Lugo declares it to be the common doctrine of theologians that she is infallible in all of them. F. Ryder himself (p. 52) says "the schola seems agreed in condemning, as at least proximate to error, the denial that any of the condemned propositions merit the censure which the Church attaches to them." Only he further considers, that various members of that schola did not "demand an absolute interior assent to the fact that the censured proposition deserves its censure." The following, then, according to him, was their view: "It is close upon error to deny the justice of a censure; but you are not at all required interiorly to believe its justice." If a whole class of theologians held this very subtle and singular view, is it credible that not one of them should have expressed it? that they should all of them have stated the unlawfulness of denial, and not one of them have stated the lawfulness of interior dissent? Nay, they all used the word "error"; which surely, in its natural sense, refers rather to thought than to the expression of thought. In a future number we will consider the various theological quotations which F. Ryder adduces: but you may be very sure at starting that each several passage will be found, either not to express what F. Ryder thinks, or else not really to convey the author's full and deliberate mind.

Our meaning may be made clearer by a contrast. F. Ryder alleges most truly that it is an open question in the schools, whether every censured proposition is certainly false; and he quotes accordingly various theologians, who speak expressly on the negative side of this question. But he also alleges that it is an open question in the schools, whether every censured proposition infallibly deserves its censure; and here he has not been able to quote one single theologian, who speaks expressly on the negative side.

Even as to Encyclicals and other similar utterances, F.Ryder adduces no one theologian who doubts their infallibility. He merely says (p. 26), "I have never found in the treatises of classical theologians any attempt to ground a certain argument on their doctrinal instructions.' But on his view, at all events, such an argument has little force. For he holds (p. 18) that Encyclicals never "enunciate any new truth, or even any new logical development of an old truth"; and if this were so, however infallible they might be, they could contain very little serviceable matter for a theologian. In fact however, though they have generally but little which bears on theology proper, they abound in instruction on those various philosophical or politico-religious questions, which at this day so intimately concern the Church's interests. And accordingly

whomsoever, who discusses such questions, without carefully regulating his conclusions by the instruction given in these Pontifical Acts; and without implying throughout the infallibility of that instruction. Witness the various controversies in France on liberty of worships and the like.

The preceding arguments, it will have been observed, all tend to the conclusion,-not that Dr. Ward's theory is more probable than F. Ryder's-but that F. Ryder's theory is not permitted to a Catholic; that the Church herself teaches its contradictory. We feel deeply that no conclusion, short of this, would justify the peremptory language which we have been in the habit of using.

This consideration replies at once to an objection, which has been brought against us both by F. Ryder himself and by others. "Your doctrine," they say, "should not be thus "recklessly brought before the public; for none can well be imagined more repulsive to inquiring Protestants." But evidently, if a certain doctrine be really part of the Catholic religion, no Catholic controversialist has a right to tell Protestants that it is not. The doctrine of Eternal Punishment, of the Immaculate Conception, of Transubstantiation, are all repulsive to Protestants: but Catholics are not authorized on that account to understate or misstate them. Neither therefore may the doctrine of infallibility be understated or misstated; which at all events is not less fundamental than the rest.

But there is another important point of view, from which this objection should be considered. The whole question concerns of course, not so much the mass of believers, as the particular class of educated and thinking men. Now no words can be stronger than those used by F. Ryder in pp. 27 and 59, to describe the deplorable intellectual degradation into which he thinks that the theory he opposes would plunge Catholics. We accept his statement as indicating at all events, that the Church's moral training of intellect would be fundamentally different on one theory, from that which it is

* An answer from the Sacred Penitentiary, dated Sept. 27, 1825, is to be found in Scavini (end of Appendix 1 to vol. i.), which has a close bearing on this matter. The question was asked of the Congregation, whether persons could receive Absolution who adhere to the four Gallican propositions. The reply was that such persons are capable of receiving Absolution, because no theological censure has been pronounced by the Holy See on those propositions. In this reply there seems to be an obvious implication, that wherever a theological censure has been pronounced on any proposition, those are not capable of receiving Absolution-putting aside of course the hypothesis of invincible ignorance-who will not submit their intellect to that censure.

*We are well aware that there are other theological difficulties connected his "instruction," besides that mentioned by F. Ryder.

reply F. Ryder may put forth. It is very possible that his reply may remove the controversy to a still more elementary sphere; that the discussion may become, even more than it is now, one of first principles. But we are very far from wishing to elude any part of it. On the contrary, the whole body of thinking Catholics, we cannot doubt, will arrive unanimously at a view agreeing in substance with our own, if they can only be induced to examine carefully, completely, candidly, the whole case, as presented by the two respective parties.*

*In justice to F. Ryder, we here insert a letter which Dr. Ward addressed to the Editor of The Tablet :

Sir,—It would, of course, be highly inconvenient, if I troubled you with a letter every week in reply to whatever comments on my recent pamphlet might have appeared in your previous number. The satisfactory course will be to wait till the newspaper correspondence has ceased; and then to make a reply, if it should seem called for.

But the case is different when I have to make a retractation; and I frankly confess that the first of your three correspondents in your current number has convicted me of a certain inaccuracy of language in one particular. A few words will explain what that particular is.

It is the unanimous judgment of all approved theologians, that the Church is infallible in all her doctrinal censures; and the Church herself so expressly teaches this, that to disbelieve the correctness of any such censure is materially to commit mortal sin. This is one of the two propositions at issue between F. Ryder and myself: he denies it, and I maintain it. Dr. Gillow, the dogmatical professor of S. Cuthbert's Usshaw, writing to a contemporary journal, points out that S. Alphonsus speaks much more severely on this matter than I do ; and I should be surprised if one moral theologian could be adduced, who does not account such disbelief as in itself mortally sinful. But there is a totally different question, which must not be confused with this. Several theologians argue thus-"A censure," they say, "may be most "justly deserved, while yet the censured proposition need not be false. A "proposition which is true in itself may really, nevertheless, be 'temerarious' malè sonans under existing circumstances." Other theologians—I

or

believe far more numerous than the former--differ from this view.

For myself I follow this latter class of theologians and not the former. But I fully admit that the question is entirely open, and that no Catholic is required to regard every condemned proposition as certainly false. And your correspondent has shown, by various citations from my work on " Doctrinal Decisions," that I have not expressed my meaning on this head with sufficient clearness. I have only, therefore, to express my regret at the inaccuracy of my language; and to explain that I never considered this particular question as otherwise than perfectly open and debateable among Catholics.

In conclusion, I thank your three correspondents, the two who write against me not less than the one who writes in my favour, for their uniformly courteous and kind language. I remain, Sir, faithfully yours,

W. G. WARD.