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In One Volume, Svo, price 7s. 6d,,
HIPPOLYTUS AND GALLISTUS:
OR,
Z\iC Cbuccb of IRome in tbe 3f(r6t 1balf of tbe ^bir&
Centurg.
By JOHN J. IGN. VON DOLLINGER.
TRANSLATED WITH INTEODUCTION, NOTES, AND APPENDICES.
By ALFRED PLUMMEE,
MASTER OF UA^IVERSITY COLLEGE, DTJUHAM,
' We are impressed with profound respect for the leaming and ingenuity
displayed in this work. The book deserves perusal by all students of
ecclesiastical history. It clears up many points hitherto obscure, and
reveals features in the Roman Ohurch at the beginning of the third century
which are highly instructive.' — Athenceum,.
' But a far better defence of the credit of the Roman See was made by Von
DoUinger, at that time in full credit as an able champion of the Roman
Catholic Church. His work, " Hippolytus and Callistus," has beeu translated
into English, and I do not know a more interesting and instructive work on
Early Church History.' — Dr. Salmon in his InfallibiUty of the Church.

DECLARATIONS and LETTERS

IK/

VATICAN DECREES

DECLARATIONS and LETTERS
ON THE
VATICAN DECREES
1869-1887.

PRINTED BV MORRISON AND GIBB,
FOR
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH.
I-ONDON, . . HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.
DUBLIN, GEORGE HERBERT,
NEW YOEK, CHARLES SCRIBNER's SONS.

DECLARATIONS and LETTERS

ON THE /'

VATICAN DECREES
1869-1887

IGNAZ VON DOLLINGER.

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.
1891.

yv\z250 V3x;

PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.

On the 2nd October 1886 the late Dr. DoUinger
wrote to me as follows : —
" But a very short time ago I received from several
quarters intimations that I ought to submit myself.
These intimations consist of two verbal communica
tions closely succeeding each other from the Pope, a
written one from the Archbishop of Munich (worded
very politely and delicately), and a second one in
writing from Bishop Hefele. I myself feel very
keenly that, before my Hfe's hour-glass runs out, I
still owe the world a well-substantiated declaration.
There is still so much to be said on the matter that
has hitherto not been said, or has only been broached
in an enfeebled form, that I cannot dismiss the affair
in a pamphlet, but rather am compelled to bring
forward in a certain degree of completeness an aciein
argume'ntoruin et factorum i-nstructam)- There are
also some personal experiences (about my visit to
Rome, and what I saw there) to be narrated. As a
¦' A well-ordered array of arguments and facts.

PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.

preliminary step I have carefully weighed the whole
subject, and the material is collected  The
form is to be that of a series of letters addressed
to a prelate in high ofiSce, whose name, however, out
of regard for the man, I should not mention. This
affords freer scope. As title I propose to myself,
The Vatican Decrees in the Light of History. Among
other things I think of giving a survey of the dog
matic history of the Roman See from its beginning
to the present day, in which history all somewhat
important decreta fidei that have been issued by a
pope would be brought forward, and, where necessary,
critically though briefly discussed. As is well known,
nothing of this kind exists as yet. Since I received
the above - mentioned intimations, this plan has
been daily, almost hourly, engaging my attention,
so that it is difficult for me to direct my thoughts
earnestly to anything else. Partly on this account
and partly also because of other hindrances, I must
beg you to have patience with me a little longer in
reference to the article on Ignatius.^
" The considerations, the thinking over of the plan,
the enormous quantity of facts and doctrines to be
brought forward, which have thrust themselves upon
my memory, have been so overwhelming during
these last few weeks, that it has been almost too
^ For The Autobiography of Cardinal Bellarmine, which appeared
in the following year, 1887, at Bonn.

PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.

much for me. Now that my mind is clear about the
plan, I feel myself free, and disposed to work at the
article on Ignatius."
Preparations for these " Letters " have been found
among the literary remains of the deceased ; but, as
it seems, he was distracted by other work, and did
not even begin the compiling ofthem for publication.
In October 1887, DoUinger showed me a letter he
had just received from the Nuncio then in office,
together with his own reply, and also a longer
letter which he had addressed some months pre
viously to the late Archbishop of Munich. On
this occasion he made the remark, that as these
letters supplemented each other in vindication of
his attitude to the Vatican Decrees, he thought, if
an opportunity offered itself, that he would have his
letters to the Nuncio and the Archbishop printed,
as well as the answers he had sent to two other
proselytising letters, the one from a lady of high
rank and the other from a nun — Bishop Hefele's
letter on the same subject he had left unanswered.
It is then fully in accordance with the intentions
of the deceased if I now give publicity to the three
letters to the Nuncio, the Archbishop, and the lady
of high rank, — the one to the nun was not found
among DoUinger's literary remains, — together with
the letters by which they were occasioned.
Contrary to my original intention, I have had

PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.

Bishop Hefele's letter printed along with the others,
because the sender himself has given his sanction,
and because it was intimated in an article copied
in several newspapers that DoUinger's friends pre
sumably would not dare to publish this letter which
has been left unanswered by him.
It will be considered opportune that with these
hitherto unpublished letters, those declarations and
letters on the same subject that have already been
printed elsewhere singly should be united here into
one collection. An older and similar interesting
letter has been added as an Appendix.
F. H. Reusch.
B0NN,y«?2f 1890.

CONTENTS.

I. Considerations for the Bishops of the Council respecting
the Question of Papal InfaUibiUty, October 1869, . i
II. .\ few Words on the Address presented to the Pope by
certain Members of the Vatican Council urging him
to declare his own InfallibiUty, Jan. 19th, 1S70, . 33
III. The new Order of Business in the Council, and its Theo
logical Sigmficance, March 9th, 1S70, . . 46
IV. Archbishop Gregory von Scherr of Munich-Freising to
the Faculty of Theology in Munich, Oct. 20th, 1870, 65
V. Archbishop von Scherr to DoUinger, Jan. 4th, 1871, . 70
VI. DoUinger to Archbishop von Scherr, Jan. 29th, 1S71, . 74
VII. Archbishop von Scherr to DoUinger, Feb. 14th, 1S71, . 78
\"III. DoUinger to Archbishop von Scherr, March 14th, 1S71, 79
IX. Archbishop von Scherr to DoUinger, March 17th, 1871, 81
X. DolUnger to Archbishop von Scherr, March 28th, 1871, 82
XI. Archbishop von Scherr's Pastoral Letter, Palm Sunday,
1S71, . . . . . .105
XII. The Ordinariate of Munich-Freising to DoUinger, AprU
3rd, 1871, ...... Ill
XIII. The Ordinariate of Munich-Freising to DoUinger, April
17th, 1871, ...... 113
XIV. The Ordinariate of Munich-Freising to the Parochial
Office of St. Ludwig's Church, Munich, AprU iSth,
iS;i, ...... 116

CONTENTS.

XV. DoUinger to Widmann, Pastor at Todtnau, Oct. i8ih,
XVI. DoUinger to an old Catholic at Dortmund, June 23rd,

Appendix. — DoUinger to a Dignitary of the Church, Feb. 7th,

117

121

XVII. DoUinger to Professor MicheUs, May 1st, 1879, . 122
XVIII. DoUinger to Dr. Robert J. Nevin, Rector of the Anglo-
American Church in Rome, May 4th, 1879, . 124
XIX. A Lady of High Rank to DolUnger, Feb. 15th and 126
XX. DoUinger's Answer to a Lady, 1880, . . . 130
XXI. Bishop Hefele to DoUinger, June loth, 1886, . . 135
XXII. Archbishop Antonius von Stfeichele to DoUinger, 1878,

•37 141

XXIII. DoUinger to Archbishop von Steichele, March 1st,
XXIV. Archbishop von Steichele to DolUnger, March iqth, 158
XXV. Nuncio Ruffb SciUa to DoUinger, Oct. ist, 1887, . 159
XXVI. DoUinger to Nuncio Ruffo SciUa, Oct. 12th, 1887, . 161
XXVII. Nuncio Ruffo Scilla to DoUinger, Oct. 14th, 1887, . 169

172

I.
CONSIDERATIONS FOR TIIE BISHOPS OF THE
COUNCIL RESPECTING THE QUESTION OF
PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.
(October 1869.')
I.
In past centuries, in opposition to projected inno
vations, the Catholic Church has always laid the
greatest stress on the age and unchangeableness of
her doctrines of faith. She has regarded it as a
sacred duty, and, at the same time, as a high pre
rogative, that within her pale that only is taught
and professed which has been believed everywhere,
always, and of all men. Whenever it can be proved
of a doctrine that it did not exist for several cen-
' Published by Manz of Munich without the author's name.
In a letter of November 25th, 1869, DoUinger says: "You wiU
have received the pamphlet,' ' Considerations,' etc. The sentences are
for the most part set down as naked assertions. From Paris and else
where my attention has been called to the fact, that documentary
evidence and historical criticism of what is here asserted so laconically,
are indispensable. I am now occupied with this work, and in a short
time shall publish a far more extensive supplement.''
The supplement has not been published. A

2 THE VATICAN DECREES, ^?,6g-i?,Z7.
turies, that it was not the confession of the whole
Church, or that it only took its rise at a certain
period, and when this doctrine is not of logical
necessity potentially contained as an undeniable
sequence in other tenets of faith, then is this doctrine
already condemned from the Catholic point of view ;
it bears the brand of illegitimacy on its brow, and
neither may nor ever can be raised to the dignity of
an axiom of faith.
This is just how the case of belief in papal infalli
bility stands. In the first place, it was altogether
unknown in the Church for many centuries. It is
here only necessary to call to mind the Eastern
Church, which for a thousand years was united with
the Western, — the Church by which all the CEcu-
menical Councils have been held, and by which
especially the great mental work expended in the
estabhshment of the dogmas of the Trinity and the
Incarnation has been consummated, — a work which
has gradually overcome all false doctrines, and created
an independent ecclesiastical literature. But in this
Church no voice has ever been heard to attribute
dogmatic infallibility to the pope. Even Perrone
has no testimony to cite from it.^
' Perrone, Tractatus de locis Theologicis, i. 510, ed. Lovan., appeals,
it is true, to Otigen, but wilh a gross mulUation of the passage and a
distortion of the meaning. Just as dishonest is his appeal to Cyril of
Alexandria, whose words he does not even think proper to quote.

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

Nor are there any witnesses to be found in the
Western Church. Among the passages from the
Latin Fathers, whom Perrone, Schrader, and other
Jesuits quote, there is not a single one which even
with some degree of clearness and distinctness attri
butes this high and divine prerogative to the popes,
whereas three times the number of utterances of the
P"athers can be brought forward, which expressly or
in unmistakable hypotheses deny the popes such a
privilege of infallibility, and refer the decision of what
is an axiom of faith to the whole Church alone.

It is not remarked of any single heretic of old
that he began with, or was led up to, discarding the
authority of the popes iri matters of faith, a circum
stance which can only be explained by the non
existence of such a high authority of the. popes in
which no one believed, and to which no one ap
pealed, although the fact that Rome was the only
See of the West founded by the apostles, and was
the mother Church of so many local churches, in
vested it, it is true, with more importance and dignity
in the West than it had in the East.
3-
In the writings of the ecclesiastical Fathers who
treat of the rule of faith and the authority of the

4 THE VATICAN DECREES, i?,6q-i?,iT.
Church, namely, in the writings of Tertullian,
Cyprian, Augustine, Gennadius, and Vincent of
Lerins, no reference is ever made to the judgment
of the Romish See, or to the decisions of the popes,
nor is it mentioned that there existed such a simple
means of abruptly terminating doctrinal disputes as
the consulting of the infallible papal dictum. All
these Fathers only know of the traditions of the
Church with the three conditions and marks of
genuineness, viz. universality, antiquity, and general
consent. 4-
Further, the doctrine of papal infallibility did not
make its appearante in the Western Church until a
very late period, and then only in consequence of a
series of forgeries and inventions. It was not until
towards the end of the thirteenth century that it
was introduced into the School-theology by Thomas
Aquinas, who was deceived by a new fiction; and
theologians, in order to give it the appearance of
a great ecclesiastical age, until far into the seven
teenth century, made use partly of the forgeries of
Pseudo-Isidore, and partly of those of others, as is
recognisable in Bellarmine. S-
To the adherents of the theory of infallibility, the
history of the ancient Church in the first millennium

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

must appear as an incomprehensible problem. The
whole course, the long continuance, and the extensive
complications of the great disputes on questions of
dogma are for them inexplicable. For centuries the
world has been drudging and slaving in order by
long and toilsome circuitous routes to attain that
which, if the popes are infallible, might have been
gained by a far easier, shorter, and simpler method.
As in their opinion the whole Church believed in
the infallibility of the pope, a papal decision at the
very beginning of a controversy must have obviated
all further complications and disquietudes in the
Church. Every Catholic submitted at once to the
infallible dictum, and those who did not, either were
expelled from the Church or they left it of their
own accord. But in reality everything turned out
quite different. The bishops were regularly sum
moned from all parts of the world. Long and
difficult journeys necessitated a continued absence
from their dioceses (an absence which was detrimental
to the Church), and all tbis was done in order that
in large assemblies exposed to divers dangers and
temptations, they might pass resolutions which, after
all, according to the views of the believers in infalli
bility, received all their power and authority from the
assent of the pope. Nay, further, the popes them
selves, as, for instance, Leo, have declared the
necessity of a general Synod ; or, like Siricius, have

6 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%b<)-\%'il.
declined a decision that was solicited of them, and
referred it to a CounciL
Cardinal Orsi, the most eminent defender of papal
infallibility, has imputed the guilt of this "useless
noise " of the Councils in the ancient Church to the
Roman emperors. But these emperors by convoking
the Councils were acting according to the advice of
the bishops, and sometimes of the popes themselves ;
and however severely they have been blamed at
times on account of the abuse of their power in
ecclesiastical affairs, for a thousand years not a single
word of censure was raised in condemnation of the
emperors for attributing to the Councils the right of
decision which belonged to the popes. The whole
Christian world has held the decision in questions of
faith by Councils to be the only legitimate course, and
the one that corresponds to the principles ofthe Church.
6.
This is, however, no reason for asserting that the
doctrine which transfers the infallibility of decision
to the pope arose in the Church by means of a
dogmatic process of development which fulfilled
itself of internal necessity ; for this new interpreta
tion stands in reference to the old doctrine in no
way as a rightly drawn sequence, but as a contradic
tion, as the negation of the earlier doctrine, and as
the affirmation of One taking the place of the former.

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

wholly different from it, and altogether incompatible
with it.
The old doctrine says : The divine guidance and
protection of the Church is shown by the fact that
she cannot apostatise as a whole, and does not per
mit the doctrine entrusted to her to be contaminated
or lost. It is then only to the whole Church, whether
in her ordinary condition or in that of her representa
tion by a Council, that this divine protection and
enlightenment accrue, without which the promises
of Christ would not be fulfilled, and which we
designate the infallibility of decisions and of creed.
The new school asserts the opposite to this, namely :
It is not on the Church, but on one individual person,
the pope, that infallibility is conferred, and without
him she would be abandoned to error ; he alone, as
often as he speaks ex cathedrd on matters of faith,
receives a special divine illumination, which preserves
him from every error ; and it is from him that the
Church first receives light and truth, and of these
only as much as it pleases him to, communicate to her.
7-
As an example and pattern, the Christian world
had before it the earliest decision of a point of con
troversy in the first Church Assembly at Jerusalem.
The most important question of that early period,
the question as to the obligation of the Mosaic Law

8 THE VATICAN DECREES, ii6<)-\%i7.
for the heathen Christians, was not decided at the
dictation of Peter, but the apostles and elders at
Jerusalem caused a prolonged discussion to be held
in the presence of all believers ; and then, though
Peter was the first to give his opinion, the decree of
the Assembly was formulated, not according to his
declaration, but according to that of James, and was
issued in the name of all. 8.
The decrees of the ancient Councils on questions
of faith had full power, and were everywhere accepted
without a confirmation of them by the pope being
considered necessary, and even before such a con
firmation had ensued. Of a papal confirmation of
the Nicaean Decrees nothing is known, as indeed
no appeal at all was made to the judgment of the
Romish See during the whole Arian controversy.
In the Second Synod, which was held at Con
stantinople in the year 381 A.D., the pope took no
part, either in person or by delegates ; nevertheless
its decrees on the doctrine of the Hoiy Ghost
were accepted at once by the whole Church, and
were published as imperial laws by the Emperor
Theodosius. Without the slightest initiative or
assistance on the part of the pope, this Synod took
the greatest, boldest, and most responsible step that
can ever be ventured in the Church at all. By

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

important additions it extended the Apostolic and
Nicaean Creeds which were common to the whole
Church. It did not take a single step towards
effecting the sanction of the pope to this or indeed
to any of its dogmatic decrees at all.^ Hence it is
that the popes for a considerable time refused to
recognise this Council, or rather contradicted them
selves in their utterances about its authority.
If the popes had already declared their opinion
on a question of faith before the assembling of the
Council, the papal document was first subjected to
a detailed examination at the Council, and according
to circumstances either sanctioned, as happened in
the case of the dogmatic document of Leo to Flavian
at Chalcedon, or rejected, as was the dogmatic letter
of Honorius at the Sixth Council. Such an exam
ination would have been an intolerable presumption
had the popes been considered infallible.
ID.
The prayer of Christ for Peter (Luke xxii. 32),
that hia faith might not fail, and the exhortation
coupled with it, that, after his conversion, he should
strengthen his brethren, is that passage of the Bible on
which all infallibilists rest as confirming their theory,
namely, by expounding it as a promise of infallibility
1 The assertion of the Bishop of Grenoble, in his work, Le Concile
oiciwiinique, 1869, that appeared recently, is unfounded.

I o THE VA TIC AN DECREES, 1 869- 1 8 8 7 .
for all popes in their intercourse with the " brethren,"
that is, with believers. But, in the first place, this
interpretation contradicts the whole tradition of the
ancient Church.
Second. It violates the oath taken by every bishop
and priest.
Third. It is opposed to all rules of biblical exegesis,
and hence no scientifically trained expositor will ever
be able to advance or sanction it.
Fourth. It is refuted by a series of historical facts.
First, then, it contradicts the traditions of the
Church. The Fathers, without exception, never
understood it in this light. Not only in their bibli
cal commentaries, but also in their other writings,
where an opportunity of making use of this passage
presented itself, we find no trace that even a single
one of the old teachers of the Church found a promise
of papal infallibility in the words of our Lord.
The ecclesiastical Fathers gave much and serious
attention to the passage in Luke xxii. 32. We have
the utterances of Saints Cyprian, Hilarius, and
Chrysostom ; of the two African Synods, those of
Carthage and Milevi ; of Augustine, Palladius, Leo,
Theodoret, and several others, who have all recog
nised that it is here only a question of that individual
virtue of faith which in the case of Peter and the
apostles at the moment of a grievous temptation
was to be weakened and obscured by the denial of

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

the one, and by the fear and frailty of the others,
which should not, however, completely die out in
them, but should revive and become vigorous through
the divine grace secured in the intercession of
Christ. Christ prayed for Peter and the rest of the
apostles that their faith in the Redeemer might be
steadfast ; it was in this faith that Peter was to
strengthen the brethren after his own conversion.
This is how the Fathers expound the passage, and
this is what they teach.
The freedom from error of a doctrinal or judicial
decision is something quite different from this. Such
a decision or doctrinal statement, even with the
firmest faith in Christ on the part of man, can
nevertheless be erroneous, and has often been so,
for no one will assert that all the African bishops,
who, with Cyprian at their head, rejected the validity
of baptism outside the Church, had therefore lost or
never possessed faith in Christ. And vice versd, a
bishop who is inwardly an unbeliever, when ques
tioned about a doctrine may be able to give a correct
and orthodox decision.
The new interpretation then, that in this passage
Christ was soliciting a dogmatic infallibility for the
popes, does violence to the words and the context,
and makes the Lord use the word " faith " in a sense
which is quite unusual with Him, and which is
unexampled in the New Testament.

