sitely painful, at least no unnecessary suffering has been caused us, by any approach to harshness or bitterness of language. And having now written a somewhat longer prologue than we could have wished, we must proceed with the substance of our argument. We will begin with establishing the Church's infallibility in those minor censures-censures less grave than that of "heretical"-which she is in the habit of pronouncing. We are happy to say that, on the basis of our controversy, F. Ryder and ourselves are altogether at one. "I thoroughly concur," he says (p. 25), " in feeling that if any proposition is indubitably true on Catholic principles, it is that the Church possesses whatever infallibility she claims:" and we are limited therefore, to the very simple inquiry, whether the Church do or do not claim the infallibility which we ascribe to her. Moreover, since F. Ryder is not a Gallican;-since he holds that whatever infallibility is possessed by the Church is possessed also by the Pope;-we are saved the cumbrousness of referring at every turn to Episcopal assent. The question is exclusively this does the Pope, or does he not, claim infallibility for all the doctrinal censures which he pronounces? We must remember however, that the Church has never in terms claimed infallibility, even for her definitions of faith. Neither Pope, nor Council, e. g., has in terms ascribed infallibility, either to the definition of the Immaculate Conception, or to the anathemas of Trent.* But it is admitted by every Catholic as a first principle, that she implicitly claims infallibility, wherever she explicitly requires her children to hold interiorly this or that doctrine. Or, as all non-Gallicans *"Ecclesiæ infallibilitas fundamentalis est fidei Catholicæ articulus, qui non tam directâ et explicatâ definitione, quàm universâ docendi agendique ratione ut divinitùs revelatus credendus proponitur." This is one of the "Theses de Universâ Theologiâ" defended at Rome in June last by F. Egidi, S.J. + A correspondent of the Tablet, in reply to an argument of Dr. Ward's, urges that the mere demand of interior assent does not in itself involve a claim to infallibility. Of course we fully concur. A father or a schoolmaster reasonably claims the child's interior assent to his instruction: a doctrinal decree of the Index or Inquisition demands interior assent of a certain kind, though the decree is not infallible. And so F. Ryder himself (p. 24) very reasonably mentions "a certain degree of internal intellectual adherence," short of that unreserved adherence which is due to infallibility. But, as we point out in the text, all Catholics agree that whenever the Ecclesia Docens demands interior assent, she claims infallibility; and all non-Gallicans admit the same concerning a Pope. express themselves, the Pope is infallible whenever he speaks as Universal Teacher, imposing on Catholics the obligation of interior assent. The rationale of this shall be considered before we conclude our article; but every Catholic admits the principle. Now it is really not one whit clearer that the Pope has required interior assent to definitions of faith, than that the Pope has with equal peremptoriness required interior assent to the justice of his minor doctrinal censures. We will prove this (1) from one of the earliest, and (2) from one of the latest instances, in which he has condemned propositions in globo.* The Council of Constance then condemned in globo various propositions of Wicklyffe and Hus, as being some heretical, others respectively erroneous, temerarious, seditious, offensive to pious ears. Martin V. confirmed this condemnation, in his well-known Bull" Inter cunctas." In this Bull he calls on the archbishops, bishops, and inquisitors of Christendom, to account as heretics those who should continue to believe these propositions. He then recites the forty-five condemned propositions of Wicklyffe, and the thirty of Hus; and prescribes certain interrogations to be made of any "suspected" of holding those propositions or "detected in asserting them." Of these interrogations the sixth runs thus (Denz. n. 552):— Whether he believes that whatever the sacred Council of Constance has approved or approves in behalf of faith and for the salvation of souls (in favorem fidei et ad salutem animarum), must be approved and held by all Christ's faithful; and that whatever [that Council] has condemned and condemns as contrary [in tendency] to faith or good morals, must be held, believed, and asserted by them as being thus condemned. The eighth (Denz. n. 554) : Whether he believes, holds, asserts that Wicklyffe, Hus, and Jerome of Prague were heretics . and that [those] their books and doctrines were purports to prove that the Church claims by implication infallibility for this or that utterance; as, e. g., for the "Mirari vos." But the Church does not claim infallibility, even for her definitions of faith, except by implication. He is said to condemn propositions in globo, when he brands them generally with