Daily globe., 1881-07-31

ever statements the chroniclers of these
events may have made or may make
Their church, they know, is ever con-
sistent with herself, She is not the un-
certain, unstable thing which Mr.. Smith
would have her to be-the changeling
which his Professionalism is.
Mr. Smith had passed without notice
my positive contradiction of his outrag-
eous misrepresentation of Cardinal Bel
larmine 1t was a most serious imputa-
ton upon all Catholics. l expected, as
the least Mr. Smith could do, that he
would acknowledge his having mistaken
Bellarmine's meaning, In my subse-
quent letter in the GLOBE expressed in
an emphatic manner my surprise at Mr..
Smiths utter silence upon this point.
His reply is: ''The passage from Bellar-
mine was quoted correctly, and the Bish-
op knows it." had misgivings as to the
Judgment when he first quoted the
passage; but this last reply after
the explanation l had made, amazes
me. 1t could have been prompted only
| by recklessness which l shall
not designate. But, more for the benefit
of the public than in consideration for
Mr.. Smith, we proceed to further eluci-
dation of the subject.
1t is evident, from the rash manner in
which Mr. Smith re- asserts his mlsinter-
pretatlon of Bellarmine's words, that he
has never read the book from which he
pretended to:quote. Cardinal Bellarmine
wrote in Latin nearly three hundred
years ago His works, though studied in
every Catholic theological seminary, are
not generally known to Methodist divines,
and hence necessity has not demanded
their appearance in our veTnacular. In
pious treatises on the horrors of popery.
we at times find garbled extracts from
Bellarmine, and from some such source,
no doubt, did Mr. Smith draw the unfor-
tunate quotation on papal infallibility.
For the general information of Mr.. Smith,
l give the ips5ssimG eer6G Of Bellarmine,
in the original and in a translation.
In the fifth chapter Of the fourth book,
De Romano Pontifce, Bellarmine lBys
down the following proposition =
t'Non solum in decretis fidei errare non
potest summus Pontifex, sed neque
in praceptls morum, qua toti
ecclesi9 pr8scribuntur, ct qu8
in rebus necessariis ad salutem
vel in lis ouae per Sc bona vel mala sunt,
versantur.'' That is: ''Not only can the
supreme pontiff not err in DEGREES of
faith, but neither can he err in precepts
of morals which are prescribed to the
whole church, and which relate to things
necessary to salvation, or to things good
or bad, per sc.
Having explained the exact meaning of
the thesis and demonstrated the first part
by two arguments, Bellarmine proceeds
to prove the second part in the following
words:
Quod autem non possit PontifeX errare
in moribus per sc bonis vel malls proba
tur Here follows an argument drawn
from the sanctity of the church, after
which he writes:
90. Quia tune necessario erraret clrca
fidem. Nam fdes Catholica docet ,omnem
virtutem esSe bOnaln, Omne vitium eSse
malum; ST autem Papa erraret praecipi-
endo vita vel prohibendo virtues, ,tenere-
tur ecclesia credere vita esse bona, ct
virtues mala, nisi vellet contra conscien-
tam peccare Tenetur enim ecclesia in
rebus dubiis acquiescere judicio SUNNI
Pontifcis ets facere quod lille praecipit
That the Pope cannot err in morals
good or bad per Sc is proved:
Secondly, because then he could neces-
sarily err in faith. For Catholic faith
teaches that every virtue is good and
every vice bad. But if the pope could
err by enjoinlng vices or forbidGing vir-
tues the church would be bound to believe
vices good and virtues bad, or
else sin against conscience For in doubt
full things the church is bound to submit
to the judgment of the supreme pdhtiff,
and to do what he commands, etc.
The argument of Bellarmine is simply
q raductGo ad a6surdum. He had proved
in previous proposition the infallibility
Of the pope in matters of faith. The
inerrancy Of the pope in matters of NOR
ais is in the above words demonstrated
from the absurd consequences necessarily
deriving from the contrary hypothesis.
Whoever understands the meaning of
words must see at a glance the drift of
Bellarmine's argument and the ludicri-
Gus blunder of Mr. Smith IN assuming as
an article of Catholic faith what Bel
larmine supposed every sane man would
perceive to be a self-evident absurdity.
The works of Bellarmine are in our
Cathedral library, and Rev. Mr. Smith
and any Of his friends are free to exam
inc them. JOHN IRELAND.