1 2 THE VA TIC AN DECREES, 1 869- 1887.
For {a) the words, " when thou art converted," show
that the words of Christ refer exclusively to the
person of Peter, and it is inconceivable that every
pope should, like Peter, fall away from the faith into
unbelief, and then return again to the faith.
{f}) The faith of which Christ speaks is the belief
in His Messianic dignity and divine mission. Even
supposing that in this passage there was the promise
for every pope that he should always be kept in
possession of this faith in Christ, it is still far from
being a guarantee of infallibility for every single
dictum on an article of ecclesiastical doctrine.
if) The exhortation that Peter should strengthen
his brethren by no means involves a promise that he
would really do so in every single instance. It is a
violent perversion to turn an admonition to duty into
an infallible promise of the invariable fulfilment of
that duty. Still less is any one justified in asserting
that even if the exhortation of Christ to strengthen
the brethren should at the same time refer to all the
popes, the certainty is also involved that every one
will do so in every instance.
The first who sought to turn this passage to
account for the supposition of a special privilege
herewith conferred on the Papal See, was Pope
Agatho, in the year 680 A.D., when he feared the
condemnation of his predecessor, Honorius, in Con
stantinople. But even he took care at the same time

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 13
to excuse and to weaken his new and hitherto
unheard of interpretation, by coupling with it the
confession that at that time theological ignorance
prevailed in Rome. Agatho's interpretation was
then imputed to the earliest popes by Pseudo-Isidore,
propagated and sanctioned by Gratian, and in this
way gradually found acceptance, although constantly
discarded by learned theologians and commentators.
But as it was not devised until so late a period,
and as Pius IV. 's confession, which is given on oath
and rests on the well-known canon of the Council of
Trent, refers the Catholic Christian to the scriptural
interpretation of the Fathers of the Church, i.e. of the
first six centuries, every one who makes use of the
passage as the basis of the doctrine of infallibility is,
strictly speaking, guilty of perjury.
Finally, the facts of Church history show that, by
this exhortation to Peter, Christ did not intend to
confer the privilege of infallibility on all popes. For,
if this were the case, we should have to be able to
show that all popes for the last eighteen hundred
years have always strengthened the brethren, and
have never asserted or tolerated anything that was
erroneous. But no man will seriously think of
making such an a.ssertion. It cannot be applied
even to Peter himself, for he, far from strengthening
the brethren in the faith at Antioch, rather per
plexed them by his biro-z-piei;, as Paul says. When

1 4 THE VA TIC AN DECREES, 1 869- 1 887.
Zosimus approved a confession which denied original
sin ; when Liberius signed an Arian confession, and
entered into Church fellowship with the Arians ; when
Honorius, according to the judgment of an QEcu-
menical Council, helped to spread the heterodoxy of
Monotheletism — and how many other similar cases
might still be quoted ! — surely no one will be able to
perceive in these instances a strengthening of the faith
of the brethren. I r.
The testimony which the advocates of papal infalli
bility enforce with special predilection and confidence,
the testimony which seems to express more than any
other that can be derived from the Fathers, is the
celebrated passage in the writings of St. Irenaeus. It
is generally understood by them as though Irenaeus
said that every individual Church is under the moral
obligation of conforming to the Roman Church in
doctrine. That this interpretation is erroneous, and
imputes to Irenaeus a meaning foreign to his purpose,
is clearly seen from the following statements : 
First. The sole fact on which the obligation of
conforming to the Roman Church might be rested,
namely, that a dogmatic privilege had been granted
to Peter, and that this privilege passes on to his suc
cessors, of this Irenaeus does not utter a syllable.
The prerogatives which he attributes to the Roman

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 15
Church are : extension, age, and foundation by Paul
and Peter ; whereas every adherent of the doctrine of
infallibility always refers to Peter, and to him alone,
as the sole bearer of it.
Second. According to Irenaeus, the necessity of
conforming to the faith of the Roman Church results
from the fact that believers from all parts {undique,
•nuwayj^ev) were compelled to go to Rome on account
of her power and position in the world, consequently
to enter into fellowship with that Church and by
means of the touchstone of the tradition they had
brought with them from their native towns and
villages, to preserve in apostolic purity the Romish
doctrine that was current there.
Irenaeus says : " The doctrine or tradition of the
Church of Rome is very suitable in refuting heretics,
because the Christians who flock together from all
parts to this centre of the civilised world bring all
their native beliefs with them, and preserve that
Church from every deviation by this constant testi
mony, and by the consistency of their Asiatic,
Egyptian, or Syrian traditions, which are thus always
being compared with those of Rome." Irenaeus is
here speaking, not of a " convenire cum ecclesia," but
"ad ecclesiam." Two centuries later Gregory of
Nazianzus speaks in the same terms of Constanti
nople, the new metropolis of the empire. " It is," he
says, "the eye of the world. Everything that is

1 5 THE VA TIC A N DECREES, 1 869-1 887.
noble flocks to it from all parts, and everything pro
ceeds from it as from the common emporium of
faith."! Thus the passage in Irenaeus is a speaking
testimony, not for, but against papal infallibility ; for
Irenaeus knows nothing of a special privilege accorded
to this Church or her bishop as a successor of Peter.
He only knows that, by the concourse of Christians
at Rome from all parts of the world, the genuine
and universal tradition is preserved there. Ac
cording to Irenaeus, the doctrine of the Roman
Church is dependent on that of the rest of the
Churches, i.e. on the Catholic Church ; according to
the Infallibilists, the doctrine of the whole Catholic
Church is dependent on the particular Church of
Rome. The interpretation of Christ's words concerning an
infallibility being guaranteed to the popes, stands,
moreover, in contradiction to the limitations of this
privilege as devised by its advocates. For if the
scriptural origin of it is, said to lie in the exhortation
to the .strengthening of thfe faith of others, a pope must
be infallible even when he addresses himself only to a
few brethren, only to two or three persons or to indi
vidual national churches ; whereas Bellarmine, Perrone,
and many others assert that the pope is not infallible
1 Opera, ed. Benedictin. Paris 1778, i. 755. Symmachus, too,
writes in the same strain: "In commune caput imperii (Rome)
undique gentium convenitur.'-

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. t;
until he addresses himself to the whole Catholic
Church. 12.
In the controversy on the efficacy of baptism when
administered by heretics, the dictum of Pope Stephen
was discarded by a great part of the Church for more
than sixty years. It is just in Rome itself that
Cyprian, who with the whole African Church rejected
Rome's decision, and died shortly afterwards, has
nevertheless been held in veneration as a saint
from the earliest times, so far were they, even in
Rome at that period, from thinking of a privilege of
infallibility. Subsequently Augustine, in oft-repeated
utterances, justified the conduct of Cyprian and the
African Church by showing that the declaration of
Pope Stephen, however precisely it may have been
worded, did not possess the power of obliging others
to accept it, and that only the authority of a General
Council, such as was held in the fourth century, had
finally decided the question for the whole Church.
Cardinal Orsi can only get out of this difficulty
by reproaching the celebrated ecclesiastical teacher
with having set too high a value on the authority of
a General Council, and too low an one on that of
-the pope. The question itself was one of the most
important in the province of dogmatic teaching, for
the whole doctrine of the conditions of the power and

1 8 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%i><^-i%%l.
efficacy of the sacraments depended on the way in
which it was answered. 13-
Pope Honorius was condemned at the Sixth
General Synod on the charge of heresy. This con
demnation was at once accepted by the whole
Church without the slightest opposition. His suc
cessor sanctioned and signed it. No one, with the
single exception of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, offered
a word in his defence, and no one appealed to the
infallibility of the popes in matters of faith. It is as
clear as day that at that time the conception of such
an infallibility was a thing totally unknown to the
whole Christian world, 14-
The tenet that " the first See (the Roman) is not
judged by any one," laid the foundation and
prepared the way for the acceptance of a papal
infallibility. After a time the inference was drawn that he who
can err in matters of faith, or fall into heresy, can
also be judged, i.e. can be convicted of his error, by
an ecclesiastical tribunal. Now, if the pope cannot
be judged, this privilege must rest on another privi
lege, namely, on that of freedom from error. But
the tenet itself was unknown to the early Church in

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 19
the first five centuries, and it is only by inventions
that it has been introduced into the Church. The
great ecclesiastical Assemblies of Constance and
Basel repeatedly rejected the tenet, that the first
See is not judged by any one, and advanced the
opposite doctrine, that the pope in matters of faith
and the reformation of the Church is subject to a
General Council, like every other Christian. Papal
infallibility, as hitherto every adherent of this theory
has admitted, is thus rejected ; for, did the pope
really possess such a prerogative, the Council, as well
as the whole Church, would have to submit itself to
him and his decisions unconditionally. 16.
The Synod of Constance has been recognised
generally by the whole Church and by the popes as
a truly oecumenical one, and especially the decrees
of its fourth and fifth session on the precedence of
a Council over every pope, have been declared to
be true and valid by a whole series of popes, by
Martin V., Eugenius IV., Nicholas V, and Pius II.
As they were proclaimed in the Synod without the
slightest opposition, so also did no one in the whole
Church raise his voice against them for over thirty
years. It was not until a considerable time after
wards that Roman cardinals like Torquemada and
Cajetan tried to make the authority and validity of

20 THE VATICAN DECREES, \Zkc)-\%Z-j.
these decrees doubtful. Lastly, when the theologians
of the Jesuit order got the matter into their hands,
they went so far as to discard the whole Council of
Constance, and to strike it out of the list of
CEcumenical Councils, and this, scarcely credible as
it is, has been imitated but recently by some bishops ;
whereas Pope Martin V., in a special Bull, had
declared such discarding of the Council to be a sign
of heresy, and had ordered that every one who was
suspected of heterodoxy should be specially asked
if he believed that the Council of Constance was a
general one, and if he assented to its decisions.'
If, then, the hypothesis of papal infallibility should
be advanced to a doctrine of the whole Church, in
the first place the whole Synod of Constance would
have to be rejected, for the authority and validity
of this great Synod stands and falls with the decrees
of the fourth and fifth sitting. Secondly, the Synod
of Basel, in its earlier period, as recognised by the
Holy See before its removal to Ferrara, would also
have to be discarded. Thirdly, the Bulls of the popes
who have confirmed these decrees would have to be
rejected. In this way the Catholic doctrine would be
turned into a confused and contradictory chaos,
which within the Church could only be asserted by
force and violence, but outside her pale would be
left without protection, and abandoned to the scorn
' Bull : Inter cunctas, post sess. 45 Concil. Constant.

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

and irrefutable reproaches of the anti-Roman theo
logians. 1 8.
Since the thirteenth century no principle or doc
trine has been enforced with greater emphasis and
raore frequently repeated by the popes in circular
letters, bulls, and enactments, than the doctrine that it
is a divine commandment and a sacred duty for every
monarch and every government to make use of the
power that is given them for suppressing those who
avow a diff'erent creed, and to permit no freedom
in matters of faith and divine service. If, then, the
dogma of papal infallibility is proclaimed, it is at the
same time a declaration of the divine truth of the
doctrine that Catholic princes and states, so far as
they possess the necessary power, are also bound,
as a matter of conscience, to tolerate no other but
the Catholic confession, as far as possible to keep
back from official positions those who differ from
it, to undermine other Christian associations, and
finally to extirpate them.
In a long series of bulls and decrees more than
fifty popes established the institution of the Inquisi
tion or the " Sacred Office." They restored it only
a few years ago, after it had been suppressed
in the Papal States by the Interregnum, and
but recently they have again extolled it on the

22 THE VATICAN DECREES, i%e<)-\^&7.
occasion of the canonisation of some inquisitors.
For several centuries they enforced the rule that
whoever persisted in differing from the Church
doctrine in a single article, was to be punished by
death ; they sanctioned the principle that a relapsed
heretic, i.e. one who has been convicted of differing for
the second time from a doctrine of the Church, was
to be executed, even if he recanted. Should the
infallibility of the popes be proclaimed, it would self-
evidently extend to the whole province of morals as
well as to that of dogmas ; it would be impossible to
suppose that a pope had ever set up a principle that
was reprehensible from a moral point of view, that he
had ever issued an immoral decision, or instituted a
proceeding that contradicted Christian ethics. No
Catholic might, under these circumstances, either dare
to say or think that the institution of the Inquisition
was an error, or that the laws for it, given by the
popes, had at times been immoral. Nevertheless, a
glance at modern literature shows that nowadays,
at all events outside Italy, no one dares any longer to
defend the institution as it really was, or the laws
and principles given and set up for it by the popes.
19.
If the infallibility of the popes be raised to a
principle of faith, another doctrine that has been
maintained by the popes since Gregory VII. will also

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 23
receive the force of a dogma, namely, the doctrine of
the submission of monarchs and kingdoms to the
dominion of the Holy See, — a dominion which
extends over secular and political matters. Every
Catholic Christian is thus bound to believe, as a
doctrine revealed of God, and which must be taught
in every catechism, that the popes possess an absolute
power over all princes and authorities, over all states
and commonwealths, and that by their sovereign
power they can interfere at discretion in all state
affairs, depose princes, annul laws, and regulate war
and peace.i Pope Boniface VIII.'s Bull, " Unam
Sanctam," is a solemn dogmatic decision, addressed
to the whole Church, and declares a behef in all this
to be a condition of everlasting salvation. This
doctrine was confirmed by Leo X. at the Synod of
' That the acceptance of this doctrine is indissolubly bound np with
the acceptance of papal infallibUity, has been long recognised by the
defenders of the latter doctrine.
Thus Cardinal Baronius writes : " Haeresis errore notantur omne',
qui ab Ecclesia Romana, cathedra Petri, e duobus alterum gladium
auferunt ac nisi spiritualem concedunt." Annal. ad a. 1053, 14, and
again u. 1073, 13. Likewise Cardinal Bellarmine adversus Widdring
ton : " IUa sententia est haeretica, cujus contradictoria est de fide. Sed
Pontificem habere potestatem deponendi principes est de fide ; est
enim definitum et conclusum a S. Gregorio VII. in Concilio Romano,
quod Papae liceat imperatores deponere, quod a fidelitate iniquorum
subjectos potest absolvere." The Jesuit Lessius, Pro potestate Sumvii
Pontificis, f. 396: "Plane tenendum est, hanc doctrinam non esse
ambiguam, ita ut utrumque opinari liceat, sed omnino certam, ita ut
absque injuria fidei negari non possit. Primo igitur id probo, quia

24 THE VATICAN DECREES, 1869- 1887.
the Lateran, and a whole series of papal decrees is
founded upon it. It is true that by an artificial and
violent interpretation the attempt has very recently
been made to separate the main tenet, with a view to
which very tenet the whole Bull, as is well known,
was issued, from the rest of its contents, in which
everything else stands only in the relation of a
voucher of this tenet, and at the same time to assert
that the pope may indeed in this tenet have fallen
into error, but that this, in case his infallibility should
be decided, in no way affects it in other respects. But
with such a method of interpretation everything in
ecclesiastical decisions would become uncertain, and
it would lead to the ruin of all scientific dogmatic
teaching. ' 20.
Further, the weighty and comprehensive dogmatic
decree of Pope Eugenius IV. of the year 1439 a.d.
hae propositiones in terminis definitae sunt in ConciUo Romano, quod
Papae liceat imperatores deponere, quod a fidelitate iniquorum subditos
potest absolvere. Atqui definitio facta a Summo Pontifice cum Synodo
ad fidem pertinet." The most highly praised among the theologians
of the Jesuit order, Suarez, Defensio fidei cathol. lib. 3, c. 22 et 23, lib.
6, t. 4, 6 : " Tam certum, Papam posse multis de causis principes poenis
temporalibus coercere vel punire, quam est certum, ecclesiam non posse
in. fide et moribus errare." Lib. 6, c. 8 : " Propositio haec: Papa
habet potestatem ad deponendos reges haereticos et pertinaces, suove
regno in rebus ad salutem animae pertinentibus pernlciosos, inter dog
mata fidei tenenda et credenda est. Nam continetur in verbis Christi
Petro dictis, prout Ecclesia catholica ilia intellexit, ut apertissime
declaravit Bonifacius VIII. in Extrav. Unam Sanctam."

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 25
on the Incarnation and Sacraments will come into
full force, — a doctrine in which the pope cannot have
been in error, for he wished thereby to strengthen his
brethren (principally the Armenian nation) in the
faith, and lead them into the right way. But in this
manner the whole doctrine of the Sacraments would
be brought into the wildest confusion, and among
other things, the fact would become manifest that
there was no longer any true and valid ordination
of priests and bishops in the whole Christian world,
in the Eastern as well as in the Western Church.
Should then the papal infallibility be raised to a
dogma, and therewith, as would follow naturally, the
decree of Eugenius IV. be ratified as being free from
error, those Protestant theologians who, like Pfafif,
Mosheim, and many others, assert that there is no
longer any true episcopal succession in the Catholic
Church, would be right. But this would also mean
the collapse of the whole authority of this approaching
Council. 21.
The whole history of the Church shows, and, in
conformity with this, all theologians teach, that the
Church gives a more fixed and exact expression to a
doctrine that has hitherto been believed and pro
claimed, or that she establishes, limits, and defines
that doctrine by a dogmatic decree, especially if it has

26 THE VATICAN DECREES, i?,6!)-i^%7.
been attacked from many sides, contested, suspected
as an error, or misrepresented and distorted. This
was just the position of papal infallibility at the time
of the Synod of Trent. By all authors and adherents
of Protestant teachings it was branded as an invention
that lacked foundation, and as a device of later times.
Moreover, the ecclesiastical theologians outside of
Italy, who took under their especial protection all
other doctrines which were assailed, were with few
exceptions wont to abandon this one, either by their
silence or in express words. It was accordingly
strongly urged upon the Synod of Trent, if it
regarded this doctrine as a part of the depositum
fidei, and as being warranted by tradition, to raise
it to an article of faith. Nevertheless, it was rejected
by the Assembly, and the proposal that had already
been made by the papal legates was withdrawn when
they recognised that it was disapproved of by a
number of the bishops.

It is also of no slight importance that the doctrine
of papal infallibility has only been spread by force and
violence, and by the suppression of all who have taught
in opposition to it. In Italy, Spain, and Portugal, the
"^Inquisition made it impossible for any other doctrine
to be presented either in books or from professorial
chairs. A similar form of compulsion was exercised

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 27
in the large ecclesiastical corporations, namely, the
monastic orders. At the universities that were in the
hands of the Jesuits it was never tolerated that the .-
hypothesis of papal infallibility should even be
doubted. All w^ritings, too, which have put this doc
trine to a scientific test and have proved its historical
untenableness,! have been forbidden by the Index, and
as far as possible suppressed. But where there is so
complete a lack of freedom in teaching, there can be
no question of a " consensus " of the Church, for the
word in itself excludes every idea of compulsion.
23-
On comparing the theologians who profess their
adherence to the one or the other doctrine, viz. to
the infallibility of the Church or of the pope, it is
undeniable that the preponderance of well-grounded
learning, and especially of erudition in the Fathers
and Church history, is to be found on the side of the
adherents of the old doctrine, as every student of
Church literature knows. Bossuet's work had such a
convincing effect in Rome itself, that after its appear
ance, according to the testimony of Cardinal Orsi, the
cause of papal infallibility was considered by many
high authorities to be lost. The leamed Maurines
were all attached to the Galilean doctrine. The same
^ With the exception of the works of Bossuet and of Cardinal La
Luzerne.

2 S THE VA TIC A N DECREES, 1 869- 1887.
thing is evident in Germany in modern times. It may
be asserted that all theologians who combine a com
prehensive historical knowledge with biblical and
patristic erudition have rejected the new doctrine of
papal infallibility.
Who then were the champions of this infallibility ?
Torquemada, Cajetan, Jacobazzi, Hosius, Polus, Ba
ronius, Bellarmine, Aguirre, Pallavicini, Gotti, Orsi, —
men who were either cardinals or who received the
cardinal's hat in recognition of their services in this
matter, — and along with these, monks of the great
orders, whose generals resided in Rome ; but, above
'^all, Jesuits who have made it their chief aims, or rather
their life's principle, to defend and carry out to a
practical issue the unlimited power of the pope in
every direction 24.
Now it happens that these theologians from the
beginning have always rested their conclusions on
false testimonies, fictions, and forgeries. The false
decrees of Isidore, the invented testimonies of the
Greek Fathers of the Church, which from the works
of St. Thomas passed into the writings of the succeed
ing theologians and canonists, these along with several
other spurious documents form the principal arguments
for the champions of the theory of infallibility, namely,
for Cardinals Torquemada and Cajetan, for the minorite

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 29
Capistrano, for Bellarmine, and the host of those who
transcribed him. And so it went on. Nicholas
Sanders, Roccaberti, and Aguirre, Vernant, the Jesuit
General Thyrsus Gonzalez, the Jesuits Francis Turri-
anus, Alphonse Pisanus, Riccioli, and Raynaud ; then
the theologians of the Roman Curia, Thomas and
Camillo Campeggi, Bzovius, Vaira, Cardinal Sfondrati,
Benettis, and numerous copyists ofthese men, without
being disconcerted by the discovery of forgeries and
inventions, erected their edifice of infallibility on this
rotten and decaying foundation. Even at the present
day the defenders of the doctrine will not desist from
this argumentation, which is so ruinous to the honour
and prestige of the Church, being impelled by the
feeling that it would never have arisen were it not for
these inventions. Thus Roskovany, the bishop of
Neutra, in his great work on the pope, has again
presented the long series of these fictions to the
reader. The Jesuit Weninger, who, in publishing his
book in New York and Cincinnati, seems to have
aimed especially at the North American bishops and
clergy, goes indeed so far as to give a purely fictitious
account of the first General Council of Nicaea, in
order to make the authority of the pope appear as
the higher, and the one to be conformed to, as well
as to cite as a witness for these untruths the Church
historian Sozomenus, who, of course, says nothing
about them. The Frenchman Bouix proceeds in

30 THE VATICAN DECREES, \Z(iC)-\%Z-j.
a similar way in his recent work {Tractatus de Papa,
1869). He appeals to the spurious passage in St.
Cyprian, and to such a late and ridiculous fiction as
the so-called Arabian Canons of Nicaea. Similar
things are to be found in the recent manifestoes of
Archbishop Dechamps of Malines, as, for instance,
the use he has made of a letter of St. Basil.
25.
Should the doctrine of papal infallibility really
become an ecclesiastical dogma, it would present an
incalculably weak point to the separated Churches —
the Graeco-Russian and the Protestant. So far as
can be foreseen, the whole controversy, as it has
hitherto been carried on against the Catholic doctrine
and Church, would concentrate itself more and more
on this one doctrine, which would then have really
become the " articulus stantis vel cadentis ecelesiae,"
and here the adversaries could borrow their most
effective weapons and their most striking arguments
from the very bosom of the Church herself, especially
from the writings of her most eminent theologians.
What reply will the champions of the Church be able
to give when it is represented to them that for over
eighteen hundred years this doctrine has been partly
unknown and partly rejected and refuted by a great
section of the Church, and that the most learned
section ; further, that the most respected and scientific

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 31
corporation in the Church, the University of Paris, has
been teaching the opposite for four hundred years ;
and, finally, what will they say when they are referred
to the writings of Bossuet, Fleury, Natalis Alexander,
and so many others ! The whole doctrine of the
Church, especially of the conditions and requirements
of an ecclesiastical dogma, will gradually have to
assume another form. 26.
One of the consequences which would of necessity
follow the realisation of the theory of infallibility as
an ecclesiastical dogma, would be the altogether
incalculable enfeeblement of the prestige of the
Church. For nothing can be more detrimental to
the prestige of the Church in the eyes of all believers
as well as of all strangers, than when it is proved that
an ecclesiastical doctrine has been realised by means
of, or, at least, under the eff'ectual support of, pre
meditated innovations that have been long con
tinued and firmly maintained. But this is, evi
dently and irrefutably the case with the doctrine
of papal infallibility. The inventions by whicii
this doctrine was prepared, recommended, finally
introduced into the scholastic theology and the
law books, extend from the sixth to the thirteenth
century ; and even St. Thomas Aquinas, whose
authority has contributed so much towards the

32 THE VATICAN DECREES, \Zec)-\ZZ-j.
spreading and strengthening of the doctrine of in
fallibility, was deceived by fictitious testimonies of
the Greek Church.'
' Compare what the Dominican Le Quien in the preface to his
Panoplia, and de Rubeis in the introduction to the work, Contra
errores Graecoriim, in his edition of .St. Thomas, say on the subject.

II.