various censures, without particularizing which censure is applicable to which proposition. + Discretioni vestræ qui committimus omnes et singulos articulos seu libros et doctrinas præfatorum hæres iarcharum per Constantiensem Synodum . . . damnatos et damnatas credere et dogmatizare præsumpserint, tanquam hæreticos judicetis et velut hæreticos seculari curiæ relinquatis. and are perverse, on account of which heretics by the sacred Council of Constance. [they] were condemned as Catholics, then, were required to "believe and hold" that the condemned doctrines of these men, even those doctrines condemned with minor censures, were and are perverse. Lastly, the eleventh (Denz. n. 555): Let a man of education (literatus) be specially interrogated, whether he believes that the sentence of the Sacred Council of Constance on the forty-five articles of Wicklyffe and the thirty of Hus is true and Catholic; viz., that the above-named articles are not Catholic, but some of them notoriously heretical, some erroneous, others temerarious and seditious, others offensive to pious ears. Ordinary persons, you see, were only required to profess that these tenets were 66 contrary to faith and morals;" but an educated man was required to profess more distinctly, that they deserved the particular censure which they had received. Lastly the recantation required from Jerome of Prague contained the following: I assent to the [teaching of the] Roman Catholic and Apostolic See and this Sacred Council that of the above-named articles [those condemned in Wicklyffe and Hus] many are notoriously heretical, some blasphemous, others erroneous, others scandalous.* There are really few definitions of faith, in which the Church has spoken so distinctly on the obligation of yielding interior assent. We now leap over an interval of many centuries, and bring our readers to the "Unigenitus." This Bull, as is well known, condemns in globo a hundred and one propositions of Quesnel, as respectively "false, captious, ill-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, temerarious, injurious to the Church and her practice, contumelious not only to the Church but to the civil power, seditious, blasphemous, suspected, nay, savouring of heresy, favouring heretics, heresies, and schisms, erroneous, proximate to heresy, often condemned, finally heretical and renewing various heresies," especially the Jansenistic. The Bull itself is clear enough on the obligation of assent. "We [Clement XI.] command all Christ's faithful that they do not presume to think " otherwise than "is * Quoted by Regnier "Cursus," vol. iv., p. 629. agency] be confounded and converted, and that God might give them repentance so that they should know the Truth. that, according to the Apostle's teaching, we should at length all say the same thing and there be no divisions amongst us." There is but one subterfuge which we can imagine any Catholic attempting, who has before his eyes this awful sentence he may allege that the precept of "unreserved obedience" is fulfilled by "respectful silence." To this however the answer is most easy. (1) The "Unigenitus" in so many words, as you have just seen, forbids Catholics from "thinking" otherwise than according to its determination. That Bull therefore cannot possibly receive "unreserved obedience," at the hand of any one who disobeys its principal command. Then (2) the Pope implores, for the recusants, repentance, that they should know the Truth": it was their interior convictions then, which required to be reformed. Lastly Cardinal de Noailles, who was then ringleader of the Jansenistic faction, at once admitted (with his brethren) the obligation of "respectful silence";* but it was not till a much later period, and under a different Pope, that he really yielded obedience to the Holy See. On July 19, 1728, he wrote to Benedict XIII.:-"I submit to the decisions of the Holy See, and sincerely receive the Bull'Unigenitus,' warned by my grey hairs and the account I must soon give at the Tribunal of God." And on October 11 of the same year he published a Pastoral, declaring it "unlawful to hold other sentiments than those defined by the Bull Unigenitus.'"+ To accept the Bull, you see, was equivalent to considering it "unlawful to hold other sentiments than those defined" by it. But in fact the same Clement XI. who issued the "Unigenitus," had at an earlier period condemned the monstrous proposition, that "respectful silence" is obedience to a doctrinal Constitution. His words refer indeed directly to the dogmatical fact concerning Jansenius; but they have a far wider application. They are from the "Vineam Domini" published in 1705. In order that in future all occasion of error be entirely precluded, and that all children of the Catholic Church may learn to hear the Church not only by keeping silence (for even the wicked keep silence in their darkness) but by interiorly obeying (interiùs obsequendo) which is the true obedience of an orthodox man, we declare by our Apostolic authority |