmata; et, ut ajebat Bellarminus, opposita doctrina videtur omnino erronea, et hæresi proxima, ut meritò possit judicio Ecclesicæ hæretica declarari. Et licet non sit de fide, quoad obligationem credendi intimatam omnibus ab Ecclesiâ, est tamen de fide quoad objectum, et quoad obligationem respectu eorum qui certi sunt bane veritatem esse revelatam, ob argumenta quibus convincuntur: hanc autem certitudinem habent omnes fere Doctores Catholici, exceptis paucis nonnullis ex Galliâ. Omnes autem in re tanti momenti tenentur fundamenta expendere, quibus probatur Romanum Pontificem definientem è Cathedrâ non posse errare; nam si quis negaret Romano Pontifici privilegium infallibilitatis ipsi a Christo concessum, vel quia controversiam hanc diligenter non examinavit; vel quia aliquâ passione humanâ abreptus erravit in judicio ferendo, is apud Deum excusationem non haberet; quia ejus error esset culpabilis, et ejus ignorantia vincibilis.'—Gonzalez, ut supra, disp. xvii. sect ii. 11. See also Raynaudi, Corona Aurea, 'Romanus Pontifex docens ex Cathedrâ errare non potest.'—App. tom. x. p. 146.
* ↑ S. Leon. Opp. Serm. ii. in Die Assumptionis suæ, tom. i. pp. 51–52, Ed. Lugd. 1700.
* ↑ S. Petri Chrys. Ep. ad Eutychen apud S. Leon. M. Opp. tom. i. pp. 241–2, Ed. Lugd. 1700.
* ↑ Orsi de Rom. Pontif. Auctor. tom. ii. 338.
* ↑ Brancatus de Lauræa, De Decretis Eccl., Disp. v. Art. ii., s. 82.
* ↑ Ibid. s. 83.
* ↑ Brancatus de Lauræa, De Decretis Eccl., Disp. v. Art. ii. 105.
* ↑ Ibid. Art. ii. s. 103.
* ↑ Muzzarelli, De Auctor. Rom. Pontif. tom. i. p. 91.
* ↑ Orsi De Rom. Pontif. Auct. tom. i. P. i. p. 410, 412.
* ↑ Ibid. p. 413.
* ↑ The three following Councils may be given as examples. 'Ipsa quoque Sancta Romana Ecclesia Summum Principatum super universam Ecclesiam obtinet, quem se ab ipso Domino in Beato Petro, cujus Romanus Pontifex est successor, cum potestatis plenitudine recepisse recognoscit; sic, si quæ de Fide subortæ fuerint quæstiones, suo debent judicio definiri.'—Concil. Lugd. Œcum. II. 'Definimus, Romanum Pontificem in universum Orbem habere Primatum, et successorem esse Petri, totiusque Ecclesiæ Caput, et Christianorum Patrem ac Doctorem existere: et ipsi in Beato Petro regendi Ecclesiam a D. N. Jesu Christo plenam potestatem traditam esse, quemadmodum etiam in gestis Œcumenicorum Conciliorum, et in Sacris Canonibus continetur.'—Concil. Flor. Sess. ult. 'Dubia Fidei declarare, ad Sedem duntaxat Apostolicam pertinet.'—Concil. Vienn. XV. Generale, sub Clem. V.
* ↑ Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects, p. 157.
* ↑ Bellarmin, de Conciliis, lib. i. c. vi. vii.
* ↑ Bellarm. de Conciliis, lib. i. c. ix.
* ↑ Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects, pp. 153–4.
* ↑ 1 Tim. ii. 4.
* ↑ Apoc. xxii. 17.
* ↑ Concil. Toletan. iv. c. 75: 'Sacrilegium quippe est si violetur agentibus Regum suorum promissa fides, quia non solum in eos fit pacti transgressio, sed et in Deum, in cujus nomine pollicetur ipsa promissio.' So also the tenth Council of Toledo, and the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle. Suarez, Responsio ad Regis Angliee Librum, lib. vi. c. 1.
* ↑ 'Cum enim uniuscujusque Regis subditi, teste Paulo, ei parere, et fidelitatem servare, et in omnibus quae ad potestatem Regiam spectant, illi obedire teneantur, ut in libro 3. ostensum est, per se manifestum est, juramentum de hac obedientia, et fidelitate servanda (quod juramentum fidelitatis appellamus) per se, et ex objecto suo honestum esse: ac subinde et posse a Rege ad suam majorem securitatem ac stabilitatem postulari, et tune a subditis et exhiberi et servari debere.'—Suarez, ibid. lib. vi. Proœm.