A FEW WORDS ON THE ADDRESS PRESENTED
TO THE POPE BY CERTAIN MEMBERS OF
THE VATICAN COUNCIL, URGING HIM TO
DECLARE HIS OWN INFALLIBILITY.
(January 19th, 1870.i)
A REMARKABLE Address has been presented from
the bosom of the Vatican Council to the pope
begging him to take the necessary steps in order to
have his own infallibility raised to an article of faith
by the present assembly. A hundred and eighty
millions of human beings — this is demanded by the
bishops who have signed the Address — are, for the
future, under threat of exclusion from the Church, of
the withdrawal of the sacraments, and of everlasting
damnation, to be compelled to believe that which the
Church has hitherto never either believed or taught.
'' Has never believed," I say ; for even those who
have hitherto held papal infallibility to be true, could
not believe it, taking this word in the Christian
sense. Between faith — fide divina — and the intel
lectual acceptance of a doctrine that is considered to
' Allgemeine Zeitung, January 2rst, 1870.
C

34 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%(i<)-i%%l.
be probable, there is an immense difference. A
Catholic can and may only believe that which is com
municated and prescribed to him by the Church her
self as a truth, which has been divinely revealed, which
is one of the essentials of the doctrine of salvation,
which is raised above all doubt, and on the confes
sion of which alone depends his connection with the
Church; while the opposite of it is not only not
tolerated by the Church, but is rejected as manifest
heterodoxy. As a matter of fact, then, no one, from
the early beginnings of the Church to the present
day, has believed in the infallibility of the pope,
i.e. believed in it in the same way in which he
believes in God, in Christ, and in the Trinity of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, etc.; but many have
only conjectured, considered it probable, or, at most,
humanly certain— i/?^^ Jiumana — that this prerogative
belongs to the pope. Consequently, the change in
the faith and doctrine of the Church which the
bishops, who have presented the Address, wish to see
accomplished would be an event unique in the history
of the Church. Nothing of the kind has happened
during the last eighteen centuries. It is a Church
revolution they desire, which is the more radical,
because it is here a question of the foundation which
is to support and preserve the religious faith of every
individual, when a single man, the pope, is to take
the place of the whole Church, which is universal in

THE ADDRESS TO THE POPE. 3;
time and space. Hitherto the Catholic has said :
" I believe this or that doctrine on the testimony of
the whole Church of all times, because she has the
promise that she shall exist for ever, and always
remain in possession of the truth." But henceforth
the Catholic will have to say : " I believe, because the
pope, who has been declared infaUible, commands it
to be taught and believed ; but that he is infallible,
this I believe because he asserts it of himself, and
not because at Rome, in 1870, 400 or 600 bishops
resolved that the pope is infallible ; for every bishop
and every Council, apart from the pope, is subject to
the possibility of error. Infallibility is the exclusive
prerogative and possession of the pope. His testi
mony, the bishops, whether many or few, can neither
strengthen nor weaken. Thus that resolution of the
bishops has only so much power jind authority as the
pope gives it, by adopting it as his own. Every
thing thus resolves itself finally into the pope's testi
mony of himself, which is, indeed, a very simple
matter. We need here only to remind ourselves that
1840 years ago One infinitely higher said of Himself,
"Ifl bear witness of myself, my witness is not true "
(Johnv. 31).
The Address gives occasion, especially, to the
following considerations : —
First. It limits the infallibility of the pope to such
dicta and decrees as are addressed by him to the whole

36 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%6^i?,?.7.
body of believers, that is, for the instruction of the
whole Catholic Church.
From this it would follow that, when the pope
addressed himself to single persons, corporations, or
to individual churches, he was always open to error ;
and yet for twelve or thirteen centuries the popes
never realised the condition on which the freedom
from error of their decisions or admonitions is sup
posed to depend. All manifestoes of the popes on
questions of doctrine before the end of the thirteenth
century were directed only to definite individuals, or
to the bishops of a single country, etc. During the
century of the union a universal decree of a pope
was never once communicated to the Eastern Church
as a body ; it was only to individual patriarchs or to
emperors — and that only at long intervals — that the
popes directed any dogmatic writings.
Thus it is clear that the popes themselves, at least
for a thousand years, had no idea of this condition to
which the certainty and infallibility of their decisions
are said to be subject, as indeed this assertion was
not devised until a very late period, and was unknown
to the Church before the year 1562 A.D. It was
in this year that the theologian John Hessels of
Louvain brought it forward for the first time. From
him it was borrowed by Bellarmine, and supported by
the spurious decretals of Isidore and the fictitious
testimonies of St. Cyril. According to this theory,

THK ADDRESS TO THK POPE. 37

by prefixing a single word or by a simple endorse
ment, the popes niight have conferred the highest
prerogative of freedom from error to their dogmatic
manifestoes ; but they did not do so ; they placed
individuals and congregations in danger of falling a
prey .to error by the acceptance of their decisions,
which were given without the guarantee of divine
certainty. Second. It is untrue that " according to the general
.111(1 unchanged tradition of the Church the dogmatic
decisions of the popes arc unalterable." The oppo
site of this is manifest to every one. The Church
has always first tested the dogmatic writings of the
popes, and then, in con.sequcnce of this testing, cither
sanctioned thcin, as the Council of Chalcedon did the
document of Leo, or rejected them as erroneous, as
the Infth Council (553 A.D.) did the "constitutum" of
Vigilius, and the Sixth Council (681 A.D.) the letter
of rionorius.
Third. It is not true that at the Second Council
of Lyons (1274 A.n.) a confession of faith was accepted
by the consent of the Ci recks and Latins, a creed in
which it is declared lhat "disputes on questions of
faith must be settled by the decision of the pope."
Neither the Greeks nor the Latins, i.e. those bishops
of the Western Church who had assembled at Lyons,
adopted this confession of faith, but the deceased
Pope Clemens IV. had sent it to the Emperor Michael

38 THE VATICAN DECREES, i?,e<)-i?,?>7.
Palaeologus as a condition of his admission to church-
fellowship. Michael in the uncertain possession of
the capital, that had been but recently reconquered
and was now severely menaced by the Latin Emperor
Baldwin and King Charles of Sicily, stood in urgent
need of the pope, who alone was able to pacify his
principal enemy. Hence it was that he consented to
the conditions of submission to the Church as pre
scribed to him by the popes, although under the
persistent contradiction of the Greek bishops and of
the nation. Thus it was that he inserted the formula
imposed upon him in the document which was read
at the Council and confirmed by the logothete his
ambassador. At home, in Constantinople, he himself
declared that the three concessions he had made
to the pope were illusory {Pachymeres de Michaele
Palaeol. 5. 22). The assembled bishops have not
been at all in a position to express an opinion on this
formula. Fourth. The decree of the Florentine Synod is
here cited in a mutilated form. They have omitted
precisely the principal passage, which was formulated
as the result of long negotiations between the Greeks
and Italians, and on which the greatest stress was
laid because what preceded it was only to be under
stood according to the limitation therein contained, the
passage, namely: "juxta eum modum, quo et in gestis
et in sacris canonibus oecumenicorum conciliorum

THE ADDRESS TO THE POPE. 39
continetur." The pope and the cardinals persisted in
requiring that as a more exact definition of how the
primacy of the pope is to be understood, should be
added, "juxta dicta Sanctorum." This was rejected
by the Greeks with equal persistence. They well
knew that among these "testimonies of the saints"
there was a considerable number of extensive fictitious
or spurious passages. As early as in the seventh
sitting the Latin Archbishop Andreas, one of the
speakers, had appealed to the notorious testimonies
of Cyril, which, since Thomas Aquinas and Pope
Urban IV. had been first cheated by them, had
produced a great and lasting effect in the East, but
were now rejected by the Greeks. The emperor
remarked also that when one of the Fathers ex
pressed himself in a complimentary style in a letter
to the pope, no one could immediately deduce there
from any rights and privileges. At last the Latins
yielded. The " dicta Sanctorum " disappeared from
the draft of the document, and in its place, as a
standard and limit of the papal primacy, were set the
negotiations of the CEcumenical Councils and the
Holy Canons. Therewith, every thought of papal
infallibility was excluded, since in the ancient Councils
and in the pre-Isidore canons which were common to
both Churches, not only is there nothing that would
point to such a privilege, but the whole legislature ofthe
ancient Church as well as the proceedings and history

40 THE VATICAN DECREES, im()-i?,Z7.
of the seven CEcumenical Councils — these were meant
— clearlypresume a state in which the highest authority
of the doctrine only accrues to the Church as a body,
but not to a single one of the five patriarchs. The
pope was regarded as such by the Greeks.. More
over, Archbishop Bessarion had only shortly before in
the name of all Greeks declared that the pope is
inferior to the Council — consequently not infallible
(Sess. ix. Concil. ed. Labbe, xiii. 150). It is thus a
mutilation, which is tantamount to a forgery, to strike
out of the decree of the Florentine Synod just the
principal passage on which those for whom the decree
was made laid the greatest stress. In the eyes of
the Greeks the passage was so indispensable that they
declared they would return home without effecting
anything, if it were not inserted. By insisting, they
also succeeded in having all the rights and privileges
of the rest of the patriarchs reserved in the decree ;
as for the right of taking an independent part in the
establishment of the Church doctrine which was
common to all, and of not being obliged to submit
simply to the claims of an infallible master, it had been
declared at an earlier period by the popes themselves
to belong to the patriarchs.
There is, it is true, another reason for the mutila
tion of the Florentine Decree that was committed by
the compiler of the Address. Was he to give the
Latin text in its original form corresponding to

THE ADDRESS TO THE POPE. 41
the Greek, as Flavins Blondus the secretary of Pope
Eugenius IV. and the older theologians do, viz. : "que
madmodum et in actis conciliorum et in sacris canoni
bus continetur"? Or was he to adopt the forgery
(first used by Abraham Bartholomaeus), according
to which we are to read "etiam " instead of "et" ? 1 By
this " etiam " the sense of the decree is completely
changed and the intention of the additional clause
destroyed. But although it is a palpable forgery, it
has passed over into the Council Collections and into
the dogmatic manuals, and it is high time that this
stone of off'ence for tlie Orientals be removed and the
genuine text, namely, that which corresponds to the
wording of the Greek, restored. But then, indeed,
the decree would be no longer of any use for the
purposes of the infallibilists, as De Marca, Arch
bishop of Paris, showed two hundred years ago
{Concord. Sacerd. ct Imperii, 3. 8). He is right in
remarking : " Verba graeca in sincero sensu accepta
^ On the authority of the papal secretary Flavio Biondo, who has
correctly translated the Greek text, I assumed that the incorrect
version of "quemadmodum etiam," which unmistakably alters the
sense of the Greek, is a later change. But since then, from Frommann's
statement in the Allg. Zeitung, as well as from the copy of the original
document in the Archivio Storico Italiano, 1857, u. p. 219, I have con
vinced myself that these words stood in the first Latin text, so that the
Greek and Latin texts differed from each other from the vety begin
ning. That the Greeks would not have accepted the text as it runs in
the Latin version if they had known and uuderstood it, is proved by
the preceding transactions. (AprU 29th. )

42 THE VATICAN DECREES, \Zb<i-\Z%7.
modum exercitio potestatis pontihciae imponunt ei
similem quem ecclesia Gallicana tuetur. At e con-
textus latini depravata lectione eruitur, plenam esse
Papae potestatem idque probari actis conciliorum et
canonibus." The Address expresses special indignation (acer-
bissimi catholicae doctrinae impugnatores — ^blaterare
non erubescunt) againat those who do not regard the
Florentine Synod to be oecumenical. Let the facts
speak for themselves. The Synod was, as is well
known, summoned with the express object of under
mining the Council at Basel when the latter had
begun to resolve upon several reforms that were
troublesome to the Roman Curia. It was opened at
Ferrara on the 9th of April 1438, but six months
passed away without anything being done, so small
was the number of the bishops who came to attend
it From the whole of northem Europe, at that time
still thoroughly Catholic, from Germany, from the
Scandinavian countries, from Poland, from Bohemia,
from the France of that period, from Castile, Portugal,
etc., not a single representative appeared at the
Council. Nay, we may assert that nine-tenths of the
Catholic world at that time did not take part in the
Synod on principle, because they considered it, in the
face of the Basel Assembly, to be illegal, and every one
knew that for what was most urgent, viz. the reform
of the Church, nothing would be done there. It was

THE ADDRESS TO THE POPE. 43
only with great difficulty that Eugenius was at last
able to gather together an assembly of Italian
bishops, about fifty, in addition tb whom came some
bishops sent by the Duke of Burgundy, some
Provencals, and a few Spaniards, — in all there were
the signatures of sixty-two bishops. The Greek
prelates with their emperor, who saw that the fall of
their empire was imminent, were attracted thither by
the promise of money, ships, and soldiers. In addition
to this, the pope had promised to bear the expenses of
their sojourn at Ferrara and Florence, as well as those
of their return journey. When they showed them
selves unyielding, he withdrew his subsidies, so that
they fell into terrible exigencies, and finally, compelled
by the emperor and oppressed by hunger, they gave
their signatures to things which almost all of them
retracted afterwards. The opinion of Amyrutius, a
Greek contemporary, which the Roman scholar
Allatius quotes {de perp. consens. 3. i, 4) was at that
time the prevailing one among the Greeks. " Surely,"
he says, "no one will seriously call this Synod an
oecumenical one, which has purchased articles of faith
with money, and has only been able to pass its
resolutions simoniacally by a prospect of financial and
military assistance?" In France, before the Revolu
tion, the Florentine Synod was rejected as not being
genuine. This was declared by Cardinal Guise at
the Council of Trent without meeting with the

44 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%(>'i-\U7-

slightest, opposition. The Portuguese theologian
Payva de Andrada says on this point : " Florentinam
(Synodum) sola Gallia — pro oecumenica nunquam
habuit, quippe quam neque adire, dum agitaretur,
neque admittere jam perfectam atque absolutam
voluerit" {Defens. fid. Trident, pag. 431, ed. Colon.
1580). The rest of the text of the Address is taken up
with a detailed discussion to the effect that the
advancement of the nevv article of faith is just at this
time opportune, nay, of urgent necessity, because
some persons who pretend to be Catholics have very
recently contested this doctrine of papal infallibility.
What the Address here partly expresses and partly pre
supposes as being well known (in Rome) is essentially
the following: It would not have been absolutely
necessary in itself to increase the number of dogmas
by a new one, but the situation of affairs had assumed
such a shape as to make it now unavoidable. Several
years ago the order of Jesuits, supported by a follow
ing of similarly minded men, began an agitation sim
ultaneously in Italy, France, Germany, and England
in favour of the dogma that was to be made. A
special religious society for the purpose of praying
and working for the attainment of the new dogma
has been founded and publicly announced by the
Jesuits. Their principal organ, the Civiltd, pub
lished in Rome, has indicated the principal task of

THE ADDRESS TO THE POPE. 45
the Council beforehand, viz. the bestowal on the
expectant world of this lacking article of faith. Their
Laacher Stimme7t and publications at Vienna have
discussed the same subject in all its details and with
untiring repetition. In this agitation it would have
been the duty of all otherwise minded men to wait in
respectful silence, to let the Jesuits and their adherents
quietly go their way, and not to subject the arguments
brought forward by them in numerous pamphlets to
any test whatever. Unfortunately this has not been
done. A few men have had the unheard of boldness
to break the sacred silence, and to make known a
different opinion. This offence can only be atoned
for by an addition to the Creed, and by a change in
the Catechism and in all manuals ofreligion.

III.
THE NEW ORDER OF BUSINESS IN THE COUNCIL,
AND ITS THEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE.
(Marcli Sth, 1870.i)
The new order of business which has been imposed
on the Council by the five cardinal legates, is entirely
different from everything that has ever been cus
tomary at Councils, and it is at the same time
determinative and decisive of the further course of
this Assembly as well as of the numerous decrees
that are to be brought into life by it. Hence it
deserves our most careful attention. As resfards its
place in history, it is only necessary to mention
briefly that a fixed order of business for the uni
versal Councils of the ancient Church did not exist
in the first millennium. It was only for provincial
Councils held in Rome and Spain that there was
a liturgical ceremonial.^ Everything was brought
forward in full assembly ; every bishop had the right
to move any resolutions he liked, while the presi-
'^ Allgemeine Zeitung, March nth, 1870.
- Accepted by Pseudo-Isidore, and published by Mansi, Concil. Coll.
i. 10.

NE W ORDER OF B USI NESS IN THE COUNCIL. 47
dents, the secular who were sent by the emperor
as well as the spiritual, kept order and conducted
the proceedings in the simplest manner possible.
The great Councils at Constance and Basel framed
a special rule of order, as the division and voting
according to nations was introduced. At Trent this
arrangement was again forsaken ; but the legates
who presided came to an agreement with the
bishops as to the order of business, and Cardinal del
Monte took the vote on the subject, by which it
\yas sanctioned nemine contradicente} The present
Roman Synod is thus the first in the history of the
Church in which instructions as to procedure have
been made to the assembled fathers beforehand,
without their having any share whatever in the
matter. The first Regolamento showed itself to be
so obstructive and so unpractical that repeated
petitions for its modification, and for permission to
enjoy freer movement, were addressed to the pope
by different parties of the episcopate. This was in
vain. But after two months and a half the five
legates themselves at last found that, if the Council
was not to come to a standstill, changes and addi
tions were urgently needed. In the new arrange
ment, however, no regard has been paid to the
petitions of the bishops.
^ Le Plat, Monumenta, iii. 418 : " Dicant Patres, utium hic modus
procedendi eis placeat," — whereupon the vote was taken.

THE VATICAN DECREES, i?,eq-i?,Z7.

In this arrangement there are two features which
are especially prominent. In the first place, all
power and influence on the course of the Council is
laid in the hands of the presiding legates and of the
deputations, so that the Council itself as opposed to
these appears without power and will. In the second
place, a simple majority is to decide all the most
important questions of faith and of doctrine by
standing up and remaining seated.
It is well known that during the two years
which have preceded the opening of the Council,
a number of treatises with the decrees and canons
belonging to them have been elaborated. These
are to be accepted by the Council, and then pro
claimed by the pope " approbante Concilio " as
laws and rules of doctrine and faith for the whole
of Catholic Christendom. Altogether, there are
fifty-one such schemes, of which hitherto only five
have been discussed.
The method of procedure which is to take place
at the deliberations and at the voting, is as follows : — ¦
I. Several (ten) days before the deliberations, the
scheme is distributed among the fathers of the
Council, who can then make written memoranda,
exceptions, and suggestions for improvement.
2. In this case they must at once bring forward a
new wording of the article in question instead of the
one they are contesting.

NEW ORDER OF BUSINESS IN THE COUNCIL. 49

3. Such suggestions are handed over by the secre
tary to the suitable deputation, — of these there are
four, — which then, according to its discretion, makes
use of them by reforming the scheme, if it consider
it to be to the purpose, and by then giving notice
to the Council of the proposed suggestions in a
report which shall, however, only be a summary.
4. The presidents can submit every scheme to the
deliberation of the Council, whether as a whole or as
divided into paragraphs.
5. At the deliberations the presidents can interrupt
any speaker if it appears to them that he is not
keeping to the subject.
6. The bishops of the deputation can address the
Council at any moment in order to reply to the
bishops who contest the wording of the scheme.
7. Ten fathers are sufficient to move the closing
of the discussion, which a simple majority shall then
decide by standing up or remaining seated.
8. At the voting on the several parts of the
scheme, the vote shall be taken by standing up or
by remaining seated, so that the simple majority
decides. The vote shall first be taken on the pro
posed alterations, and then on the text as brought
forward by the deputation.
9. Hereupon the vote shall be taken on the whole
scheme by calling out the individual names, to which
each of the fathers shall answer " placet " or " non-

50 THE VATICAN DECREES, j&6^i&S7-
placet." Whether here, too, the simple majority of
numbers shall rule, is not stated. But it appears as
though this question must, according to analogy, be
answered in the affirmative, for the whole scheme
itself is, of course, only a piece or a part of a greater
whole, and there is no reason why the greater part
should be dealt with in a way diff'erent from the
smaller. Were the principle of a simple majority to
be here forsaken, it is just the more important and
more deeply penetrating schemes that would pro
bably be lost.
It is thus quite evident that a few parliamentary
forms have been adopted in this order of business.
But if in political assemblies there are certain arrange
ments similar to those given here, they generally
.serve to protect the minority from being compelled
to follow the majority ; while here they seem, on. the
contrary, to have been given for the purpose of
making the majority still more powerful and irresist
ible, as is especially shown in the right that has been
allowed them of cutting short the discussion as soon
as they like. The effect of this will be all the more
painful because, as is well known, even the possibility
of communicating to the other members of the Council
their opinions and ideas in print has not been given
either to individuals or to whole groups of bishops.
In political assemblies resolutions can be passed,
and even laws given, by a simple majority, because

NEW ORDER OF BUSINESS IN THE COUNCIL. 51
none of the succeeding parliaments and chambers i.s
bound by the resolutions and laws of the earlier ones.
Any assembly can at any time change or abrogate a
statute of its predecessor. But the dogmatic resolu
tions of a Council, if it is really an oecumenical one,
should be inviolably and irrevocably valid for all
time. At the voting that is now about to take place, the
majority of the Council will presumably not be one
that wavers like a wave of the sea ; it will not change
with the resolutions that are to be passed, but will in
its composition, with slight fluctuations in numbers,
remain essentially the same. For it is well known
that the division of the bishops into a majority and a
minority, from the very beginning, as early as the
election of the deputations, and even before a single
vote had been taken, showed itself to be a sharp and
decisive one. It was bound to be so, because in the
question of papal infallibility a fundamental differ
ence resting on matters of principle soon arose, and it
was at once recognised that this question would form
the chief business of the assembly, and that all other
matters would be in abeyance to it. It is to be
expected that the adherents of the theory of infalli
bility will also vote without any misgivings , for the
proposals as they come to them out of the hands of
the deputations ; for, to them, all that proceeds from
the Holy See is logically binding, and sufficient care

52 THE VATICAN DECREES, ii6^iS%7.
has been taken that in the deputations, to which the
most comprehensive and unquestionable power over
all the proposals referring to improvements of the
schemes has now been entrusted, only one opinion
can make itself felt. A glimpse at the members of
the most important deputation, de fide, will suffice.
Prominent above all others we see here Cardoni of
Rome, who, in the preparatory commission, had
already recommended the dogma of papal infallibility
in a special memorial, and had it accepted in his own
commission. Beside him is the Jesuit Steins, and
then the eloquent names of Dechamps of Malines,
Spalding of Baltimore, Pie of Poitiers, Ledochowski,
Hjissun the Armenian, De Preux of Sitten ; the
Germans Martin, Senestrey, and Gasser of Brixen ;
two Spaniards, three South Americans, three Italians,
an Irishman, and, finally, Simor, Regnier, and
Schaepman. For eighteen hundred years it has been held as a
principle of the Church that decrees concerning faith
and doctrine should be adopted by at least moral
unanimity. This principle stands in the closest
connection with the whole system of the Catholic
Church. There is no known example of the intro
duction of a dogma after it having been resolved
upon by a simple majority with the dissent of the
minority. In order to make this clear, I must solicit space for

AEW ORDER OF BUSINESS IN THE COUNCIL. 53
a short theological discussion, which I hope, however,
will be generally intelligible.
From the very beginning the Church has had
entrusted to her a revealed doctrine which is to be
preserved and administered by her.^ She receives no
new revelations, and she draws up no new articles of
faith. As it is with the Church, so also is it with the
General Council.^ The Council is the representative,
the sum of the whole Church ; the bishops present
are the ambassadors and deputies of the whole
1 In the development of these questions, theology has attached
itself to the work of Vincent of Lerins, viz. the Commonitorium, which
i-i universally accepted as being classical and perfectly correct, and
which appeared about the year 434 a.d. Hence it is to this work that
I refer in the following paragraphs.
'' Thus Fisher, bishop of Rochester, who sacrificed his life for the
supremacy of the pope, writes in his polemical treatise against Luther
(Opera, ed. Wirceburg. 1597, p. S92), appealing to the similar dictum
of Duns Scotus : " In eorum (of the Council with the pope) arbitrio
non est situm, ut quicquam tale vel non tale faciant, sed spiritu potius
veritatis edocti id, quod revera pridem de substantiS fidei fuerat, jam
declarant, esse de substantiS fidei." And the minorite Davenport,
Systema fidei, p. 140: "Secundum receptam, tam veterum, quam
inodernorum doctorum sententiam ecclesia non potest agere ultra
revelationes antiquas ; nihil potest hodie declarari de fide, quod non
habet talem identitatem cum prius revelatis. . . . Unde semper
docet Scotus : Quod illae conclusiones solum possunt infallibiliter
declarari et determinari per ecclesiam, quae sunt necessario inclusae
in articulis creditis. Si igitur per accidens conjunguntur, vel si solum
probabiliter sequuntur ex articulis, fidem non attingent per quascumque
determinationes, quia concilia non possunt identificare, quae sunt ex
objecto diversa, nec necessario inferre ea, quae solum apparenter seu
probabUiter sunt inclusa in articulis creditis."

