who is a man of high character but very singular, submitted and left the tribune, saying, "Humiliter me subjicio." This conduct might suggest to the Presidents that the definition would be hastened by a second grand interruption.

FIFTY-SIXTH LETTER.

Rome, June 11, 1870.-If the new article of faith is accepted and proclaimed throughout the Catholic world, what will be its retrospective force? On what decisions and doctrines of previous Popes will it set the seal of infallibility? What amplifications and corrections of Catholic theology will it involve? These questions are naturally raised here, not indeed by the Bishops of the majority but by many of the Opposition; only no one is in a position to give even an approximately accurate answer from want of the necessary books, and the Court party reckoned on this "penuria librorum," which Cardinal Rauscher has already complained of. A German theologian who had previously examined and studied the subject, undertook to answer the anxious question of the Bishops, and I send you his collection, which makes no claim to completeness, as a

not unimportant contribution to the history of the Council.

The Jesuit Schrader, who is the most considerable theologian of his Order since Passaglia's retirement, and who has been employed both before and during the Council for drawing up the Schemata, on account of the special confidence reposed in him by the Pope, has shown, in his great work on Roman Unity, that, as soon as papal infallibility resting on divine guidance and inspiration is made into an article of faith, it must by logical necessity include all public ordinances, decrees and decisions of the Popes. For every one of these is indissolubly connected with their teaching office, and contains, whatever be its particular subject, a doctrina veritatis either moral or religious. Papal infallibility is not a robe of office which can be put on for certain occasions and then laid aside again. The Pope is infallible, because he is, in the fullest sense of the word, the representative of Christ on earth, and like Christ he teaches and proclaims the truth by his acts as well as his words; in short no public act or direction of his can be conceived of as not having a doctrinal significance. And thus Catholic theology and morality

1 Von der Römischen Einheit, Wien. 1866, vol. ii. pp. 444 seq.

will be enriched by the new dogma with not a few fresh articles of faith, which will then possess the same authority and dignity as those already universally received as such.

There are indeed former papal decisions which, in becoming themselves infallible through the proclamation of infallibility, will in turn cover and guarantee the infallible character of the collective Constitutions of all Popes. The first of these decisions is the statement of Leo x. in his Bull of 1520 against Luther, "It is clear as the noonday sun that the Popes, my predecessors, have never erred in their canons or constitutions." The second is the declaration of Pius IX. in his Syllabus, "The Popes have never exceeded the limits of their power." This assertion too will become an infallible dogma, and history must succumb and adapt itself to the dogma. Let us however specify some of the new articles of faith thus declared to be infallible.

1. According to the teaching of the Church, the validity of the sacraments, and especially of ordination, depends on the use of the right form and matter. The whole Church for a thousand years regarded the imposition of the Bishop's hands as the divinely ordained matter of priestly ordination. But Eugenius IV., in his

dogmatic decree, decided that the delivery of the Eucharistic vessels is the matter of the sacrament of Orders, and the words used in their delivery the form.1 If the doctrine of this decree, solemnly issued by the Pope ex cathedra and in the name of the Council of Florence-which however was no longer in existencewas to be accepted as true and infallible, it would follow that the Western Church for a thousand years, and the Greek Church up to this day, had no validly ordained priests. Nay more, there would at this moment be no validly ordained priest or Bishop in the Church at all, for there would be no succession. And Eugenius gave an equally false definition of the form of the sacraments of Penance and Confirmation.

2. According to the teaching of Innocent III., in the decretal Novit, and other Popes after him, the Pope is able and is bound, whenever he believes a question of sin to be involved, to interfere, first with admonition and then with punishments. He can on this ground reverse any judicial sentence, bring any cause before his own tribunal, summon any sovereign before him, simply to answer for a grave sin or what he considers

1 See the decree of Eugenius in Porter's Systema Decretorum, p. 535, and in Raynaldus.