THIRTY-EIGHTH LETTER.

Rome, April 17, 1870.-It is a good sign that the minority have at length recognised the imperative necessity of grappling directly with the problem of papal infallibility, and examining in their own writings this question on which the future of the Church depends. It has been perceived now that it was an unfortunate notion to put forward only grounds of expediency, discretion, and regard for public opinion; for no answer was left when Spanish, South American, Irish, Neapolitan and Sicilian Bishops said that no such public opinion existed with them, that some were apathetic and others had long held the doctrine, which would create not the slightest difficulty or inconvenience with them, and that they were the majority.

It was high time therefore to take firmer ground, and now this has been done by Cardinals Schwarzenberg and Rauscher and Bishop Hefele, three of the most in

fluential prelates of the Church, or rather by four, for Bishop Ketteler too has either composed or got some one to compose a work on papal infallibility. But the whole edition had the ill luck to be seized in the Roman Postoffice, so that not a single Bishop got a copy. The authorities seem to know that the work opposes the dogma, on which all the thoughts and plans of the Curia now hinge, although Ketteler not long ago showed himself an adherent of the doctrine, and only assailed the opportuneness of defining it.

The Univers, as the official organ of the Court, now announces the principle on which the Papal Government acts. One must distinguish, it says, between the Custom-house and Post-office. The Custom-house gives the Bishops the missives and packets addressed to them unopened, for it assumes that they will only have proper books sent them. It is different with the Postoffice, which is bound not to favour the dissemination of error. So the conscientiousness of the officials of the Roman Post-office is a model for the rest of the world, and it is understood that the habitual opening of letters, so far from being immoral, is an expression of 1 This proved to be a mistake.

2 "Elle estime justement qu'elle a le devoir de ne pas favoriser la diffusion de l'erreur ou des attaques contre l'autorité des Vicaires de Jésus-Christ."

the purest and most delicate morality; for might not a letter contain some error or attack on the rights of the Vicar of Christ? And how could the officials answer to God and His earthly representative for even unconsciously co-operating in the spread of such error?

As I have not seen Ketteler's publication, I can only quote the judgment of a friend who has read it and thinks it will do good service. The other three works are before me. They must all have been printed at Naples, for the Roman police has to look after the consciences not only of the Post-office secretaries and lettercarriers, but of the compositors, printers, bookbinders and booksellers. It cannot allow that any breath of error should sully the pure mirror of their souls, even though concealed under the veil of the Latin tongue; and the corroding poison becomes worse when prepared, as in this case, by Bishops and Cardinals.1

I will speak first of Cardinal Rauscher's work, which is the most comprehensive of the three, and touches on many questions passed over in the other two. Written

1 The infallibilists are of course luckier. Their writings are readily printed and circulated. At the same time with the writings mentioned above, Archbishop Spalding has published a letter to Dupanloup, emphatically denying that he had spoken against the opportuneness of the dogma in the paper he drew up with several other American Bishops, and declaring himself a zealous advocate for it.

in a calm and dignified tone, it carefully avoids every word or phrase which could offend the Curia, and goes to the utmost length in making concessions possible for any one to accept without becoming an infallibilist; but it will nevertheless pour much oil on the flame of anger which has been blazing for weeks past, and singes now one Bishop and now another. Papal infallibility, says the Archbishop of Vienna, must extend to everything ever decided by any Pope, and the whole Christian world must hold with Boniface VIII. and his Bull Unam Sanctam that the Popes have received power from Christ over the whole domain of the State. That will be welcome news to those who want to exclude the Church altogether from civil society. That the Popes themselves in the ancient Church did not hold themselves infallible, that the whole history and conduct of the ancient Church in doctrinal controversies would be an inexplicable riddle on the infallibilist hypothesis, and moreover that the Popes have often fallen into open errors rejected by the Church-all this is well established, though the author cites only some particular facts from the abundant sources he has to draw upon. He then shows the sharp antithesis between the ancient doctrine of the Church and the Popes

on the relations of Church and State and the enunciations of Popes since Gregory VII. and Innocent III. With papal infallibility the whole medieval theory of the unlimited power of Popes to depose kings, absolve from oaths of allegiance, abrogate laws, and interfere in all civil affairs at their will, must be declared to be an immutable doctrine with which the Church stands or falls. The Christian Emperors would have treated such a doctrine as high treason, and even in the days of Charles the Great it would have excited universal astonishment. If this doctrine really had to be preached now to the Christian people, it would be a triumph for the enemies of religion, for the best men would soon be convinced of the utter impossibility of paying any regard to the precepts of the Christian religion in civil matters. The Cardinal proceeds to dwell on the forgeries by which the great master of scholastic theology, the favourite and oracle of all Jesuits and ultramontanes, Thomas Aquinas, was led to adopt the doctrine of infallibility, and how again his influence shaped the whole scholastic system and drew the great Religious Orders, who were bound by oath to maintain his teaching, to adopt it. He concludes in these weighty words:"If the Pope is declared to be, alone and