54 THE VATICAN DECREES, i%e()-i?,?,7.

Church in the Catholic worid; they have, in the
name of the totality, to declare what this totality of
the faithful thinks and believes on a religious ques
tion, and what it has received as tradition. They are
thus to be regarded as procurators, who are not
allowed on any conditions whatever to overstep the
power entrusted to them.'
Were they to do so, the Church, whose representa
tives they are, would not confirm the doctrine and
definition as set up by them, but would rather reject
them as something foreign to her faithful conviction.
At the Council, therefore, the bishops are first of
all witnesses ; they express and state what they and
their congregations have received and hitherto
believed as doctrines of faith ; but they are also
judges, except that their judicial power over belief
may not go beyond the range of their quality as
witnesses, nay rather, that the latter constantly limits
' "Concilium non est ipsamet ecclesia, sed ipsam tantum reprae-
sentat ; ... id est episcopi illi, qui concilio adsunt, legati mittuntur
ab omnibus omnium gentium catholicarum ecclesiis, qui ex nomine
totius universitatis declarent, quid ipsa univer.-.itas sentiat et quid
traditum acceperit. Itaque ejusmodi legati omnium eeclesiarum sunt
veluti procuratores, quibus nefas esset procurationem sibi creditam
tantiUum excedere. Unde constat, quod si quingenti episcopi, ut
videre est in exemplis Ariminensis et Constantinopolitanae contra
imagines coactae synodi, suam de fide communi declaranda procura
tionem tantiUum excederent, universa ecclesia, cujus sunt tantummodo
procuratores et simplex reprae.sentatio, definitionem factam ab Uiis
ratam non haberet, irao repudiaret." — Oeuvres de Finelon, VersaiUes
1820, ii. 361.

NEIV ORDER OF BUSINESS IN THE COUNCIL. 55
and circumscribes the former. As judges they have
not first to make the law (the doctrine of faith), but
only to interpret and apply it. They are subject to
the Church's public right, in which they have no
power to change anything. They exercise their
judicial office, firstly, by examining the testimonies
they themselves have borne, by comparing them
with one another, and by considering the range of
their efficacy ; secondly, by declaring after a con
scientious examination, whether the three indispens
able conditions of universality, perpetuity, and con
sent {ubique, semper, ab omnibus) are fulfilled in a
doctrine, i.e. whether the doctrine can be shown to all
to be the universal doctrine of the whole Church, and
a constituent part of the divine trust {depositum), and
whether its confession can be imposed on every Chris
tian.^ Their examination has accordingly to stretch
' E.g. the Jesuit Bagot in his Institutio theologica de verd religione,
Paris 1645, p. 395 : " Universitas sine duabus aliis, nimirum antiquilate
et consensione, stare non potest. Quod autem triplici ilia probatione
confirmatur, est haud dubie ecclesiasticum et catholicum. Quod si
universitatis nota deficit et nova aliqua quaestio exoritur, novaque
contagio ecclesiam commaculare incipit, tunc hac universitate prae-
sentium eeclesiarum defieiente recurrendum est ad antiquitatem.
Notat enim Vineentius, posse aliquam haereseos contagionem occupare
multas ecclesias, sicut constat de Ariana, adeo ut aliquando plures
ecelesiae et episcopi diversarura nationuin Ariani quam catholici
reperirentur. Et quantumvis doctrina aliqua latissime pateat, si
tamen novam esse constat, haud dubie erronea est, nec enim est
apostolica, nec per successionem et traditionem ad nos usque pervenit.
Deinde, nt notat idem Vineentius, antiquitas non potest jam seduci.

56 THE VATICAN DECREES, \Z(>'i-\U7.
over the past as well as the present. All arbitrariness
and every opinion that is simply subjective is thus
excluded from the duty of the bishops at Councils.
It would be outrageous and ruinous there; for as the
Church does not receive any new revelations, and
makes no new articles of faith, a Council neither can
nor may change the substance of the faith, nor take
anything away from it, nor add anything to it. Thus
a Council only makes dogmatical decrees on things
which were already universally believed in the Church
as being testified by the Scriptures and by tradition,^
or which are contained as evident and clear deductions
in the principles that have been already believed and
taught. But if an opinion has for centuries con
stantly met with contradiction, has been contested
Verum enimvero quia et ipse error antiquus esse potest, idcirco, cum
consulitur vetustas, in eS quaerenda est consensio. "
' Thus Vincent writes : " Hoc semper -nec quidquam aliud con
ciliorum decretis catholica perfecit ecclesia, nisi ut quod a majoribus
sola traditione susceperat, hoc deinde posteris per scripturae chiro-
graphum consignaret, Commonit." cap. 32. The Tridentine theo
logian Vega, in Davenport, p. 9, says : " Concilia generalia hoc
tantum habent, ut veritates jam alias, vel in seipsis, vel in suis prin
cipiis a Deo ecelesiae vel SS. Patribus revelatas, vel per scripturas
vel traditionem prophetarum et apostolorum, tum declarent, tum
confirment et sui autoritate daras et apertas et absque ulli ambigui-
tate ab omnibus catholicis tenendas tradant. Addit : et ad hoc dico ;
praesentii Spiritus sancti illustrantur, primo ut infallibiles declarent
veritates ecelesiae revelatas, et secundo, ut ad terminanda dubia in
ecclesii suborta extirpandosque errores et abusus infallibiliter etiam ex
revelatis coUigant populo christiano credenda et usurpanda in fide et
moribus."

NEW ORDER OF BUSINESS IN THE COUNCIL. 57
with all the weapons theology can produce, and
accordingly has, to say the least, always been un
certain, it can never, not even by a Council, be
raised to a certainty, i.e. to the dignity of a divinely
revealed doctrine. Hence the usual exclamation of
the Fathers at the Councils after the acceptance and
proclamation of a dogmatic decree : Haec fides
patrum. Should, for example, the infallibility of a single
individual be put in the place of the freedom from
error of the whole Church as formerly believed and
taught, this is no development nor explanation of
what was hitherto implicitly believed, nor is it a
deduction that follows with logical accuracy, but
simply the very opposite of the earlier doctrine, which
thereby would be subverted. Just as it would be in
political life no development, but simply a subver
sion and a revolution, if a hitherto free community
were suddenly put under the yoke of an absolute
monarch. The time during which an CEcumenical Council
deliberates on the faith of Christians has thus always
been a time of the most stirring revival of the
religious consciousness, a time of bearing testimony
and of making open declarations on the part of all
faithful sons of the Church, laity as well as clergy.
As the history of the Church shows, it was generally
believed that just such utterances would lighten

58 THE VATICAN DECREES, iZ()()-i?,Z7-
the task of the Council without disturbing or hinder
ing the fathers. Every one, also the layman, can
and may bear testimony, express his wishes, and
point out the needs of the Church.i
It is most especially when it is a question of the
introduction of a new dogma, which, though de
manded perhaps from one quarter, is foreign to the
conscience of the faithful, and appears to them as
an innovation, that the protest raised by the laity is
as just as it is necessary, an indispensable testimony
of their adherence to the faith that has been delivered
to them, and they fulfil thereby a duty towards the
Church. Moreover, at the Council itself the opposition a
number of bishops raise against an opinion that is
to be proclaimed as a dogma, is a proof that in the
local Churches represented by them this opinion
has not been believed to be true or divinely revealed,
' As Cardinal Reginald Pole, one of the presidents of the CouncU of
Trent, says in his book, De Concilio, 1562, fol. 11 : "Patet quidem
locus omnibus et singulis exponendi, si quid vel sibi vel ecelesiae opus
esse censeant ; sed decernendi non omnibus patet, verum iis tantum,
quibus rectionem animarum ipse unicus pastor et rector dedit." — Pope
Nicholas I. remarks that the emperors took part in the Councils when
questions of faith were discussed. " Ubinam legistis, imperatores
antecessores vestros synodalibus eonventibus interfuisse, nisi forsitan in
quibus de fide tractatum est, quae universitatis est, quae omnium com
munis est, quae non solum ad clericos, verum etiam ad laicos et ad
omnes omnino pertinent christianos ? " This passage was also admitted
into Gratian's decree.

NEW ORDER OF BUSINESS IN THE COUNCIL. 59
and that even now it is not considered to be so.
But this is decisive enough to prove that this doctrine
or opinion is wantirig in the three essential require
ments of universality, perpetuity, and consent, that
it accordingly may not be forced upon the whole
Church as a divine revelation.
Hence it is that in the Church it has always been
regarded as necessary, that as soon as a somewhat
considerable number of bishops oppose a decree which
has been proposed or intended by the majority, this
decree is laid aside and the definition suppressed.
The true catholicity of a doctrine must be clear and
undoubted ; but it is not so as soon as the testimony
of even only a minority supplies the proof that whole
divisions of the Church neither believe nor confess
this doctrine.
Hence, at every Council the principal question was :
Have the decrees of faith been sanctioned by all
the members } This was already the case at the
first General Council of Nicaea, where, out of 318
bishops, finally only two refused their signatures. At
Chalcedon they hesitated with the decisions, and kept
entering repeatedly into new discussions, until at last
all scruples were removed, which had at first been
cherished, especially by the bishops from Illyria and
Palestine, against the letter of Leo. Even before
the Emperor Marcian dismissed the Synod, he pressed
for a declaration whether all the bishops (there were

6o THE VATICAN DECREES, ii6^i&&7-
above six hundred of them) really gave their consent
to the definition of faith. An answer in the affirmative
was then readily given by all, whereupon Pope Leo
himself thanked God that his letter had "in the
face of all doubts and scruples been at last confirmed
by the irrefutable consent of the whole episcopate."
In the same way at the Sixth General Council, the
bishops, on being questioned by the emperor, gave
assurance that the dogmatic decision had been made
with the consent of all. The same thing occurred at
the Seventh Council in the year 787 A.D., and further
Charlemagne announced to the Spanish bishops
from the Council of Frankfort, 794 A.D., that all had
taken place " quatenus saneta omnium unanimitas
decerneret," etc.
At Trent, Pope Pius IV. gave the legates the hint
not to let anything be decided that was not agreeable
to all the fathers. One of the theologians who were
present, Payva de Andrada, reports that several times
a decree was left undecided for weeks and months
because some few bishops opposed it or had scruples
about it, and that the decree was not published until,
after long and careful deliberation, the unanimity of
the fathers was at last attained. Payva quotes several
examples of this.' Bossuet too, discussing the in-
^ Defensio fidei Trideniinae, i. 17: "Cum quindecim fere aut viginti
dubitare se ajebant, ne vero quicquam praeter conciliorum vetustum
morem concluderetur, horum paucorum dubitatio plurimorum impetum

NEW ORDER OF BUSINESS IN THE COUNCIL. 6i

structions of Pius IV., remarks that this was an
excellent rule for separating the truth from what is
doubtful. All theologians make it a condition of the oecu
menical character of a Council that perfect freedom
should prevail at it — freedom of speech and freedom
of voting. " No one may be rejected," says Tournely,
" who wishes to be heard." It is not simply physical
force that would make the resolutions of a Council
powerless and worthless. Freedom, that vital air of a
real Council, is also destroyed by the very manifold
forms in which moral force makes its appearance, or
man willingly allows himself to be enslaved {eg. by
the diff'erent kinds of simony), whereby the legitimacy
of the Council becomes null and void. Tournely
names as passions that work eff'ectually at synods,
and that render the freedom of the Council null and
void, fear, desire for office, avarice, and covetousness.'
When the great defection took place at Seleucia,
and at the same time at Rimini, and when close upon
six hundred bishops denied and abandoned the
common faith, what won them over was " a weak
ness of mind and shyness of a tedious journey "
retardavit atque effecit, ut res in aliam sessionem dilata, omnium fere
calculis tandem definiretur." Compare also what follows. It is clear
that at Trent the conviction prevailed that everjthing must be done and
decided in the same way as at the old Councils — at all events that the
essential form of them should be retained.
^ De ecclesiil, i. 384.

62 THE VATICAN DECREES, i?,6^-i?,?,7.
("partim imbecillitate ingenii, partim taedio pere-
grinationis evicti," Sulp. Sever. 2. 43).
The mere fact then of an episcopal assembly, how
ever numerous, is a long way from being a proof of the
real oecumenical character ofa Council, or as the theo
logians express themselves, e.g. Tournely, it may
possibly be oecumenical according to its vocation,
but whether it is so according to its course and issue
cannot be decided by the Council itself, for it cannot
bear witness of itself It is still necessary that the
authority ^yhich stands even above every Council, or
the testimony of the whole Church, should come for
ward to decide and confirm. The Councils as such
have no promise. Even in the commonly quoted
words of our Lord of the " two or three," all depends
on the "gathered together in His name," and this
involves, as all theologians accept, several conditions
which Tournely for instance specifies.'
' " Quaeres : quibus conditionibus promisit Christus se conciliis adfu-
turum ? Resp. Ista generali : si in nomine suo congregata fuerint ;
hoc est servata suffragiorum libertate, invocato coelesti auxiUo, adhibita
humani industrii et diligentii in conquirendi veritate. . . . Deus
scilicet, qui omnia suaviter disponit ac moderatur, via supernaturali
aperta et manifesta nen adest conciUis, sed occulta Spiritijs submini-
stratione. (Deus) permittit, episeopos omnibus humanae infirmitatis
periculis subjacere et aliquando succumbere ; neque enim unquam
promisit, se a conciUis ejusmodi pericula certo semper propulsaturum,
sed hoc unum, se iis semper adfuturum, qui in suo nomine congrega-
rentur. Congregari autem in suo nomine censentur, quoties eas
observant leges et conditiones, quas voluit obstrvari." Tournely.

NEW ORDER OF BUSINESS IN THE COUNCIL. 63

But the Church has her promises, and she must first
convince herself or possess the certainty that physical
or moral force, fear, passions, and arts of seduction —
such as were eff'ectual at Rimini, and even often at
other times too — have not become too powerful at the
Council, and that accordingly true liberty reigned there.
In this sense Bossuet says of an CEcumenical Council
that a great many bishops must be there, and from
diff'erent countries, and that the consent ofthe remain
ing bishops must be so manifest that one might clearly
see nothing else had occurred there except the bringing
together of the views of the whole world.^ Should it
then be shown that at the Council " the views of the
Praelectiones theologicae de Deo et divinis attributis, i. 265. Tournely
continues the same thought in his Praelectiones theologicae de ecclesid
Christi, i. 384: "(Deus) episeopos permittit omnibus humanae
infirmitatis periculis obnoxios esse, metus scilicet, ambitionis, avariliae,
cupiditatis, " etc.
' " Et que les autres consentent si evidemment 'b. leur assemblee, qu'il
sera clair, qu'on n'y ait fait qu'apporter le sentiment de toute la terre "
{Histoire des variations, i. 15, n. 1000). And hence it is that Pope
Gelasius demands of a bene gesta synodus, not only that it has made
its decisions according to the Scriptures and tradition and ecclesiastical
rules, but also that it has been accepted by the whole Church : "quam
cuncta recepit ecclesia" (Epist. 13 in Labbe, Concil. IV., 1200 and
1203); and Nicole remarks against the Calvinists : " lis ont une marque
evidente que le concile, qui se dit universel, duit etre reju pour tel,
dans I'acceptation qu'en fait l'eglise " (Pretendus Reformh convaincus
de schisme, 2. 7, p. 289). The Church gives the Councils testimony
(not first authority) as she gives the single books of the Bible testimony
by her biblical canon, while, of course, their internal authority does not
proceed from the Church. She is also there as testis, non auctor fidei.

64 THE VATICAN DECREES, i86g-i8S7.
whole Catholic world have not been brought together,"
but that rather the resolutions of majorities have been
passed, which stand in contradiction to the belief of a
considerable part of the Church, it is certain that the
following questions would then arise in the Catholic
world : Have our bishops borne true witness of the
belief of their dioceses? If not, have they been
really free ? Or how comes it that their testimony
has not been considered, and that they have been
overruled by the majority? Ensuing events in the
Church will be conditioned by the answers given
to these questions. Hence it is that in the whole
Church the fullest publicity has always been afforded
as appertaining to a Council : for it is a matter
of great concern to the whole Christian world, not
only to know that something will be resolved upon
there, but also to know how it will be resolved upon.
Everything depends finally on this how, as is proved
by the memorable years 339, 449, 754 A.D. etc.
Touching the silence that was imposed by force, an
appeal ought not to have been made to the Council of
Trent ; for, first, only an exhortation was given there,
and, second, the reminder only effected the giving
notice of drafts, a thing which at the present day
would no longer be possible on account of the position
of the press, but at that time at a distance they were
confounded with genuine decrees.

IV.
ARCHBISHOP GREGORY VON SCHERR OF
MUNICH-FREISING TO THE FACULTY OF
THEOLOGY IN MUNICH.
(October 20th, 1870.')
To THE REVEREND FACULTY OF THEOLOGY.
In addressing the present letter to the Theological
Faculty of the Ludwig - Maximilian University,
I am only following the voice of my duty as
bishop, in order, as far as in me lies, to remove
the harassing doubts and anxious uneasiness which
prevail in the widest circles in reference to the
position which this Theological Faculty intends
to assume towards the General Vatican Council
and the Resolutions hitherto adopted by it.
To enter into an explanation of how these doubts
and this uneasiness have arisen, is, on the one hand,
unnecessary, because the events connected with them
are everywhere well known, and consequently are
^ Nos. iv.-xiv. are reprinted from the Documents of the Ordinariate
ofthe Archbishopric of Munich-Freising concerning the General Vatican
Council, Ratisbon 1871. E

66 THE VATICAN DECREES, i?,6()-iSS7.
certainly not concealed from the Theological Faculty
itself ; on the other hand, such an explanation
would involve too much pain for me, who from
the beginning of my episcopal office up to the
present day have been disposed to this vener
able corporation with special feehngs of honour,
esteem, and love, as is well known to the corporation
itself Thus, then, though I willingly let the past
rest, henceforth I can no longer admit that
there exists any well - founded doubt about the
dogmatical position of even a single one of its
members. As you certainly do not stand in need of any
dogmatic teaching from me, I shall here limit myself
to the following. Hitherto the Resolutions of the
General Vatican Council have been made with all
those formalities that are requisite for their validity.
This is attested by the bishops of the so-called
Minority as well as by the rest. As a matter of fact,
up to the present not a single Catholic bishop has
raised his voice against the legality of the Resolutions
that have been passed. On the contrary, by far the
greatest proportion have made known their sub
mission to them in some unambiguous way.
During the deliberations I gave utterance to my
own opinion with all the positiveness of a conviction
that had been arrived at after mature consideration ;

VON SCHERR TO THE MUNICH FACULTY. 67
but at the same time I never intended to retain this
conviction of mine if the decision should turn out
differently. After having thus fulfilled my first duty,
I did not hesitate one moment to submit myself
unconditionally to the legally made Resolutions.
From you, reverend gentlemen, where it is a question
of a principle of the Catholic Faith, I shall certainly
not have to fear the thoughtless reproach of a change
of conviction.
Seeing, then, that the position of things is now
incontrovertibly clear, it is impossible for it to be a
matter of indifference to me what position the
venerable Theological Faculty and its individual
members assume in reference to it. However gladly
I should grant every one else time to fight out to
the end the severe internal contest which the conflict
between the view he has hitherto held and the
solemn decisions of the teaching Church cost him,
this is no longer possible in the case of public
teachers of theology who in a few days will be again
entering upon their duties. It is impossible for me in
silence to allow the sacred science to be taught in my
diocese by any one of whom I am not certain that he
teaches what the Catholic Church has expressly
declared, without exception and without reserve. It
is impossible for me to let my candidates for the
priesthood stand in danger of being instructed in a
diff'erent way from that which is in accordance with

68 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%t^-i?,Z7-
the will of the Catholic Church. Finally, to tell you
the whole truth, I cannot bear the thought of the
venerable Theological Faculty, the pearl of my
diocese, staining her glorious history and the decided
great merits of many of her present members by
an unjustifiable and fruitless isolated position in
the Church. Therefore, reverend gentlemen, full of
fatherly love, I beg you, by invocation of the divine
assistance and in common deliberation together, to
consider your duties towards the decisions of the
General Vatican Council, and to express your unan
imous opinion to me clearly and distinctly as to how
you intend to meet them.
In conclusion, I must also off'er the following for
yoiir consideration. It is well known to you that
hitherto I have at all times stood faithfully by you,
and that in opposition to all kinds of trials I have
always protected my Professors of Theology with the
shield of my pastoral dignity. Nor in this have I
imitated the examples of other bishops towards you.
It is perhaps less known to you that during the
past summer in an interview with the Holy Father
himself, I represented and defended you zealously
and steadfastly. Under quite diff'erent conditions,
I should perhaps not be able to do so again.
May you therefore preserve me from the pain,
which would certainly be the greatest during my
episcopal office, namely, that of being obliged

VON SCHERR TO THE MUNICH FACULTY. 69
to employ against you the severity of my pastoral
duty. In fatherly love, sincere respect, and hearty
devotion, yours faithfully, ?Jt Gregorius,
Archbishop of Munich-Freising.
Munich, October 20th, 1870.

