THE FIRST ECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE

TH

VATICAN, CHAPTER VI.

HE proceedings of the Vatican Council have reached a stage that allows us to witness again its external splendor and imposing presence. Grand and most august as it certainly is, still everything that strikes the eye fades away as one thinks of its sublime office, of its important, unlimited influence and effect.

The question that for more than a year has agitated all circles of society; that for the past three months has been a subject of exciting debate among the fathers of the council, could not have been of greater weight. It is one of those truths essential to the existence of the Church, and had it not been practically acknowledged among the faithful throughout the world, Christianity, unless otherwise sustained by its Author, would have been an impossibility. The vital point examined was the essence of the union of the Church, to determine dogmatically in what it consists, who or what is the person or body that can so hold and teach the faith as to leave no doubt of any kind whatsoever regarding its absolute divine certainty.

Up to the present day the infallibility of an œcumenical council, or of the whole Church dis

persed throughout the world, has been recognized as the ultimate rule by all who lay claim to orthodoxy; but with that council, or with that Church dispersed throughout the world, as a requisitesine qua non-was the communion and consent of the Sovereign Pontiff. Where he was with the bishops there was the faith; no matter how many bishops might meet together and decree, if Peter was not with them, there was no certainty of belief, no infallible guidance. Nay, their decrees were received only in so far as approved by him. Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia, was the formula recognized by tradition. In a word, where Peter was, there was to be found infallible teaching; where Peter was not, there neither was the teaching infallible. None in the Church ever thought of gainsaying this. But there came a time when writers went so far as to say that the Pope could be judged by the other body of teachers, the bishops; and this followed naturally from a mistrust in the unfailing orthodoxy of the Sovereign Pontiff. The greater phases of this movement are well known. The Council of Constance had hardly closed when the Council of Basel put in practice the principles broached by its predecessor, and deposed the reigning head of the Church, putting in his stead Amadeus of Savoy, with the title of Felix V. In the midst of this confusion Eugenius IV held the Council of Florence, in which the remarkable decree was published that declared the Pope the Vicar of Christ, the ruler of the flock, and the doctor of the universal Church. Those of the French clergy who clung with ten

acity to the principles of Basel refused to receive this decree, under pretence of the unoecumenical character of the Council of Florence. The Jansenists availed themselves of the advantage this pretext gave them. Although eighty-five French bishops wrote in the year 1652 to Innocent X, according, they say, to the custom of the Church, in order to obtain the condemnation of these heretics, the latter still held their ground, and were able to accuse the French Assembly of 1682 of inconsistency, in attempting to force on them a decision of the Pope, whom the assembly itself declared fallible. The celebrated Arnold taught that the refusal of its approbation to a papal decision on the part of one individual church was enough to make the truth of such a decision doubtful.

We shall try to give some idea of the importance of the question of papal infallibility by a parallel development of two opposite teachings in a rapid sketch.

The cardinal principle of Gallicanism is the denial of the inerrancy of the Sovereign Pontiff in his solemn ruling in matters of faith and morals when teaching the whole Church. Anyone who attentively looks at the question must see the close connection of the primacy with the claim of unerring certainty in teaching. The domain of the Church is in faith, in spirituals; temporals being secondary, and the subject of legislation only in so far as necessarily bound up with the former. The only reason why a teacher can lay claim to obedience is because he teaches the truth, and this is especially the case where faith and conscience

are concerned. If the Sovereign, Pontiff have not this faculty of teaching the truth without danger of error, then he cannot demand implicit submission. The Church dispersed throughout the world, being infallible, cannot be taught by one who is capable of falling into error. The ordinances, therefore, and decrees of the Pontiff, being intimately connected with faith, and issued on account of it, must follow the nature of the submission to his teaching. But, as this latter, in the Gallican view, is not obligatory unless recognized as just by the whole Church, so neither are the ordinances and decrees to be looked on as binding except under a like reservation. It follows from this, clearly and logically, that the supremacy of the Pope can be called supreme only by an abuse of terms; consequently, first, the texts of canon law and of the fathers that teach a perfect supremacy are erroneous or false, and have no foundation in tradition, which is the truth always, everywhere and by everyone held in the same way; second, the texts of Scripture that refer to Peter are to be restricted to him personally, or, when seeming to regard his successors, are to be interpreted in a sense not favorable to the idea of a perfect supremacy. The Pope thus becomes amenable to the Church; he is the divinely constituted center, nothing more; the official representative of the bishops of the whole church dispersed throughout the world, which alone is the ultimate criterion of truth. He can, therefore, be judged by the bishops, be corrected by them, deposed by them, and his asserted right to reserve powers to

himself to the prejudice of ordinaries, or to legislate for dioceses other than his own, is to be set aside. A species of radicalism is thus introduced into the Church. Even the bishops themselves are not to be looked on as infallible judges of the faith of their flocks, and the faithful themselves, or the people, become the ultimate judges of what is to be held as of faith. Instead of being taught, they teach; instead of being a locus theologicus, they become the ecclesia docens; and the teachers and rulers become the ruled and taught. As the people themselves are liable to be swayed by the influence and teaching of artful men, we have in consequence a weak and uncertain rule to go by; weak because of the moral impossibility of knowing the sense of the whole Church, for even the members of an oecumenical council might not exactly represent the faith of their individual churches; uncertain because of the facility with which in past time the people of many individual churches have been led astray.

As we write it seems as if we heard some indignant protest against what we have just said. We reply that we do not refer to individual opinions; many Gallicans refused to go the length of their principles, a sense of danger alarmed their piety and put them on their guard. For our part, we treat of the principles themselves, and deem perfectly consequent what we have asserted. It would be an easy matter to illustrate it with facts of the present as of the past; but it would be beyond our scope just now.

Any student of history will have no difficulty