V.
ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR TO DOLLINGER.
(January 4th, 1871.)
Reverend Sir, — It was with the greatest pain
that I missed the name of the venerable senior of
our Theological Faculty among those of its members
who, on the 29th November last, in a satisfactory
manner answered my letter of the 20th of the
previous October, with which your Reverence is also
fully acquainted.
Since then a considerable interval of time has
elapsed, during which I have been in vain expecting
an answer and declaration such, as it appears to
me, would be meet for you also to give concerning
your position to the CEcumenical Vatican Council
and its Resolutions up to the present.
Thus, at last, after long hesitation, the significance
of which your Reverence will know how to value,
I now see myself compelled to request and formally
challenge you to an open expression of your opinion
on this subject.
I can well imagine what renders a candid declara-
70

ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR TO DOLLINGER. 71

tion of your position to the matter in question so
very difficult.
Your glorious past, which has been filled with
meritorious deeds on behalf of Catholic science,
of our future Catholic clergy, and of the repre
sentation of the Catholic Church in public life,
acts as a powerful barrier to a breach with the
Church to which you have belonged all your
life. On the other hand, to that side which in Germany
occasioned the well-known agitations against the
Council both before and during its deliberations, and
which always, whether rightly or wrongly, appealed
to your name, you seem to have made concessions of
such a kind that it will now cost you a severe struggle
to renounce them.
And yet one would think it were easier for you to
separate yourself from associates that have been but
lately gained, than from the long period of your life
which has attached such merited glory to your name,
and, at the same time, to break altogether with the
Catholic Church.
Cast, I beg you, a glance at the daily literary
effusions of that party which is making fraudulent use
of the dogma of infallibility of the highest ecclesi
astical office in order to degrade the Catholic Church
herself in the eyes of the public, and which, though,
of course, wrongly, constantly appeals to your

72 THE VATICAN DECREES, iZb'i-iUi.
authority, and then address to yourself the following
question : " Into what kind of company have I
fallen .? "
Make, then, a retrospect of the whole great domain
of ecclesiastical history, and see if you can discover
even of one who could tear himself away from
the Holy Roman See, the cathedra Petri, without,
at the same time, falling away from the unity of
the Catholic Church.
Consider, further, in serious thought, the final issue
of all those who have persisted in offering resistance
to the Holy Church.
In conclusion, take to heart the great responsibility
you will have to bear before the judgment-seat of
God for all those who allow themselves to be detained
still longer in their isolation by your example.
When I, finally, pray you to remove from the paternal
heart of your bishop all the grief that at present
already troubles it on your account, and which must
now either come to an end or increase until it
becomes unbearable, you will feel yourself compelled
to ascribe to my love for you this appeal of mine
to your Catholic heart.
The esteem in which I have held you at all times
has been changed into a close attachment since I
entered on my pastoral office, which gave you to me
as a specially precious treasure. I can declare it as
the truth, of which you also have received proofs, that

ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR TO DOLLINCER. 73
I regarded you, not as my son, but as my friend and
brother. I pray and conjure you, therefore, cease from assist
ing to cause the unity and unanimity among the
members of the one Church to suffer harm longer,
and with an heroic resolution, by a public Catholic
confession, break the ban which, up to the present
hour, still holds many an honest Catholic in its grasp.
It is still impossible for me to believe that, instead
of giving my pastoral heart this joy, you will challenge
the authority of your bishop, which, however, must and
will most certainly exercise its inalienable rights, if
hopeful patience must see itself deceived at last. —
In sincere esteem and veneration, yours faithfully,
>h Gregorius,
Archbishop of Munich-Freising.
MuNICH,/aw. 4//(, 1S71. %

VI.
DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR.
(January 29th, 1871.)
My Lord Archbishop, — The letter which your
Grace has addressed to me, and in which you call
upon me to declare my submission to the Decrees of
Faith proclaimed at Rome on the i8th July, did not
surprise me. After the Resolution which your Grace
in conjunction with other bishops passed at Fulda, it
was only what I had to expect.
But it would not now be feasible for me to give a
simple and unsubstantiated declaration of consent or
submission, were it only because I have repeatedly
asserted the opposite doctrine in public ever since the
beginning of the Vatican Synod, and have supported
my views by many evidences. I should have at the
same time — indeed this would be the only way open
for me — to refute myself, and publicly to bring forward
proof that the doctrine I taught, as well formerly as
especially very recently, was a false and perverted
one. Were I to do this, nobody, at all events
no one who knows anything of my writings and
74

DdLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. 75
public declarations, would believe in the sincerity of
my submission. The whole world, abroad as well as
at home (with the exception, perhaps, of a few nuns),
would brand me as a wicked, unprincipled hypocrite,
who was denying his own convictions from fear and
personal interest.
Conscious of the painful position in which I am
placed, and of the responsibility with which I am
burdened, I have for some weeks been making the
great question of the nature and extent of the papal
authority and its relation to the Church the subject
of renewed study and of a most careful and searching
investigation. I am reading and proving everything
that has recently appeared on the Roman side in
defence of the Decrees and of the doctrine contained
in them, partly in Italy, partly in France, England,
and Germany, as far as it is within my reach. Should
I succeed in gaining the conviction that this doctrine
is the true one as warranted by the Scriptures and by
tradition, and that I, who have hitherto believed the
opposite, as the large majority of German theologians
have done, am in error, I shall then not hesitate to
confess this before the world without reservation and
without any attempt at palliation ; I shall then, as far as
God gives me strength of body and mind, go still further
— I shall endeavour in some degree to redress the injury
which may have accrued to the Church by the books
I have written and by the lectures I have delivered in

76 THE VATICAN DECREES, 1%(>^\Z?,7-
the opposite sense during the last forty-seven years,
and I shall do this by refuting myself, and by dis
closing my own faults and erroneous views. I am
fully aware that a priest must also be ready to make
this noblest and most difficult of all sacrifices to the
Church, namely, the sacrifice of his good reputation
and honour before his fellow-men. Yet this is to be
done only on one condition, namely, that he is also
really convinced of the truth of what he is to confess
anew, and of the falseness of what he has previously
taught; for without this conviction a submission of
this kind would, of course, be a grievous sin and a
gross lie, and I am quite certain that your Grace does
not intend to drive me to such an extremity by your
challenge. Your challenge can only bear this inter
pretation : " Take pains and do all you can to procure
for yourself the same conviction as I have now."
This is just what I am doing as conscientiously as I
can. I am invoking God to give me light, I am
investigating and proving as well as I know how ; but
on account of the extensiveness of the subject and
materials to be inquired into, this is a task for which
a longer tinie is requisite, and I therefore beg you to
grant it me and still to have patience with the old
man. There still remains for me to express my thanks
for the friendly and humane strain which was main
tained in the greater part of the letter. The conclusion

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. 77
is indeed severe and menacing, but — I know the
individuals and influences at work in this matter, and
it is only what I was expecting. — In the highest
esteem, I remain, your most obedient servant,
J. V. DOLLINGER.
Munich, January 2^ih, 1871.

VII.
ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR TO DOLLINGER.
(February 14th, 1871.)
Reverend Sir, — It is to my very great sorrow that
your letter of the 29th ult. does not contain the
satisfying declaration about your position in regard
to the General Vatican Council and its Resolutions up
to the present, which I had confidently expected, and
which I must demand in accordance with my pas
toral duty. I see myself, therefore, compelled to
inform you that I shall look for a final declaration
by the 15th March, and that from this date I have
definitely resolved to take the further steps which my
office as bishop requires of me.
Still indulging the hope that I shall be spared the
necessity of any disagreeable measures, — I remain,
yours faithfully,
^ Gregorius,
A rchbishop of Munich-Freising.
Munich, February 14M, 1871.

73

VIII.
DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR.
(March 14tli, 1871.)
My Lord Archbishop,— The term your Grace has
appointed me in reference to a declaration on the
Vatican Decrees expires to-morrow. I see myself,
however, compelled to petition your Grace kindly to
prolong the time for another twelve or fourteen days.
During the last few weeks so many documents from
far and near, so many counsels, warnings, and urgent
remonstrances have been addressed to me, high and
low have exhorted me from such opposite points of
view, that I really require a little rest and time to
collect my thoughts in order to do what your Grace
requires of me with a clear head, and after a full
consideration of all the consequences.
The statement recently brought forward by so-
called Catholic newspapers, to the eff'ect that in the
affair of the pastor of Mering I had given a judgment
which had been required of me, is a pure invention.
No one has desired such a judgment from me, and I
have not even had the opportunity of uttering an
79

8o THE VA TIC AN DECREES, 1 869- 1887.
opinion on this subject. Your Grace could easily
have this confirmed by the proper authorities at the
Government Offices. — I remain, respectfully, your
Grace's most obedient servant, J. V. DOLLINGER.
Munich, March nth, 1871.

IX.
ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR TO DOLLINGER.
(Maroli 17th, 1871.)
Reverend Sir, — Although I am willing, in con
sequence of your honoured letter of the 14th (received
on the 1 6th) inst., to prolong the time that expired
with the 15th inst. to the 31st inst, I must add the
remark that after this date I shall not be in a position
to grant any further prolongation.
Continuing in the meanwhile to implore God that
He may guide your resolutions, — I remain. Reverend
Sir, in constant high esteem, yours faithfully,
^ Gregorius,
A rchbishop of Munich-Freising.
Munich, March 17th, 1871.

X.
DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR.
(March 2Sth, 1871.')
My Lord Archbishop, — Your Grace has invited
me in two letters to make a declaration of my
position to the Romish Resolutions of the i8th July
1870 which have been proclaimed by you. From the
circle of your Cathedral Chapter, the report has
spread that you meditate proceeding against me
with such pains and penalties as are usually employed
only against priests who have incurred the guilt of
grave, moral transgressions, and even then only in
^ In a, letter dated March 20th, 1871, DoUinger says: "We must
mutually confirm and refresh one another, in order that we may be
able to stoutly sustain the conflict we have not sought, but which has
been pressed upon us, and in order that we may preserve the depositum
of truth for coming generations. Were even we to show ourselves sub
missive, the world would have to believe that the love of truth had
completely died out among the Catholic clergy, and that the priest
hood was now nothing but a profession. The moral bankruptcy of
the clergy is already, without that, a fait accompli in public opinion. —
The contest will bring to light a number of new, i.e. of hitherto un
noticed and unknown facts, to which I shall contribute my mite. In
the first place, my letter to the Archbishop will appear in print.''

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. 83
very rare cases. This is to take place if I do not,
within an appointed time, declare my submission to
the two new articles of faith, viz. the omnipotence
and the infallibility of the pope.
At the same time, an assurance is given that
another meeting and deliberation of German bishops
will take place very soon at Fulda. On an Assembly
of all German bishops being held at Wurzburg in
1848, 1 had the honour of receiving an invitation to it,
and took part in its discussions. Your Grace could
perhaps secure to me at the approaching Assembly
also, not indeed an opportunity of taking part in
the deliberations, but only a gracious audience for a
few hours.
Before that high Assembly I am prepared to prove
the following propositions, which for the present
situation of the German Church, and for my per
sonal position, may be of decisive importance : —
First. The new articles of faith rest for their
establishment from the Scriptures on the passages
Matt xvi. 18, John xxi. 17, and as far as the infalli
bility is concerned on the passage Luke xxii. 32, with
which, biblically considered, it stands and falls. Now
we are bound by a solemn oath, which I have taken
twice, not to accept or expound the Scriptures "in
any other way than according to the unanimous
agreement of the Fathers." The Fathers of the
Church have all without exception expounded the

84 THE VATICAN DECREES, i%e()-i887-
passages in question in a sense entirely diff'erent from
the new Decree, and especially in the passage Luke
xxii. 32 they were far from seeing an infallibility
granted to all popes. Accordingl}', if I ^\'ere willing
to accept the Decrees with this interpretation, with
out which they are deprived of all biblical foundation,
I should forswear myself. As I have already stated, I
am willing to demonstrate this before the assembled
bishops. Second. In several pastoral letters and manifestoes
of recent date from the bishops, the opinion is main
tained, or an historical proof is attempted, that the
new doctrine of papal omnipotence over every
individual Christian, and of papal infallibility in
decisions of faith as proclaimed at Rome, has always
been believed and taught universally, or, at all events,
almost universally in the Church from the earliest
times and throughout all the centuries. This asser
tion rests, as I am ready to prove, on a complete
misunderstanding of ecclesiastical tradition in the
first thousand years of the Church, and on a dis
tortion of her history ; it contradicts the clearest
facts and evidences.
Third. I offer further to bring forward proofs that
the bishops of the Romance countries, Spain, Italy,
South America, and France, who formed the enormous
majority at Rome, had, together with their clergy,
as regards the papal power, already been led astray

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. 85
by books of doctrine out of which they had derived
their knowledge during their college years, for the
passages quoted in these books as proofs are for the
most part false, fabricated, or garbled. This I will
prove, first, from the two principal works and favourite
text-books of the present theological schools and
colleges, the Moral Theology of St Alphonse Liguori,
especially in the tract it contains on the pope, and
from the Theology of Perrone the Jesuit ; second,
from the writings of Archbishop Cardoni and Bishop
Ghilardi, which were distributed in Rome at the time
of the Council ; and finally, from the Theology of the
theologian Schwetz of Vienna.
Fourth. I appeal to the fact, and off'er to prove it
in public, that two General Councils and several
popes as early as the fifteenth century decided the
question of the extent of the pope's power and in
fallibility by solemn decrees which were proclaimed
by the Councils, and repeatedly confirmed by the
popes, and that the Decrees of the i8th July 1870
stand in glaring contradiction to these Resolutions,
whence it is impossible that they should be binding.
Fifth and last. I think I shall be able to prove
that the new Decrees are simply irreconcilable with
the Constitutions of the European States, especially
with that of Bavaria ; and that by the oath of fealty
to the Constitution which I have but lately again
renewed on my entrance into the Upper House, I

86 THE VATICAN DECREES, 1^69-1^2,7.
find it impossible to accept the new Decrees, and as
their necessary sequence the Bulls " Unam Sanctam,"
and " Cum ex apostolatus officio," the Syllabus of
Pius IX., and so many other papal dicta and laws
which are now to be regarded as infallible decisions,
and which stand in indissoluble conflict with the laws
of the State. On this point I appeal to the verdict
of the Faculty of Law in Munich, and, at the same
time, I offer to leave it to the decision of any German
Faculty of Law your Grace may care to name.
For the conference that has been proposed or
rather implored by me, I have only two conditions to
lay down. The first is, that my statements, with
any possible replies, may be recorded, and their pub
lication afterwards permitted ; the second is, that a
man of scientific training of my own choice may be
allowed to be present at the conference.
Should this be unattainable at Fulda and before
the German bishops, I must humbly set forth another
request May your Grace be pleased to form a
commission of members of your Cathedral Chapter,
before which I might be able to bring forward my
case in the manner just described. Several of these
reverend gentlemen are doctors, and were at one
time professors of theology, and formerly my own
pupils. I may thus cherish the hope that it will be
more agreeable for them to meet me in a calm dis
cussion, and, if possible, to refute me with reasons

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. 87
and facts, than to compose from the judgment seat
spiritual criminal sentences and then to lay them
before your Grace " to fulminate " them, as the
saying is. I should esteem it a great honour if your
Grace would be willing to preside at the conference,
and set me right in reference to any errors in my
quotations and expositions of evidences and facts,
which, I am sure, would only redound to the ad
vantage of the truth. Further, if you intend to
make use of your episcopal power over me, I may
still, I think, hope that it is the best, the noblest,
and the most beneficial attribute of that power, and
the one most Christlike, I mean the teaching office,
that you will prefer to exercise upon me first Should
I be convinced by evidences and facts, I herewith
bind myself to make a public recantation, refuting
and retracting all I have ever written on this sub
ject. In any case, the results could only be such as
would be desirable for fhe general peace of mind as
well as for the Church. For it is here not simply a
question of my own person. Thousands of the clergy,
and hundreds of thousands of laymen, think as I do,
and regard the new articles of faith as inadmissible.
Up to the present not a single one, even of those who
have sent in a declaration of submission, has said to
me that he is really convinced of the truth of thesc
propositions. All my friends and acquaintances con
firm me by asserting that their experience is the

88 THE VATICAN DECREES, im<)-i887-
same. " Nobody believes them," is what I hear from
day to day out of every mouth. A conference such
as I propose, together with the publication of the
minutes, will therefore certainly aff'ord a much clearer
insight into the matter, and one such as countless
numbers are longing for.
Your Grace will perhaps refer me to the pastoral
letter that appeared recently in your name, as a
source from which I can derive sufficient instruction
and correction of my opinion. But I must confess
that it has produced the very opposite eff'ect upon
me, and I will enter into an engagement to prove
that it contains a long series of misunderstood,
garbled, mutilated or invented evidences, which
together with the suppression of important facts and
opposing evidences, forms a picture that is alto
gether unlike actual tradition. He whom your Grace
entrusted with this task has certainly not devised the
forgeries himself, but has borrowed in good faith from
others (Cardoni, etc.). Should he, however, be medi
tating a defence of his work in the proposed confer
ence, he would find me ready within a few hours
either to prove my assertion, or in case I should not
succeed, to make a public apology to him. But there
is one condition which, on account of the importance
of the matter, I think I must make, namely, that the
Government be requested to allow an official con
versant with history and canon-law to be present at

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. 89
the conference as a witness. As the affair is also of
great importance for all Governments, we may take it
for granted that this will not be refused on the part
of the State.
In the past history of the Church there is no lack
of facts which show that my proposal is in full
keeping with the principles as well as the practice of
the Church. Thus in the year 41 1 A.D. a conference
of 286 Catholic and 279 Donatist bishops was held in
three sittings under the presidency of the imperial
government-official Marcellinus, when the contro
versial doctrine of the Church was discussed. At the
conclusion the president decided in favour of the
Catholic bishops. In the year 1433 A.D., Bohemian
Calixtines appeared at the Council of Basel ; a
Decree that had been issued eighteen years previously
at the Synod of Constance on the Communion in one
kind was now subjected to a renewed discussion and
examination, which resulted in the " Compacts " that
were acknowledged also by the Papal See, and which
make a very important and far-reaching concession
to the Bohemians — a concession derogatory to the
earlier resolution. A still greater similarity to the
negotiations proposed by me is to be found in the
conference so celebrated in French history between
Bishop Du Perron of Evreux and the Protestant
statesman and scholar Du Plessis-Mornay, which
took place at Fontainebleau, in the year 1600 A.D., at

90 THE VATICAN DECREES, \?>e<)-\Z2,7-
the request of King Henry IV. It was a question
of proving that a considerable number of passages
had been forged or incorrectly quoted by Mornay in
his book on the Eucharist Henry himself presided,
and the most respected men of both Churches were
present as witnesses. After a few days, when a
number of passages cited by Mornay had been
examined, the conference was broken off by the ill
ness of the latter, but produced in the highly-wrought
minds of the people of that time an eff'ect that was
uncommonly favourable to the Catholic cause.
Most Reverend, my Lord Archbishop, I leave it
entirely to your judgment what form you give the
conference desired by me, and which will certainly be
welcome to countless Catholics in Germany, as also
what other men you wish to invite or oppose to me.
Your diocese has no lack of theologians by profession,
who will certainly be quite ready to comply with your
invitation. That a question of faith is just as much
the affair of the laity as of the clergy, and that also
the former are allowed to take part in the scientific
investigation and establishment of tradition, is shown
by the practice of the Church, and has been acknow
ledged by popes and theologians. Here, where it
is a matter of historical proofs, I gladly subject
myself to the judgment of the most eminent German
historians and of the Catholic faith. Let men like
Ficker, Reumont, Hoefler, Arneth, Kampschulte,

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. 91
Cornelius, Lorenz, Wegele, Aschbach pass judgment,
whether my reasoning is critically and historically
correct or not.
On a former occasion your Grace honoured my
book on the earliest, i.e. the Apostolic Age of the
Church with your approval, and in Germany generally
it was regarded on the Catholic side as a faithful
picture of the times of the Church's foundation ; even
from Jesuit and Ultramontane circles no important
censure has been expressed. But if the new Decrees
contain the truth, then I shall be met with the
reproach of having perverted the history of the
apostles. The whole portion of my book on the
constitution of the earliest Church, and my representa
tion of the relation in which Paul and the rest of the
apostles stood to Peter, are in that case thoroughly
false, and I should have to condemn my own book,
and confess that I have never understood either
St. Luke's Acts of the Apostles or the Apostolic
Epistles. The new Vatican doctrine confers on the pope the
attribute of the whole fulness of power (totam pleni-
tudinem potestatis) over the whole Church as well as
over every individual layman, — a power which is at
the same time to be truly episcopal and again specifi
cally papal, which is to include in itself all that affects
faith, morals, duties of life, and discipline, and which
can, without any mediation whatever, seize and punish,

92 THE VATICAN DECREES, i%6<)-\?,87-
bid and forbid every one, the monarch as well as
the labouring man. The wording is so carefully
chosen that there remains for the bishops absolutely
no other position and authority than that which
belongs to papal commissaries pr plenipotentiaries.
As every student of history and of the Fathers will
admit, the episcopate of the ancient Church is thus
dissolved in its inmost being, and an apostolic
institution, to which, according to the judgment of
the Church Fathers, the greatest significance and
authority in the Church belongs, fades into an unsub
stantial shadow. No one can really conceive of two
bishops existing in the same diocese, one who is
also the pope, and one who is only a bishop ; for
a papal vicar or diocesan commissary is indeed
not really a bishop nor a successor of the apostles.
He may be in possession of great power in conse
quence of the authority conferred upon him by Rome,
i.e. as long as he is permitted to govern by him from
whom he receives his commission ; just as great power
also belongs to a Jesuit or mendicant friar who is
furnished by the pope with a plenitude of privileges ;
and I am well aware that this prospect of an increase
in their power has been off'ered to the bishops in
Rome, — that it has often been said to them : The
more irresistible the pope is, the more powerful will
you be, for rich rays of glory will descend upon you
from the fulness of his power. The bishops of the

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. 93

minority saw through the illusion of these promises.
They have well recognised that, as the official
" Analytical Synopsis " shows, if the universal epis
copacy of the pope is established, they will, perhaps,
still be dignitaries of the Church, but no longer real
bishops. You yourself, most Reverend Sir, took
part in the deputation which made the most urgent
remonstrances to the pope on the 15th of July, —
remonstrances which Herr von Ketteler tried to
emphasise still more by a prostration. As is well
known, these remonstrances have been vain. The
entire consolation bestowed on the prelates who were
lamenting the loss of their ancient ecclesiastical
dignity was limited to the announcement in the
Decree that the episcopal power was an "ordi
nary " one (viz. a " potestas ordinaria subdelegata,''
as the Roman Canonists are wont to express them
selves), and that the pope regarded it as his duty to
uphold them. This was supported by a mutilated
dictum of Gregory the Great, a passage which, had
it been cited in full with others, would certainly have
shown the world that this pope of the seventh century
rejected such a universal episcopate, as has now been
established, with the profoundest horror as a blas
phemous usurpation.
During the Council, as well as previous to it, there
was no lack of petitions, remonstrances, and warnings.
You yourself, most Reverend Sir, took part in them

94 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%b9-\%%7-
by your signature. In an Address delivered to the
pope on the 12th January, and signed by you, the
bishops of the minority declared that " the sayings and
actions of the Church Fathers, the genuine documents
of history, and even the Catholic conception of doc
trine presented some serious difficulties which were
opposed to the proclamation of the doctrine of
infallibility." They were at that time, as they say,
filled with alarm at a discussion of these difficulties,
and begged the pope not to impose upon them the
necessity of such a deliberation, i.e. to renounce the
dogma of his infallibility. But when the pope insisted
on the Council taking the matter in hand, the German
bishops desired conferences at which the question of
the infallibility should be entered into in detail, and
which should be held by deputations chosen from
both parties. These were not granted, and they were
confined to speeches in the Aula, where, indeed, any
regular discussion was impossible. But to show how
indispensable and exceedingly urgent such testing
conferences would have been, I will here cite but
one example. In a memorial, which has now been
printed, a considerable number of Italian bishops
demanded that the papal infallibility should be raised
to an article of faith, because it had been taught by
two men, both of whom were Italians and the pride
of their nation, viz. those two bright shining lights
of the Church, Thomas Aquinas and Alphonse of

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. 95
Liguori.i Now, it was well known, and had already
been noticed by Gratry as well as by myself, that
Aquinas had been deluded by a long series of
invented evidences, as he, indeed, in proof of his doc
trine, only appeals to such forgeries, and never to the
genuine passages of the Fathers or Councils. And
as far as Liguori is concerned, one glance at his
writings is sufficient to show an experienced theo
logian that he handled forged passages in a much
worse way than Aquinas. My reference to the fraud
of which Thomas had been a victim, had caused a
great sensation in Rome ; the auth'or of a paper that
was at that time written in Rome, and directed
against me, says that round about him it was received
with cries of disapproval.^ It would accordingly have
been unavoidably necessary to subject the matter
to examination. This examination, it is true, had
it been comprehensive and thorough, would have led
very far ; it would have produced the result that the
theory of papal infallibility had been introduced into
the Church only by a long chain of purposeful fictions
and forgeries, and had then been propagated and
confirmed by violence, by suppression of the old
doctrine, and by the manifold ways and means that
I Vide: The Official Collection of Documents on the CEcumenical
Council, ii. 153.
^ De Romani Pontificis supremd potestate docendi disputatio theolo
gica, Neapoli 1870, p. 50: "En tota clamorum, quos circumcirca,
audimus, causa."

96 THE VATICAN DECREES, i?,69-i?,&7-
are at the disposal of a sovereign. All endeavours,
remonstrances, and petitions were thus in vain ; no
thing was granted, and that although they had before
their eyes the so often cited example of the Council
of Florence, where the assertion of the Greeks, to the
effect that forged texts of the Fathers had been laid
before them, led to examinations and discussions
which lasted for months, and were conducted with
the greatest care. It is certainly well known to your
Grace that when a true CEcumenical Council was to
issue Decrees, the most exact and mature examination
of tradition was always required as a condition of their
validity. What a contrast, too, in this respect were
the proceedings at Trent, compared with what hap
pened at Rome in 1870! It is true that the paper
of Archbishop Cardoni, which had already been
accepted in the preparatory Commission, and was
now to pass for argument with the assembled bishops,
would not have stood examination for a single hour.
In the whole history of the Church, among those
Councils that have the reputation of being universal,
I am only aware of one at which, as at the recent
Council, the men in power prevented a thorough dis
cussion of tradition, and that is the Second Council
of Ephesus in 449 A.D. There, at the so-called
Robber Synod, it took place with violence and
tumultuous tyranny ; at the Vatican Council, it was
the order of business imposed on the Assembly, the

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. 97
papal Commission, and the will of the majority, that
did not suff'er a proper and thorough examination,
which, it is true, would have brought some very
troublesome and disagreeable things to light, but it
would have also preserved the Church from a confusion
which seems lamentable even in your eyes. But if,
after all, you assert that the Vatican Assembly wEts
perfectly " free," I suppose you use the word " free "
in a sense which it otherwise does not convey in
theological circles. A Council is only theologically
"free" when there is a free examination and dis
cussion of all scruples and difficulties, and when
the objections are admitted and examined according
to the rules required by the ascertainment of tradi
tion. That to this end not even the most modest
beginning has been made, and that, indeed, the
immense majority of bishops from the Romance
countries lacked either the will or the proper dis
cernment for separating truth from falsehood, right
from wrong, is proved by the writings which have
appeared in Italy, and which have been distributed
in Rome, as, for example, those of Ghilardi the
Dominican and Bishop of Mondovi. This is also
further proved by the fact that hundreds of these
bishops could, without blushing, appeal to the
inviolable authority of Alphonse Liguori.
When the Jesuits formed the plan of having the
papal absolutism raised to an article of faith in Church

98 THE VATICAN DECREES, i%b9-iZi7-
and State, in doctrine and administration, they
invented, as is well known, the so-called sacrificio dell'
intelletto, and assured their adherents and disciples,
nay actually convinced many, and among them even
bishops, that the most beautiful homage due to
God, and the noblest Christian heroism, consist in a
man's renouncing his own mental judgment, his self-
acquired knowledge and self-gained power of discern
ment, and in throwing himself in blind faith into the
arms of the infallible papal " magisterium " as the only
sure source of religious knowledge. In the eyes of
countless numbers this Order has, it is true, to a
great extent succeeded in raising mental sloth to
the dignity of a religious meritorious sacrifice, and
sometimes in moving even men, who by their general
education would certainly have been well capable of
instituting such an historical investigation, to a re
nunciation of it. But.the German bishops, so far as
one may judge from their pastoral letters, have not
yet descended to this stage of infatuation. They still
leave to human knowledge, to human scrutiny and
investigation, their respective rights and spheres of
operation. They appeal to history, as did also the
pastoral letter that appeared in your name.
In the pastoral letter of Bishop Lothar von Kiibel
of Freiburg, we read on page 9 : " Does the pope
receive new revelations ? Can he make new articles
of faith ? Certainly not. He can only declare

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. 99
that a doctrine is contained in the Holy Scriptures
and tradition, accordingly is revealed by God, and
therefore to be believed by all." I do not doubt
that your Grace and the remaining German bishops
fully agree with these words. But then in the
present complicated position of the Church it is
a purely historical question which must be treated
and decided only with the means placed at our
disposal for the purpose, and according to the
rules which hold for every historical investigation,
and for every ascertainment of facts of past
ages, facts which accordingly belong to history.
Pope and bishops must here of necessity put them
selves, so to say, under the sovereignty of the
Common Law, i.e. if their Resolutions are to have
any stability they must employ those means of pro
cedure, and undertake that examination of witnesses
with the requisite sifting and critical searching, which,
according to the unanimous agreement of all who,
of all times and peoples, have been capable of judging
in historical matters, is the only possible way of
arriving at truth and certainty. Two questions
ought then to have been and are still to be answered.
First : Is it true that the three sayings of Christ
in reference to Peter have been understood in the
whole Church from the very beginning and through
the centuries in the same sense as is now attached to
them, namely, of an infallibility and boundless uni-

100 THE VATICAN DECREES, im9-i?,Z7-
versal sovereignty which is thereby conferred on all
popes ? Second : Is it true that the Church tradition
of all times, in the writings of the Fathers and the
facts of history, shows the universal recognition of
this papal double right .-'
If these questions must be answered in the nega
tive, we may not, as Herr von Kiibel and others do,
appeal to the assistance of the Holy Ghost, which is
assured to the pope, and to the obedience of faith
which is therefore due to him ; for whether he really
is in enjoyment of this assistance is just what has to
be historically proved. Where has this hitherto been
done ? Not at the Council ; for there, as Cardoni's
principal paper proves, they did not shun even
forgeries, and gave a perfectly untruthful representa
tion of tradition, with concealment of the most
striking facts and contrary evidences. This it is that
I now off'er to prove.
And here I beg your Grace to consider that
according to the nature of the thing, according to
the express declaration of the pope, and according to
the admission of all infallibilists, the doctrine we are
now called upon to confess forms one, or rather the
fundamental article of faith, and that it directly
affects the question of the regula fidei, the rule of
faith, which has to decide what is or what is not to
be believed. In future every Catholic Christian
when asked why he believes this or that, can and

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. loi
may give but the one answer : I believe or reject
it because the infallible pope has bidden it to be
believed or rejected. This highest principle of faith
must never have been obscured in the Church, as
it must of necessity have been stated as clear as
daylight in the Scriptures ; it must have ruled the
whole Church like a brightly shining star, and that
at all times and for all nations ; it must have been
put at the head of all instruction ; and we are still
all awaiting the explanation of how it is that until
1830 years had passed the Church did not hit upon
the thought of formulating into an article of faith
a doctrine which the pope, in the letter of the 28th
October addressed to your Grace, calls " ipsum fiinda-
mentale principium catholicae fidei ac doctrinae ! "
How has it then been possible that for centuries
the popes have winked at the denial of this funda
mental article of faith by whole countries and in
whole theological schools ? And was there a unity
of the Church where there was a diff'erence in the
very fundaments of belief? And — may I further
add ? — how is it then that your Grace yourself re
sisted so long and so persistently the proclamation
of this dogma ? You answer, " Because it was not
opportune!" But can it ever be "inopportune" to
give behevers the key to the whole building of faith,
to proclaim the fundamental article on which all
others depend ? Are we not now all standing before

I02 THE VATICAN DECREES, i?,6()-i?,S7.
a dizzy abyss which opened itself before our eyes
on the I Sth July?
Whoever wishes to measure the immense range
of the recent Resolutions, I strongly recommend him
carefully to read the third and fourth chapters of the
Decrees together, and then let him picture to him
self what a system of the most complete universal
dominion and spiritual dictatorship we have here to
face. It is the whole fulness of power over the
collective Church, as well as over every individual,
claimed by the popes since Gregory VIL, and ex
pressed in the numerous bulls since "Unam Sanctam,"
which is henceforth to be believed by every Catholic,
and acknowledged in public life. This power is bound
less and incalculable ; it ean interfere everywhere, as
Innocent III. says, where sin is, can punish everybody,
brooks no appeal, and is absolute arbitrariness; for
the pope, as Boniface VIIL expressed it, carries every
privilege in the shrine of his breast As he has
become infallible, he can, at any moment, with the
one little word " orbi " (thereby addressing the whole
Church), make every statute, every doctrine, and
every postulate, an infallible and irrevocable article
of faith. As opposed to him, there exists no right,
no personal or corporative freedom, or, as the
Canonists say, " the tribunals of God and the pope
are one and the same." This system bears the mark
of its Romance origin on its brow, and will never

DdLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR. 103
be able to penetrate into Germanic countries. As
Christian, as theologian, as historian, as citizen,
I cannot accept this doctrine. I cannot do so as
a Christian, because it is incompatible with the
spirit of the gospel, and with the lucid sayings of
Christ and the apostles ; it simply wishes to estab
lish the kingdom of this world, which Christ declined
to do, and to possess the sovereignty over the congre
gations, which Peter refused for every one else, as
well as for himself. I cannot do so as a theologian,
because the whole genuine tradition of the Church
stands irreconcilably opposed to it. I cannot do so
as an historian, because, as such, I know that the
persistent endeavours to realise this theory of a uni
versal sovereignty has cost Europe streams of blood,
distracted and ruined whole countries, shaken to its
foundations the beautiful organic edifice of the con
stitution of the older Church, and begotten, nursed,
and maintained the worst abuses in the Church.
Finally, I must reject it as a citizen, because, with its
claims on the submission of States and monarchs
and the whole political order of things to the papal
power, and by the exceptional position claimed by it
for the clergy, it lays the foundation for an endless
and fatal discord between the State and the Church,
between the clergy and the laity. For I cannot
conceal from myself the fact that this doctrine, the
consequences of which were the ruin of the old

I04 THE VATICAN DECREES, im<)-i8?,7-
German Empire, in case it should become dominant
in the Catholic part of the German nation, would
at once plant the germ of an incurable disease in the
recently restored empire.^ — I remain, your most
obedient servant, J. V. DOLLINGER.
' I have just read the following statements in the official organ of the
Romish Curia and of the Jesuits, viz. in the Civilth, for March 1 8th,
187 1, p. 664:—
"The pope is the chief justice of the Civil Law. In him the two
powers, the spiritual and temporal, meet together as in their head ;
for he is the vicar of Christ, who is not only Eternal Priest, but also
King of kings and Lord of lords ; " and a little further on : " The
pope, by virtue ofhis high dignity, is at the head of both powers."

XI.
ARCHBISHOP VON SCHERR'S PASTORAL LETTER.
(April 2nd, 1871.)
Gregorius, by the mercy of God and the grace of
the Holy Apostolic See, Archbishop of Munich-
Freising, Domestic Prelate and Assistant at the
Throne of His Papal Holiness, etc. etc., to the whole
body of venerable Clergy, and to all the Faithful
of the Archbishopric, greeting and blessing in the
Lord I
On the 29th March last. Dr. von DoUinger, Provost
and Professor of Theology, addressed to Us a declara
tion of his position to the General Vatican Council
and its Resolutions up to the present, which he, at
the same time, put at the disposal of the Augsburg
Allgemeine Zeitungf where it has already been given
to the public. This publication compels us publicly
and emphatically to call the attention of the reverend
clergy and the faithful of our diocese to the principal
errors which are contained in this exceedingly de
plorable document, and which will separate the author
' See No. 90, Extra Supplement, March 31st, 1871.
105

io6 THE VATICAN DECREES, i%6<^iZ&7-
from the Catholic Church if he persists in maintaining
them. I. The author requires that he may be allowed, in
an Assembly of bishops or theologians, to bring for
ward proofs that the Decrees of Faith of the fourth
sitting of the Vatican Council are not contained
either in the Holy Scriptures, as the Fathers under
stood them, or in tradition, according to its genuine
history; but rather that the latter has been forged
by means of fabricated or distorted documents, and
that the Decrees themselves are opposed to former
ecclesiastical decisions.
Now there is not here a question which has first to
be decided, and, consequently, to be previously care
fully examined. The matter is already decided. A
General Council, legally summoned, freely assembled,
and presided over by the Supreme Head of the
Church, has, after careful examination, expounded,
formulated, and defined the Catholic doctrine of the
Primacy of the Roman Pope. Every Catholic Chris
tian now knows what the Church sets forth to be
beheved. The Church to which Jesus Christ has
promised His aid to the end of the world cannot
require us to believe anything but what God has
Himself revealed. Whoever, therefore, opposes the
dictum of the Church opposes God. "Whoever
neglects to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as
an heathen and a publican" (Matt xviii. 17).

VON SCHERR'S PASTORAL LETTER. 107
2. The author asserts that " it is a purely historical
question, which must be treated and decided only with
the means placed at our disposal for the purpose,
and according to the rules which hold for every his
torical investigation and for every ascertainment of
facts of past ages — facts which accordingly belong to
history." This, however, sets historical investigation
above the Church. The decisions of the Church are
given over to the ultimate and final judgment of
historians, while the divinely ordained teaching office
in the Church is done away with, and all Catholic
truth questioned. Let science approach the Catholic
doctrines of faith and test them by all means in the
power of man ; they will be able to stand every
ordeal. The science of unbelief may set itself up
against God and His revelation, against the Church
and her Articles of Faith, but it will never be able
to shake the rock on which the Lord has built His
Church (Matt xvi. 18).
3. The author declares that the Decrees ofthe i8th
July last " are simply irreconcilable with the Consti
tutions of the European States, especially with that of
Bavaria ; " nay, further, " that this doctrine, the con
sequences of which were the ruin of the old German
Empire, in case it should become dominant in the
Catholic part of the German nation, would at once
plant the germ of an incurable disease in the recently
restored empire."

io8 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%b9-\ZZ7-
Against this entirely erroneous supposition and
exceedingly malicious accusation, we do herewith,
with all Our powers, protest most energetically, and
declare it to be an unfounded defamation of the
Catholic Church, her Supreme Head, her bishops and
all her members, who will never cease to " render to
Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which
is God's" (Matt. xxii. 21).
Most beloved Diocesans ! The views, principles,
and opinions that are brought forward in this
document, and of which we have here only men
tioned the chief, have been disseminated since
the announcement of the Vatican Council with
unchristian zeal and bitterness in many books,
reviews, and daily papers. This is unfortunately
the very document which will raise the long-
cherished deplorable conjecture to the highest pro
bability, that the author of this declaration has been
the intellectual head of the whole movement set
on foot against the Vatican Council, and which
has begotten so much perplexity of mind and dis
quietude of conscience.
The equally numerous writings in refutation of
these assertions have unfortunately not found a
hearing in these circles of the Church's enemies.
But the matter has now assumed the form of a
direct revolt against the Catholic Church by the
public appearance of a man who has hitherto filled

VON SCHERR'S PASTORAL LETTER. 109
high appointments both in Church and State, and
distinguished himself by his great services.
Most Beloved Diocesans 1 We are fully conscious
of our official duty as bishop, and hence it is that we
have not neglected to address these earnest words of
warning to you, and also to take measures which had
become an immediate necessity. In any further steps
we shall have to take, we shall keep before our eyes
no less the danger that threatens the Church in
Germany than our love for our straying brother.
W^e shall "not break the bruised reed nor quench
the smoking flax" (Matt xii. 20). But we shall
also take care to protect our dear flock from error
and seduction.
We appeal to the most reverend priests of
our diocese in the words of St Paul : " O
Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy
trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and
oppositions of science falsely so called, which some
professing have erred concerning the faith" (i Tim.
vi. 20, 21).
Most Beloved Diocesans ! Pray all of you for the
seriously imperilled salvation of the autiior of this
heterodox declaration ; pray for the Holy Church,
especially in our dear German and Bavarian father
land ; pray for your deeply afflicted bishop, who now
blesses you in the name of the Father, of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost Amen.

no THE VATICAN DECREES, i?,6<)-\?,87.
This pastoral letter is to be communicated from the
pulpit to the faithful according to requirement.
Given in Munich, Palm Sunday, 1871.
>i* Gregorius,
Archbishop of Munich-Freising.

XII.
THE ORDINARIATE OF MUNICH-FREISING
TO DOLLINGER.
(April Srd, 1871.)
The Ordinariate of the Archbishopric of
Munich-Freising.
We are commissioned by His Grace our Most
Reverend Archbishop to send your Reverence the
pastoral letter issued to-day, and contained in the
accompanying number (14) ofour Pastoral Gazette.
At the same time we have to make the further
communication, that our Most Reverend Lord Arch.-
bishop has also this day prohibited all the candidates
of theology in the diocese of Munich-Freising from
further attendance at your lectures.
Further, it is our duty to remark that though His
Grace is not able to prevent you from continuing your
lectures, you can only do so in open opposition to
your bishop, the lawful guardian of all instruction
in the Catholic religion given in the diocese.
Finally, in consequence of your public declaration
of the 29th ult, the Most Reverend Lord Archbishop
ill

1 1 2 THE VA TIC AN DECREES, 1 869-1 887.
requests you to reflect that the " Constitutio prima de
ecclesia Christi," issued at the fourth sitting of the
Vatican Council, is of a dogmatic nature, that oppo
sition to the dogmas therein defined falls under the
head of heresy, that formal heresy is followed ipso
facto by the greater excommunication, which is
reserved to the pope, and that therefore you will have
to prove your conscience, and see whether you have
not already fallen under this ecclesiastical censure.
Should your Reverence, which, God forbid ! persist
in maintaining the position taken up by the public
declaration indicated, the public and solemn procla
mation of your sentence would be inevitable, namely,
that you have incurred exclusion from the Catholic
Church to which you formerly rendered such valuable
services.
Dr. Joseph von Prand,
Cathedral Provost and General Vicar.
K. Osterauer, Secretary.
Munich, April -^rd, 1871.

XIIL
The ORDINARIATE OF MUNICH-FREISING
TO DOLLINGER.
(April 17th, 1871.)
The Ordinariate of the Archbishopric of
M unich-Freising.
By His Grace our Most Reverend Archbishop Gre
gorius of Munich-Freising, we have been this day
commissioned to declare to your Reverence, as we
now do, in the name of the same superior, that you
have incurred the greater excommunication, with all
the canonical consequences attached thereto.
Your Reverence has been made sufficiently ac
quainted with the Resolutions that were passed by
the General Vatican Council on the i8th July last,
confirmed by Pope Pius IX., and then solemnly
proclaimed. The position taken by your Reverence before the
public, in opposition to the above-named Council,
compelled his Lordship to demand from you a
definite declaration in this matter, and to e.xhort
you to a due submission. H

114 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%eq-\ZZ7-
This was done with words of paternal love on the
Sth October last year, and on the 4th January this
year. Your Reverence delayed for a very long time
sending a decided answer. However, your pro
crastinating letters of the 29th January and the 14th
March of this year were received by his Lord.ship
with the most patient indulgence.
At last your declaration of the 29th ult appeared,
which you at the same time gave into the hands
of the public, and in which you not only refused to
acknowledge the Resolutions of the Council, but also
set up and defended an altogether heretical principle
of faith, and hurled the most malicious charges
against the Church.
In the Resolution sent to your Reverence on the
3rd inst, your attention was called in a clear and
emphatic manner to the inevitable consequences of
this step.
Nevertheless, up to the present, it has been fol
lowed by no intimation whatever that your Reverence
does not intend to persevere in your opposition to
the dicta of the Church.
Since, in this way, your Reverence has opposed,
and is still constantly opposing, a conscious and
obstinate denial to the clear and sure decrees of
faith of the Catholic Church ; since, further, you have
not listened to the repeated fatherly exhortations

ORDINARIATE OF MUNICH TO DOLLIXGER. 115
and warnings of your Archbishop, but have ratlier
brought your opposition to the Church before the
public and enlisted followers ; since, finally, the great
danger thereby called into existence has outweighed
the long and patient consideration for your high
position in Church and State, as well as for your
indubitable services as a teacher, in science and
in public life, — in consequence of all this, I say, for
the salvation of your own soul, and as a warning
to others, the excommunicatio major, fixed by the
ecclesiastical law for the crimen haereseos extemae et
forinalis, and lately enacted by the General Vatican
Council relative to its Decrees of the i8th July last,
it has been necessary to pronounce the excommuni
cation which you have ipso facto drawn down upon
yourself through the above-mentioned off'ence against
the Church, by a special judicial sentence which will
be made public, and of which I herewith give you
notice.
Dr. Joseph von Prand,
Cathedral Provost and General Vicar.
Musics, April i7tA, 1871.

XIV.
THE ORDINARIATE OF MUNICH-FREISING TO
THE PAROCHIAL OFFICE OF ST. LUDWIGS
CHURCH IN MUNICH.
(AprU 18th, 1871.)
The Ordinariate of the Archbishopric of Munich-
Freising herewith charges the Parochial Office of
St Ludwig's Church in this city to cause to be
announced from the pulpit at divine service on
Sunday next the 23rd inst, that " His Grace the Arch
bishop has issued a pastoral declaration to the Provost
and Professor Dr. von DoUinger, as well as to the
Court Beneficiary and Professor Dr. John Friedrich,
to the eff'ect that on account of their conscious,
obstinate, and public denial of clear and certain
ecclesiastical doctrines of faith, they have incurred
the greater excommunication, with all the canonical
consequences attached thereto."
A report is expected that this order has been
carried out Dr. Joseph von Prand,
Provost of the Cathedral
and General Vicar.
K. Osterauer, Secretary.
Munich, April \%th, 1871. 118

XV.
DdLLINGER TO PASTOR WIDMANN OF
TODTNAU.
(October 18th, 1874.')
Reverend Sir, — Willingly do I proceed to answer
the questions put to me, although as an old man,
and as having very many claims on my attention, it
will be of necessity in a brief form only.
I. As for myself, I consider that I belong by con
viction to the Old Catholic Community. I believe
it has a high mission to fulfil, and that in a threefold
way: {ct) To bear testimony to the truth as held by the
Early Church, and against the erroneous doctrines
of papal universal supremacy and infallibility ; and
especially to be also a speaking and permanent
protest against the baleful arbitrariness first practised
by the present pope on the introduction of the
Articles of Faith.
{b) A second vocation of the Old Catholic Com-
^ Published as early as 1875, at first without the name of the
addressee, in various daUy papers, and among others in the Deutscher
Merkur, No. 29.

1 1 8 THE VA TIC AN DECREES, 1 869-1 887.
munity is, in my eyes, to become by degrees and by
gradual progress a Church which shall be free from
delusion and superstition, and more conformable to
the ancient one, before it was broken up by schism.
{c) Closely connected therewith is its third voca
tion, namely, to serve as an instrument and a link
of mediation for a future greater reunion of the
disunited Christians and Churches. A beginning,
though small, was made in this direction a few
weeks ago at Bonn. I have great confidence in the
progress of this work of peace.
2. I have no hope whatever that under the next,
or one of the next popes, any important or essential
change will be made for the better ; and as far as I
can see, all who know the condition of the Roman
Curia and the Roman clergy are just as hopeless as
I in this respect In the whole of this papal com
munity within and without the confines of Italy,
there is no longer any moving power but one, in the
presence of which all others, the episcopacy, the
cardinalate, the spiritual orders, the schools, etc.,
remain passive— and that is the Order of the Jesuits.
It is the soul and sovereign of the whole of the
Roman Church. This will probably remain so also
under a new pope, for this Order is indispensable, and
cannot even exist without ruling or wishing to rule.
Formeriy, before 1773, there existed various
counterpoises in the Church. The other Orders were

DOLLINGER TO PASTOR WIDMANN. 119
then still strong and full of vitality ; now they are
either powerless shadows or half-willing, half-unwilling
satellites of the dominating Jesuit constellation ; and
the Roman Curia, in order to remain a curia, to
preserve its ecclesiastical monopoly, its financial
resources, etc., is compelled to rely on the Jesuits, i.e.
to be subservient to them and their impulses. And
the Jesuits are the incarnation of superstition united
with despotism. To rule mankind by means of the
pope, who has become subservient to them — this is
their task, their aim, and their art, which they
practise in a masterly way. Hence their endeavours
to make religion mechanical, the sacrificio dell'
intelletto, which they highly recommend, the training
of souls to unconditioned and blind obedience, etc.
But what the condition of the Roman community
is now, since the i8th July 1870, and what is to be
expected for the immediate future, you may conclude
from the fact that it has been possible to bring about
the greatest monstrosity that has ever occurred in the
domain of theological doctrine without a single voice
being raised in opposition to it, I mean the solemn
proclamation of Alphonse Liguori as Doctor ecelesiae,
consequently classing him with Augustine, Ambrose,
etc., — a man whose false morals, perverse worship
of the Virgin, constant use of the grossest fables and
forgeries, make his writings a storehouse of errors
and lies. In the whole range of Church history I do

120 THE VATICAN DECREES, \Z()9-i%%7.
not know a single example of such a terrible and such
a pernicious confusion.
And yet every one is silent on this point, and in
all theological colleges the growing generation of the
clergy is being poisoned with these books of Liguori.
Such a state of things cannot, of course, last long ;
sooner or later a reaction for the better must set in,
somewhere and somehow ; but it is just this How and
this Where which are hidden from our eyes.
To your third question, what I advise you to do,
I answer: Follow your own convictions, and do
not allow yourself to be deluded by the pretexts of
unity which ought to be preserved, and of uncon
ditioned obedience, whereby every erroneous idea
and every deformity of religion, however terrible, is
paUiated. What we can and ought to do in this
wretched condition is to bear testimony before God
and the world, and to give the truth as recognised by
us the honour which is due to it It is the general
indifference, and the indolent attitude of the clergj^,
which has only their own comfort in view, that have
brought down this evil of the Vatican upon our heads.
The greater the number of those who confess the
truth and free themselves from false doctrine and
implicit obedience, the greater becomes the hope of
recovery. — In haste, yours most respectfully, J. V. DOLLINGER.

XVI.
DOLLINGER TO AN OLD CATHOLIC AT
DORTMUND.
(June 23rd, 1878.i)
Dear Sir, — The statements in the paper you sent
me are malicious lies as regards both Prof. Friedrich
and myself This is now the fourteenth time that
my submission has been announced by Ultramontane
papers, and it will often occur again. Rest assured
that I shall not dishonour my old age with a lie
before God and man. — With kind regards, I remain,
yours devotedly, J. V. DuLLINGER,
'^ Dettlsrher Merkur, 1878, p. 221.

XVIL
DOLLINGER TO PROFESSOR MIC HE LIS.
(May 1st, 1879.')
. . . That nothing of any importance in the sense
of an improvement of the ecclesiastical situation is to
be expected from Leo XIIL, was to my mind quite
certain from the time when he declared to the
cardinals, who were one and all creatures of his
predecessor, that he would not undertake anything
without consulting them and without their sanction.
That he gave the cardinal's hat to a Newman, who
stands so high above the Roman vulgus praelaticum
in intellect and knowledge, can only be explained by
the fact that the real views of the man are not known
in Rome. Had Newman written in French, Italian,
or Latin, several of his books would now be standing
in the Index.
For a number of years I have now been investi
gating the influences of the Papacy through all the
centuries, and have studied especially the history of
single States and established Churches, according to
' Deutscher Merkur, 1879, p. 158.
122

DOLLINGER TO PROFESSOR MICH ELIS. 123
the forms they have assumed through the working
of Rome. The conclusion is : Rome's influence is
much more harmful and ruinous than I had even any
idea of, say, before i860. In Germany, if we investi
gate the causes of the decay of our old empire, this
is self-evident. In the Romance countries it is still
worse. . . .

XVIII.
DOlLINGER to dr. ROBERT J. NEVIN, RECTOR
OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN CHURCH IN
ROME.^
(May 4th, 1879.)
My dear Nevin, — I suppose your influence is
sufficiently strong to get a short article or notice
inserted in one of the Liberal papers {contradicting) ~
the lies that have been spread over all Europe
respecting my contemplated or consummated sub
mission to the Vatican decrees.
I have neither written nor done anything which
could have given occasion to such a rumour. The
circumstances which are mentioned in some papers
are gratuitous inventions.
I have only three weeks ago published a lecture
{Allgem. Zeitung, 6, 7, 8 April),* in which I state in
^ A copy of this letter, which DoUinger wrote in English, was kindly
placed at the editor's disposal by Dr. Nevin.
^ This or some such word was omitted in the original by an
oversight. ' "Garcin de Tassy and India," now printed in the Akademische
Vortrdge, vol. ii. See p. 297.

DOLLINGER TO DR. ROBERT J. NEVIN. 125
so many words, that nobody possessing a scientific
culture of mind can ever accept the decrees of the
Vatican Council.
Having devoted during the last nine years my time
principally to the renewed study of all the questions
connected with the history of the Popes and the
Councils, and, I may say, gone again over the whole
ground of ecclesiastical history, the result is, that
the proofs of the falsehood of the Vatican decrees
amount to demonstration. When I am told that
I must swear to the truth of those doctrines, my
feeling is just as if I were asked to swear that
two and two make five and not four.
Pray, my dear Nevin, let me have some more news
of what is going on in Rome.
Perhaps you can also obtain the reception of a
similar notice in one of the American papers.
Totus tuus, J. DOELLINGER.
Munich, 4 Mai, 1879.

XIX.
A LADY OF HIGH RANK TO DOLLINGER.
February 15th and 28th, 1880.)
E., February lyh, l88o.
Reverend Doctor, — For years I have been implor
ing God from the depths of my heart that He will send
down a beam of His divine love into your heart, in
order that by this heavenly light you may recognise
the abyss on the edge of which you are standing, and
that you may thus be preserved from destruction.
As the thought of your Reverence deprives me of my
peace of mind, I have now resolved, however pre
sumptuous this may seem to you, to entreat your own
co-operation with this divine grace. Your Reverence's
acute intellect has penetrated too far into the teach
ings of our holy religion not to know that when a
priest so highly-favoured, talented, and enlightened as
you are, sets himself up against the authority of the
Church, and dies in disobedience to it, he has a much
more terrible punishment to expect in eternity than
others who had less knowledge, less grace, and hence
less responsibility. A positive horror and an altogether
126

A LADY OF HIGH RANK TO DdLLINGER. 127
indescribable feeling of pity seize hold upon me
when I think of the awful future you are inevitably
going to meet, if you do not now, in the eleventh
hour, turn back. Oh, your Reverence, how I should
like to beg you on my knees to have mercy on your
unhappy soul, and save it from this most terrible of
all fates ! You know it and believe it ? What, then,
can prevent you from turning back ? Is it regard for
what individual persons will say ? Or is it pride that
will not admit an error ? Oh, what is all this ? How
can one waver and hesitate when in the one scale,
alongside a small span of time and a small piece of
the apparent gold of human honour, lies an eternity
full of the most indescribable woe ; but in the other,
as a recompense for an heroic resolution, everlasting
and unending blessedness, the contemplation and
possession of God !
The few who perhaps would dare to blame
your step, cannot hereafter before God take your
guilt upon themselves and bear your punishment for
you ; whereas the many Catholics, and still more the
angels and saints in heaven who will greet your
return with acclamations of the most blessed joy,
will admire your humility and heroic conquest of .self ;
all these will accompany your soul with their prayers,
and stand by you in that hour from which none can
escape. With touching eloquence your Reverence
once depicted the death of St Francis, closing with

128 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%ec^i%Z7'
the words : " God grant us all such an end ! " This
saint will stand by you in that trying hour ; he will
strengthen and comfort you, if you now have the
courage to become a humble son of the Church once
more. Oh, your Reverence, open your heart to the divine
grace while there is still time ! Delay not until it is
too late ! Invoke the blessed St. Francis !
With the warmest and sincerest wishes for your
Reverence's welfare, I subscribe myself, a * * *

B., February 2&th, 1880.
Reverend Sir, — I cannot let this day ^ pass without
repeating to your Reverence how very fervently I,
yea, all good Catholics, are imploring God for you,
that He will overwhelm you with an overflowing and
irresistible ray of light and grace, and that you, being
overpowered by it and constrained by the divine love,
may fall at the Saviour's feet — nay, sink into His
ever open arms, on to His divine heart — and there find
the rest, the peace, and the salvation which you will
never, nay, not in all eternity, enjoy elsewhere ! Oh,
your Reverence, what are ninety, what are a hundred
years compared to eternity ! What are all the
honours of men, when it is a question of renouncing
' [DoUinger's birthday. — Translator.]

A LADY OF HIGH RANK TO dO LUNGER. 129
these honours in order to escape the justice of
God, and, what is more. His punishments ! Of what
avail is the past, with which one must break, if we
can exchange for it the contemplation of God that
maketh blessed ! Do not let yourself by these
human considerations be held back from doing that
by which you will gain the joyful admiration of the
whole Catholic world, and purchase yourself ever
lasting bliss and untold rewards in the other world.
Oh, bethink yourself while there is still time ! See
how lovingly the Saviour waits for you, how, un
moved by the delay of your return. He adds one
year after another to your life, and in His grace
knocks again and again at the door of your heart !
Do not keep Him waiting any longer! Answer at
last His great love with your love for Him, with a
true penitent return, and thus save yourself from
everlasting death !
That your Reverence may find light and strength
for this return in sincerest contrition, and after so
long a life on earth may also secure the possession of
God for all eternity, this is my sincerest wish to-day ;
this, too, is my prayer for you to the Mother of grace
and to the seraphic saint whom your Reverence once
so highly honoured, whose praise you so eloquently
proclaimed. With this wish and prayer I remain,
your Reverence's devoted * * *

XX.
DOLLINGER'S ANSWER TO THE LETTERS OF A
LADY OF HIGH RANK.
(1880.)
. . . Above all, I must off'er you my sincere and
deeply-felt thanks for your anxiety about my soul's
salvation, which you have manifested in so courteous
a manner in the letter you have addressed to me.
As to the subject-matter itself, had I to deal with
a man, I should simply refer him to those facts and
reasons which I published in the year 1871, when
submission to the Vatican Decrees was demanded of
me — facts and reasons, every one of which is, accord
ing to my conviction, that to-day is firmer than ever,
unrefuted and irrefutable. But your Ladyship has
probably never seen that document, or if it did come
into your hands, you did not deem it worthy of notice.
Presumably you have been told that everything I have
asserted is untrue, and you have willingly composed
yourself with this assertion, a thing which I regard
as quite natural. Nevertheless, I am going to take
the liberty of directing your attention to a few
130

DdLLINGER' S ANSWER TO A LADY. 131
circumstances which perhaps may help to moderate
your opinion about my position and conduct.
I am now in my eighty-first year, and was a public
teacher of theology for forty-seven years, during which
long period no censure, nor even a challenge that I
should defend myself or make a better explanation,
has ever reached me from ecclesiastical dignitaries
either at home or abroad. I had never taught the
new Articles of Faith advanced by Pius IX. and his
Council. In my youth, when I studied at Bamberg
and Wiirzburg, they were regarded as theological
opinions, and many added " ill-founded " opinions.
In me, who for almost half a century had to occupy
myself daily with this subject and the questions
affecting it, the conviction became stronger and
stronger that these doctrines and claims are not only
biblically, traditionally, and historically unfounded
and erroneous, but also that even before they were
raised to the rank and binding power of Articles of
Faith, they had had the most detrimental effects on
the Church, the State, and society. Then came the
fatal year 1870. If I had obeyed the summons to
affirm the new dogmas on oath, I should thereby have
declared myself to have been an heretical teacher,
and not only myself, but also my deceased teachers,
as also a number of friends and colleagues who found
themselves in the same position. It was in vain that
I begged they would let me remain by the faith and

132 THE VATICAN DECREES, \Z(i<)-\Z'&7-
confession to which I had hitherto been faithful
without blame and without contradiction. Yesterday
still orthodox, I was to-day a heretic worthy of
excommunication, not because I had changed my
teaching, but because others had considered it
advisable to undertake the alteration, and to make
opinions into Articles of Faith.
I ought, as the favourite expression of the Jesuits
runs, "to make a sacrifice of my intellect" {sacrificio
deir intelletto). This is what your Ladyship also
demands of me. But if I did so, in a question which
is for the historical eye perfectly clear and unambigu
ous, there would then no longer be for me any such
thing as historical truth and certainty ; I should then
have to suppose that my whole life long I had been
in a world of dizzy illusion, and that in historical
matters I am altogether incapable of distinguishing
truth from fable and falsehood. The very ground
would be thus taken away from under my feet, and
•that, too, for my religious views ; since even our religion
is founded, of course, on historical facts. I must first
be convinced that the principal events narrated in
the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are essen
tially true and inviolable, and this conviction must, for
me, in accordance with my career and profession as
teacher, be one which has been ascertained scientifi
cally, i.e. acquired by my own mental endeavours, and
guaranteed to me by careful investigation ; for all

DOLLINGER S ANSWER TO A LADY. 133
that is asserted by the Church and her authority
takes these historical facts for granted.
What would your Ladyship say if you were bidden,
in the name of the pope, to believe and confess that
the existence and the whole history of the first
Napoleon was a myth and a fiction .¦" Well, with the
same inward certainty with which you are convinced
of the existence of Napoleon and of the principal
facts of his life, a certainty that no authority in the
world can shake, I know that the Vatican Decrees
are untrue. That is, I know, and not second or third
hand, but by a careful life - long study of all the
sources, that the two assertions of the absolute om
nipotence and infallibility of the pope having always
been believed and practised are false. It was only
by a long concatenation of subtlety and violence,
bribery, deceit, and fiction, that they succeeded step
by step in repressing the old doctrine in spite of its
thousand - fold proofs, and in procuring the final
victory for the new one, which was devised in the
interests of the monks. It is true that this required
several centuries.
Your Ladyship is, as I have been assured, a lady of
excellent mental culture, and accordingly acquainted
with the classical French literature, with men like
Bossuet and Fcnelon, and is also aware that these men,
and with them all bishops and theologians, in fact the
whole of the French clergy before the Revolution,

1 34 THE VA TIC AN DECREES, 1 869-1 887.
believed and taught the Galilean doctrine, that is,
they rejected these very two Articles of Faith of the
Vatican Council. Nevertheless, they were constantly
confirmed in their offices by the popes, whereby the
latter continually bore testimony to their perfect
orthodoxy. If my bishop were to declare that he
would release me from the ban on the condition that
I would believe and confess what Bossuet and Fcne
lon, and hundreds of the most pious and most learned
bishops with them, have taught about the pope, who
would be more willing than I ? Instead of this, an
oath on the Vatican Resolutions is required of me,
which would accordingly be for me open perjury, and
that a double one ; for, first, I should have to break
the oath which was laid upon me on my entrance
upon my official duties — the oath, namely, always to
expound the Holy Scriptures in agreement with the
interpretation of the holy Fathers ; and, second, in
the required oath I should have to carry out a moral
self-destruction on myself For with this oath I
should testify that I had been teaching erroneous
doctrines all my life, and that I had falsely under
stood and misinterpreted the history of the Church,
the Fathers, and the Bible. And what should I gain
thereby ? First, I should not have another peaceful
hour for the rest of my life, and then I should pass
into the other world as a liar, laden with the fearful
burden of perjury. . . .

XXI.
BISHOP HEFELE TO DOLLINGER.
(June 10th, 1886.)
Most Reverend Provost, — Such an advanced age
united to robust health, and such a freshness of mind
as you enjoy. Most Reverend Provost, is the lot of
but few. Although ten years younger, I already feel
the infirmities of old age, and have therefore taken
steps for the appointment of a coadjutor. But before
I close my life's work I should like to take the liberty
of once more addressing a few words to your Reve
rence and Grace, words which are prompted as much
by the undying respect for the great scholar as by the
grateful remembrance of all the good-will you have
shown me formerly. These few words take the form
of a hearty request. Forget, dear Sir, all the unfair
ness you have experienced at the hands of your
temporary adversaries ; generously forget all this, and
to the joy of angels and men, make your peace with
the Church, which you have so long and so gloriously
defended. Do not cast aside my request abruptly as
unauthorised, for it comes from a sincere and thankful
135

136 THE VATICAN DECREES, i%69-iZZ7.
heart, and I know, nay, you yourself are aware of it
that tens of thousands join with me most sincerely in
this request. Do you by this peace crown the glorious
career of your life that has been so richly blessed. —
Yours most respectfully and devotedly.
Dr. Hefele, B. of R.

XXII.
ARCHBISHOP ANTONIUS VON STEICHELE TO
DOLLINGER.
(1878, 1879, and 1886.)
Munich, Dec. 12th, 1878.
Most Reverend and Respected Provost,— Of
the letter of exhortation which I issued to the clergy
and people of the Archbishopric qf Munich-Freising
on entering upon my episcopal office, I have very
recently had a new edition published, intended as
a souvenir for distribution among friends. I feel
myself impelled to put this gift into your hands also
as a souvenir. Most Reverend Provost, the teacher of
my youth, towards whom I have always preserved my
earlier admiration and sense of gratefulness. I trust
you will accept these first words of mine to my
diocesans in a charitable spirit, and at the same time
permit me with the sincere assurance ofmy continued
sympathy and friendly feeling to remain, Reverend
Sir, yours devotedly,
*i* Antonius,
A rchbishop of Munich-Freising.
137

138 THE VATICAN DECREES, i%69-\%%7-
Munich, Feb. 27th, 1879.
Most Reverend and Respected Provost, — To
morrow you will celebrate your eightieth birthday. I
hail this day with heartfelt sympathy. It is with the
thankfulness of a pupil to the hoary-headed teacher,
with the respect of a disciple for the honoured bearer
of the richest knowledge, and with the love of an
anxious bishop for the brother who unfortunately is
not yet at one with him in that which is highest and
most important, that I shall be hovering about you
in the spirit to-morrow. These are the feelings,
respected Provost, with which I pray the richest
blessings of Heaven may rest on your festival day
to-morrow, and be yours in the future days ofyour
life, of which I trust God's goodness will still grant
you a goodly number. And — you feel it before I
mention it — for what gift of God could I pray more
sincerely and heartily for you than for the grace that
His lamp and His staff may lead you back to unity
with that Church whose head, equally troubled on
your behalf as is your bishop, would so gladly
stretch out the hand of peace to you. May God in
His goodness grant that this moment may arrive
before the day draws nearer to its close and the night
cometh, — to the joy of thousands, who, like myself,
are yearning for it, and to the consolation of the
Holy Church, separated from unity with which, the
isolated soul can surely never find rest and peace.

ARCHBP. VON STEICHELE TO DOLLINGER. 139
In all that love and care of which the evening of
the 2ist January was so recently our witness, — I am,
and remain. Most Respected Provost, yours most
devotedly, ^ ANTONIUS,
Archbishop of Munich and Freising.

MUNICH,y»/j/ 30M, 1886.
Most Reverend and Respected Provost, —
There are but few days which pass without my
thinking of you with the old love and sympathy,
and without my soul being moved with anxiety and
prayer for your welfare and salvation. To-day, the
eve of the festival of your name-day, 1 which you
will keep to-morrow, off'ers me an opportunity of
bearing testimony to my feelings. I too shall cele
brate this festival with you, though I am sorry I
cannot do so with unalloyed joy. It is tarnished by
the thought that I cannot reach you the hand of
brotherly love to mutual endeavours for Christ and
His kingdom, that the respected teacher stands here
and the grateful pupil there, that of all who are
entrusted to his care the bishop must see just that
one afar off whom with the love and warmth of his
heart he would like to see nearest It is this feeling
which admonishes and urges your bishop to address
1 [The day of St. Ignatius, the festival of the anniversary of DoUinger's
Christian name. — Translator.]

I40 THE VATICAN DECREES, \Zbq-\ZZ7.
a few friendly and well-intentioned words to his dear
brother, inviting and begging him to be reconciled
to the Holy Catholic Church for which he was once
so ardent, and for which he has worked by spoken
and written words and actions that have been so
richly blessed ; he also begs him further to re-enter
that communion in which he once felt such happiness.
Within the last few weeks, respected Provost, you
have made such friendly advances and shown such'
good-will towards me on occasions of our meeting,
that I make this appeal to you with courage and
confidence. God has added an almost unusual
number of days to the term of your life, and wonder
fully blessed you with strength of body and mind.
But who knows how long the days of grace for
returning into the bosom of the Church will still bc
granted to you ? I too am getting well-advanced in
life, but may that happy day be reserved to my
term of office as bishop on which I might lead you
again into the Church of God and to her Chief Shep
herd ! It would be a cause of rejoicing for millions
of believers, joy for the choirs of the blessed, and a
pledge of your own eternal salvation.
Praying God in His mercy to grant that I may see
this happy day, — I remain, yours most faithfully and
devotedly, ?f" Antoniu.S,
A rchbishop of Munich and Freising.

XXIII.
DOLLINGER TO ARCHBISHOP VON STEICHELE.
(March 1st, 1887.)
My Lord Bishop, — I have long delayed— too long,
you will say — fulfilling my promise given in my
l)revious communication. '
For several weeks I have cherished the thought
of representing to your Grace in a detailed account
the most important reasons for my persistence in my
present position. For this purpose I had also made
some notes on paper. By degrees, however, I
recognised that the material, on account of its
importance and abundance, would grow into a
pamphlet or book, and that I ought not to take up
your Grace's precious time with such reading as this.
Accordingly I content myself with mentioning a few
facts simply in order to give your Grace an account
of my present position and the condition of my
mind. First. In the anathema which the Cathedral
' This communicaiion, undoubtedly a short announcement of the
answer here printed, has not been found.
Kl

U2 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%kc)-\%Z7.
Chapter proclaimed against me from all the pulpits
in the name of your predecessor, even up to the
present day I can recognise only injustice and an
act of violence, for had I not off'ered to listen to
reason and allow myself to be publicly refuted ? My
simultaneous request for permission to speak, and for
a hearing of my doubts, was surely a natural one,
and its fulfilment would have been in accordance
with the practice of the Church. The counsellors of
the Archbishop were, of course, certain of victory. In
their eyes the falseness of my assertions was and still
is as clear as day. They were accordingly convinced
that the negotiations could only lead to my public
defeat and confusion, and that there would naturally
be nothing left for me but gratefully and humbly to
accept the proffered advice and submit to it There
was thus clearly no pertinacia on my part, and your
Grace knows that where this is wanting, an ex
communication on account of a difference of doctrine
is null and void. The way in which I have been
treated is indeed an unexampled occurrence in the
history of the Church. It never yet happened that
an old man who, during the forty-five years he was
a public teacher, never incurred any blame or even a
remonstrance from his bishop, and whose orthodoxy
up to that time had never been exposed even to an
established suspicion, has been summarily, and even
without a hearing — according to the favourite formula

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBP. VON STEICHELE. 143
— "handed over to Satan." Further, in the docu
ments sent me by the spiritual authorities, notice is
also given me that I am to incur all the consequences
attached to the ban by the Canonical Law. Now the
Canonical Law regards excommunication, not only
as a sentence of death passed on the life of the soul,
but it also exposes the body of him who is excom
municated to the murderous knife of any "zealot."
For this is declared by the decretal of Pope Urban 1 1.,
which has been adopted in the General Ecclesiastical
Book of Laws and Doctrines : " Excommunicatorum
interfectoribus, prout in ordine ecelesiae Romanae
didicistis, secundum intentionem, modum congruae
satisfactionis injunge. Non enim eos homicidas
arbitramur, quos, adversus excommunicatos zelo
catholicae matris ardentes, aliquos eorum trucidare
contigerit Ne tamen ejusdem ecelesiae matris
disciplina deseratur, eo tenore, quem diximus, poeni
tentiam eis indicito congruentem, qua divinae sim-
plicitatis oculos adversus se complacare valeant, si
forte quid duplicitatis, pro humana fragilitate, in
eodem flagitio incurrerint." ^ Cardinal Turrecremata,
therefore, well known as the most eminent advocate
of papal infallibility, has, in his commentary on this
1 " As you have leamed from the rule of the Roman Church, impose
a corresponding satisfaction according to the motive on those who have
kiUed any of the excommunicated. For we do not regard as murderers
those who, ardent in their zeal for the Catholic Mother against the
excommunicated, have happened to kiU any of them. But in order

144 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%(i^iZZ7.
decision in Gratian, Causa 23 quaest 5, c. 47, Ex
communicatorum, explained it with logical accuracy
as follows : " If any one shall out of true zeal have
put a man to death who has been excommunicated,
nullam incretur poenitentiam"
Such things have been perpetrated on me by
persons who directed the steps of Herr von Scherr,
who was completely dependent on others, and these
persons had been my own pupils formerly.
What crime had I committed that I should be
subjected to the heaviest of all punishments, to a
punishment which, according to the dicta of the
Church, is heavier than sentence of death ?
I had refused to recognise a Council which, except
numbers, lacked all the conditions of validity fixed by
theology ; a Council at which there was notoriously
no freedom, no thorough examination, and no state
ment of actual tradition ; a Council whose very unex
ampled order of business proclaimed the servitude
of the bishops. A very few days after his return.
Archbishop von Scherr candidly communicated
several facts to me which left me no doubt on this
point, and to these were added other verbal and
written opinions, all of which were to the same efifect.
that the discipline of the same Mother Church may not be forsaken,
impose on them in the above-mentioned way an act of penance by
which they may be able to appease the eyes of the divine purity when
directed against tbem, if in the aforesaid crime they should have by
chance incurred any impurity according to human infirmities."

DOLLINGER to ARCHBP. VON STEICHELE. 145
In the recently published work by Herr von Schulte,
Der Altkatholicismus, we have an ample collection of
such letters and testimonies from bishops. What
then can be still said in extenuation in face of this
host of most weighty voices? Your Grace is cer
tainly far from being willing to designate these
venerable colleagues, some of whom are still living,
as liars and calumniators of the Church. Verily, in
view of these reports and testimonies, one would like
to veil one's head in pain and mourning for this
disgrace of the Occidental Church — a disgrace that
can never more be wiped out The course of the
Vatican Council is worse than that of the Synod
at Ephesus in 449 A.D. For cunning and deceit,
mental compulsion, business-like oppression under
the appearance of free deliberation are worse things
than physical ill-treatment and wild clamour, such as
there was at Ephesus.
And now as to the doctrine itself, the new Articles
of Faith which have been fabricated eighteen cen
turies after the time of the apostles, and are now to
be forced upon the world as primeval truths, tenets
of faith, by which the solemn decisions of three
CEcumenical Councils are annulled (680, 141 S, 143 1
A.D.), in spite of their having been confirmed by
the popes! And these new Articles of Faith are
now and must be the foundation and corner-stones
on which henceforth the firmness and inviolability of
K

146 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%(><)-\%%7-
the whole Catholic doctrinal edifice is to rest The
old principle, "Nihil innovetur, nisi quod traditum
est," so often insisted upon by all the Fathers, has
now been turned into the opposite. In order to be
consistent, all the older text-books of theology ought
now to be re-written or prohibited ; for they all rest
upon tradition, which would only be a phantom if it
did not hold fast to the tenet that every innovation
which is contrary to the old doctrine is false, and to
be rejected.
I confess that there was a time — in the years suc
ceeding 1836 — when I myself sincerely wished to be
able to accept and demonstrate the so-called papal
system. At that period, I saw that the Order of
Jesuits was endeavouring, with the whole of its rapidly
growing power, to bring this doctrine to an exclusive
acceptation, and that for this purpose it was supported
and encouraged by Rome and a great part of the
episcopate. I saw, too, that, especially in France, the
old Galilean doctrine was being more and more sup
planted and was falling into disrepute, while, simul
taneously, perfect unbelief was making gigantic strides
there. A presentiment of what events and circum
stances we might encounter took possession of me,
and, for my own instruction and assurance, I conceived
the necessity of devoting myself to a thorough and
comprehensive study of the question, and, above all, to
examine the sources themselves. At the same time.

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBP. VON STEICHELE. 147
my mind was busied with the thought that I might,
perhaps, be able to fill up a much-felt gap in litera
ture, and to produce a history of the Papacy that
would satisfy the scientific requirements of the present
day. By working steadily for many years, I have
thus brought together materials which are more ex
tensive and complete than are to be found in any
printed work. I do not think that any evidence of
weight has escaped me. The result was the con
sciousness that I had a clear survey of this subject
in its course of development through fifteen centuries,
and had reached that certainty which is at all attain
able in the department of history, — and, in conse
quence, I also won the conviction that I must renounce
the plan of a history of the popes, for the book would
undoubtedly have at once found its way into the
Index, when I should have been obliged, according
to the new practice introduced by Herr von Scherr,
either to make an untrue recantation or give up my
academical activity as teacher, to which I clung with
all my soul.
As to "the question of dogma, for me it was now
clear and certain that the whole edifice of papal
omnipotence and infallibility rested on cunning and
deceit on compulsion and violence in manifold forms,
and that the building-stones with which this edifice
has been raised were taken from a series of forgeries
and fictions, with the conclusions and consequences

148 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%(>9-'i^?&7-
founded on them, — a series which stretches through
all the centuries since the fifth.
Here I now stand, and your Grace may yourself
imagine with what feelings I must accept such sug
gestions as yours, and those the present pope has sent
to me three times already. I say to myself daily that
I am a frail man, constantly prone to err in many ways.
At the bottom, the whole of my mental life has been
a continual correcting and laying aside of earlier
formed opinions and views. I am conscious that I
have never obstinately closed my eyes to a better
judgment ; at all events, I cannot call such a case to
mind. Though at first with a heavy heart, I have
renounced even cherished ideas as soon as it was
clear to me that they were untenable. Now it is,
of course, possible that a derangement of my mind
has set in, which makes me incapable of understand
ing historical facts. Instances of such a condition,
even in celebrated men, do exist With me, then,
this distemper must be already very old, for since,
perhaps, 1857, i.e. since my return from my journey
to Rome, I have always cherished the sdme con
viction in reference to the points at issue. Should
this be the case with me, the public discussion I so
much desired and prayed for would have been the
best remedy, if not for me, at all events for those
numerous individuals who, in the matter in question,
have set their confidence in my knowledge and love

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBP. VON STEICHELE. 149
of truth, and who would certainly have been unde
ceived by the disclosure of my condition, and led
back again to the great community.
You, Most Reverend Sir, it is true, seem to cherish
a still worse view of my mental condition. You
exhort me to think of my soul's salvation, and I
meet this earnest admonition with reverential thank
fulness. In a mild and gentle form you mean to say
to me, " If you die without recanting, you will of
a certainty go to hell, to everlasting damnation, for,
at all events since 1871, you have been living per
sistently in deadly sin ; your condition is not an
involuntary straying or a disturbed mental faculty,
but obduracy and demoniacal infatuation." Should
this really be my condition, it would certainly be
much more appropriate to practise an exorcism on
me than to make an attempt to convert me by a
convincing religious conference.
But I beg you to consider that it is here a question
not only of myself, but of thousands of persons, for
whom the exposure of my errors and the explanation
of obscure Church doctrines would have just such
consequences as your Grace is so very desirous to
see. That which can be done for the attainment of your
object lies in your own hand. Choose out one, or
even several, of the clergy of your diocese, which is
surely rich enough in learned men; I am ready to meet

1 50 THE VA TIC AN DECREES, 1 869-1 887.
one and all, and the only conditiofi I make, really a
very natural one, is that two shorthand writers be
admitted, in order to report the speeches pro and
con, and that these reports be then printed and
published. If I am refuted, I solemnly promise to
submit at once and to recant. I shall then employ
the remainder of my life that may be allotted to me
in refuting my ovvn writings.
You, Most Reverend Sir, are, as I understand from
your letter, perfectly {fide divina) convinced that the
newly-made Articles of Faith, now seventeen years
old, contain self-evident truth, and, accordingly, the
exposure of the nullity of the numerous objections
brought forward against them is a matter of no great
difficulty. He whom you choose will, of course, think
so too, and will therefore advance to meet an old and
feeble man of eighty-eight with the calm certainty of
victory. For it is not a question of the mysteries of
faith, as the Trinity and the Incarnation, about which
we can dispute until doomsday, and that to no
purpose. We here stand on the firm foundation of
history, of evidences and of facts. These are things
which can be cleared up and expounded in such a
way that every well-educated and well -instructed
man can form his own judgment of the justice or
injustice of the one side or the other, even without
having gone through any course of theology.
I know perfectly well that my offer will meet with

dOlLINGER TO ARCHBP. VON STEICHELE. 151
the greatest opposition on the part ofyour Ordinariate,
for, as is well known, the latter is wont to act accord
ing to the principle of refusing every one who begs an
audience, and of at once hurling at him the bolt of
excommunication. But I pray you to reflect that this
method of procedure is contrary to the truly ecclesi
astical one. You are yourself well aware that episcopal
Synods were frequently summoned in order to give
one who was accused of heresy an opportunity of
explaining and defending his views. Of this there are
plenty of instances. With Pelagius, a simple layman,
negotiations were carried on at several Synods for six
years, evident as his heresy was, until at length his
exclusion from the community of the Church ensued.
How many other names, too, might be mentioned here,
even out of much later times ! You are well aware
when and how this fair and just manner of procedure
was altered. It was still observed in the case of
Abelard and others in the twelfth century, but in
the thirteenth the popes established the Inquisition,
with secret procedure, prescribed ^oxt-^xxe, career durus,
and excruciating forms of execution, as means of
conversion, and gave orders that torture should be
resorted to on simple suspicion. At Constance, how
ever, Huss and Jerome were still permitted to plead
their cause fully and in detail; then, and not until
then, was it that they were burned at the stake. The
Ordinariate has, I must admit, the papal theory and

152 THE VATICAN DECREES, i%(><)-\%%7.
practice on its side, and will undoubtedly say, that,
now, under the rule of force and papal infallibility, its
manner of proceeding is perfectly correct. Neverthe
less, methinks, it would have been becoming to treat
the old man, who for nearly half a century had served
the Church faithfully, rather in the spirit of the older
Church than in that of the age of the Inquisition
and decretaLs, and, at the very least, to give him a
hearing. You, Most Reverend Sir, tell me that my
submission will be a cause of rejoicing for millions of
believers. If millions really take any interest in my
person and my fate, they would surely also have
taken it in good part had my case been disposed of
in a less tyrannical and precipitate manner. I know
only one other diocese where I should probably have
been treated as in Munich, namely, in Ratisbon ;
but what a diff'erent course things would have taken
had I passed through the crisis in Vienna, Prague,
Bamberg, or Rottenburg !
Friends and those who are conversant with history
have often told me I should reflect that no ecclesi
astical system was more despised on account of the
frightful abuse to which it was put than excommuni
cation. For had it not been calculated that formerly
— for instance in the fourteenth century — half the
number of all Christians were excommunicated ;
that thousands remained under the ban for years on
account of a debt of a few shillings ; further, that it

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBP. VON STEICHELE. 153
was not a rare occurrence for whole nations to be laid
under an interdict on account of a single man ; that
the Church had allowed to be forced upon her the
papal doctrine that millions of believers could and
might be deprived for years of the gifts bestowed
upon them by Christ, if a prince, for example, had
done anything to displease the Papal See ! I said to
myself that to be excommunicated was quite an
ordinary circumstance, for the most part unregarded
by those aff'ected, so that the Roman Curia in its
formularies containing promotions or other favours,
had inserted a clause which has special reference to
the fact of excommunication. At the same time I
knew, of course, that according to the teaching of the
Fathers, an unjust ban redounds to the one concerned
as a blessing and not as a curse. Yet I will not deny
that such an obvious endeavour to abandon me to
the hatred of the people and the attacks of fanatics
aff'ected me painfully, for was it not in consequence
of the measures decreed by the Ordinariate that the
Chief of the Police warned me formally to be on my
guard, as they had knowledge of an act of violence
that was to be perpetrated on me I
Thank God, these things are now long past ! At
that time a feeling of shame came over me to think
that such a spectacle of odium theologicum, raised to
a pitch of paroxysm, should be displayed in the eyes
of the German nation and of the adherents of other

154 THE VATICAN DECREES, iZeg-iS?,7.
confessions. From that moment I was silent in
spite of the severest temptation to speak. But your
Grace will easily understand that the mere thought
of entering again into any relation with the authors
of these things has now something repulsive and
painful about it for me. The eff'ect produced by this
method of procedure was, however, the opposite of the
one intended. They wanted to arouse enemies on
every hand, and goad on the hatred of the people
against me. The clerical daily press, which is so well
known to you, received carte blanche against me. Yet
this was all in vain. In a short time the number of
those who, at home and abroad, gave me signs of their
good-will and sympathy was more than trebled ; but
what had still greater value for me, was the fact that
not a single one of my friends forsook me. Not one
of the men whose good opinion I valued has turned
away from me. Nay rather, the number of these
well-wishers and friends is constantly increasing, even
in ecclesiastical circles; and your Grace, I suppose,
would be very much surprised if I were to inform
you how many ot' our equals give me their assent, or
let it be guessed. How could it be otherwise ? The
new dogmas have been introduced by force and
violence, and it is by force and violence that they
must be constantly maintained.
One more point I must refer to as a supplement to
the confession I have herewith made to you. It con-

DOLLINGER TO ARCHBP. VON STEICHELE. 155
cerns the oath, which like all priests I had to take, by
order of the Church, to expound the Holy Scriptures
only according to the consensus of the Fathers and
according to the sense imputed to them by the ancient
Church — " item sacram scripturam juxta eum sensum,
quem tenuit ac tenet saneta mater ecclesia . . .
admitto nec eam unquam nisi juxta unanimem con
sensum patrum accipiam et interpretabor," ^ says the
text It seems to me that those who acknowledge
the Vatican Articles of Faith are thereby guilty of
downright perjury. For it is notorious that the
exposition given at Rome in 1870 to the 'passages
which were quoted as biblical proof, diff'ers entirely
from that of the Fathers, and has not been advanced
by a single one of the commentators that belong to
the early patristic age. I have asked several of our
equals how they are able to make such an act
of perjury harmonise with their consciences. The
answer was always an evasive one, or an embarrassed
shrug of the shoulder. They said that this was a
question of detail which the individual priest or lay
man did not need to enter into. Or they said that the
very essence and merit of believing consisted precisely
in giving one's self up blindly and implicitly to the
^ " In the same way I acknowledge the Holy Scriptures according to
the sense which the Holy Mother Church has maintained and still
maintains . . . and I shall never understand and expound them in any
other way than according to the unanimous agreement of the Fathers."

I S6 THE VA TIC AN DECREES, 1 869-1 887.
powers that be, and in leaving it to them to settle any
contradiction that might exist I do not need to tell
you what an impression deplorable subterfuges of this
kind have made upon me, and accordingly, at the
very beginning of the way you bid me take, there lies
a stone which I am unable either to remove or sur
mount. For I should have to swear this form of oath
over again, with the additions of the Vatican Council
inserted by the Papal See, and thus, so to say, in one
breath call upon God to witness that I was willing to
believe and teach a dogma and its contrary at the
same time. Can you seriously exact anything of
this sort from me ? Am I to appear before the eternal
Judge with a double perjury on my conscience?
I cannot help conjecturing that your Grace has
addressed your letter to me at the instigation of
colleagues, or because you were moved to it by influ
ence from abroad. Should this be the case, you will
perhaps be desirous that a public testimony of your
having fulfilled your duty should be presented to the
world. If so, I am quite ready to give publicity to this
my answer,and would (of course only with your express
permission) have your letter prefixed to it. I am all
the more ready to do so, as for some time past I have
had the feeling that in this highly important matter,
which more or less afifects the whole of mankind, I
have kept silence too long, and have left the public in
uncertainty about the present state of my convictions.

DOlLINGER to ARCHBP. VON STEICHELE. 157
Your Grace has, of course, no time, nor would you
find it becoming your high dignity, to give your
special attention to instructing and convincing me.
But should any one out of the numerous circle of
learned theologians who are at your disposal under
take this charge, I promise beforehand to have his
reply printed with mine, but, of course, with the
addition of any responses of my own.
A great deal more might still be said and expressly
emphasised in the interest of the Church — that is, if
she is seriously to be or become a columna veritatis ;
I should then add something on this subject to
my defence.— I remain, yours most respectfully and
obediently, J. VON DOLLINGER.
P.S. — I have just noticed that it might appear as
though the last proposal does not harmonise with the
one previously made, or is to replace it. It still is
and remains my earnest desire and request, which I
address to your Grace with all deference, that I may
be allowed an oral defence and explanation of my
position. In this case my letter shall be at the same
time my text, convenient and suitable to be used by
my opponent and myself as a foundation for the
discussion.

XXIV.
ARCHBISHOP VON STEICHELE TO DOLLINGER.
(March 19th, 1887.)
Reverend Provost and Reichsrath, — In your
letter to me of the ist inst, among other things you
say : " I cannot help conjecturing that your Grace
has addressed your letter to me at the instigation of
colleagues, or because you were moved to it by
influence from abroad." This passage of your letter
requires a correction. Rest assured that I did not
take that step at the instigation of colleagues, or
because I was moved to it by influence from abroad.
The thought of once more addressing myself to you
sprang from my own heart ; I carried it out with the
feeling of my duty, and out of love to you. You
must kindly excuse my entering into details on any
other points of your letter. Always bearing the
same love to you. — I remain, yours truly,
Antonius,
A rchbishop of Munich and Freising.

XXV.
NUNCIO RUFFO SCILLA TO DOLLINGER.
(October 1st, 1887.') Munich le r Octobre 1887.
TRfeS-lLLUSTRE DoCTEUR ! Ceci est un billet tout-
a-fait priv^ et reservd dont personne a 6te mis k part.
Je veux me donner le plaisir de vous I'^crire puisque
je pense que peut-^tre il vous sera agrdable d'ap-
prendre mes sentiments a I'dgard de votre personne.
Si la tr^s-sainte Vierge du Rosaire et votre bon
ange gardien vous inspirent de donner a I'Eglise
une tres-grande consolation en la circostance de la
grande f^te de famille que nous allons avoir pour
le jubild de notre saint P^re, je suis 1^ tout-a-fait a
votre disposition.
Comme Sa Saint^t^ a bien voulu me confier sa
repr^sentance en Bavi^re, je desire tr^s-vivement
que la plus grande joie Lui parvienne du Royaume
de Marie et qu'un' autre grand fete se solennise
parmi les innombrables savants et amis qui vous
aiment comme celui a qui ils doivent leur science.
¦¦ Printed exactly as in the manuscript.
1S9

i6o THE VATICAN DECREES, i%b9-\%%7-
Je vous prie, tr^s-illustre M. le Docteur, d'agr^er
I'assurence de mes meilleurs sentiments.
*^ L. Archev£que de Petra,
Nonce apostolique.

translation.

Most illustrious Doctor, — This note is an altogether private
and confidential one, of which no one has any knowledge. I wish to
give myself the pleasure of writing it to you, as I think you will
perhaps be pleased to learn my feelings in regard to you personally.
If, on the occasion of the great family festival which we are going
to celebrate at the jubilee of our Holy Father, the Most Blessed Virgin
of the Rosary, and your good guardian angel, prompt you to offer the
Church a very great consolation, I am quite at your disposal.
As His Holiness has been pleased to repose confidence in me as his
representative in Bavaria, I am very desirous that his greatest joy may
come from the Kingdom of Mary, and that another great festival may
be celebrated by the innumerable scholars and friends who love you
as him to whom they are indebted for the knowledge they possess.
I beg you, illustrious Doctor, be assured of my kindly feeUng.
?J< L. Archbishop of Petra,
Apostolic Nuncio.

XXVI.
DOLLINGER TO NUNCIO RUFFO SCILLA.
(October 12th, 1887.)
Monseigneur ! A mon age ce sont surtout les
idees d'une mort prochaine et de ce qui doit suivre
cette catastrophe, qui se pri^sentent a I'esprit Mon
principal soin est, comme cela doit etre, de mettre
rha conscience en repos et siirete. Frappe d'excom-
munication par un prelat, qui pour cet acte a dtd
comble d'eloges par Pie IX., j'ai senti depuis seize
ans le besoin imperieux de me negliger rien de ce
qui pourrait contribuer a m'eclaircir sur la conduite
a tenir dans une situation si penible. J'aurais pu
commettre des forfaits nombreux qu'on ne m'en
aurait pas puni, car la discipline clericale en AUe-
magne est extremement indulgente ; mais le crime
qu'on m'imputait, etait d'une enormite inouie : je
refusals de changer ma foi, je refusals de croire et
de professer un nouveau dogme, dont le contraire
m'avait etd enseigne dans ma jeunesse et dont je
connaissais la faussete par 56 ans d'etudes et de
recherches. Cela suffisait pour infliger a un vieillard

1 62 THE VA TIC AN DECREES, 1 869-1 887.
de 72 ans, qui jusque-la n'avait encouru ni reproche
ni bl^me, une peine qui selon la doctrine de I'dglise
est pire que la mort.
Permettez-moi iei, Monseigneur, de citer quelques
faits personnels ; peut-etre qu'ils serviront a mitiger
tant soi peu la sdveritd de votre jugement
J'ai dtd professeur actif de theologie pendant 47
ans, de 1823 jusqu' a 1871. Pendant cette longue
pdriode j'ai toujours enseigne le contraire de ce qui
a etd decidd par Pie IX. en 1870; tout le monde
savait ou pouvait savoir ce que je croyais et pro-
fessais sur cette question ; les differents nonces
apostoliques qui se sont succddds iei, ne pouvaient
gudre I'ignorer ; ils me traitaient tous avec bien-
veillance, et ni eux ni aucun dv^que allemand ou
fran5ais ou anglais ne m'ont jamais dit un mot ou
m'ont donnd un avertissement quelconque, qui
m'aurait fait connaJtre qu'ils dtaient mdcontents de
mon enseignement J'enseignais ce que j 'avals appris
de mes maitres, ce qui m'avait dtd confirmd par mes
recherches, et ce que j'avais trouvd dans les ouvrages
historiques et thdologiques que je jugeais les plus
solides : c'dtait que I'infaillibilitd du Pape dtait une
opinion inventee bien tard, mais actuellement toldrde
dans I'dglise, mais que de I'imputer ^ tout le monde
catholique, c'dtait, comme s'exprimait un catdchisme
anglais tres-rdpandu, une calomnie protestante.
Je sais par quantitd de tdmoins irrdprochables,

DOLLINGER TO NUNCIO RUFFO SCILLA. 163

par des avcux dchappd.s, que lc concile du Vatican
n'etait pas libre, qu'on y a employd les menaces,
les intimidations, les sdductions. Je lc sais par des
dvCques dont je garde les lettres, ou qui me I'ont
avoud de vive voix. Le m6mc archeveque de
Munich, qui ensuite m'a excommunid, est venu
chez moi le lendemain dc son rctour de Romc et m'a
racontd des ddtails qui ne m'ont laissd ancun doute.
II est vrai que tous ces prdlats ont faits leur
soumission : tous s'accordaient k dire pour excuse :
" Nous ne voulons pas faire un schisme." Moi aussi,
je ne veux pas dtre membre d'une socidtd schis-
matique ; jo suis Isold. Persuadd que la sentence
lancde contre moi est injuste et nulle de droit,
je persiste i me rcgarder comme membre de la
grande dglise catholique, et c'est l'eglise elle-mfime
qui, par la bouche des saints pdres, me dit, qu'une
telle excommunication ne peut pas nuire ci mon fime.
Seize ans sc sont passds depuis I'anathdme dont
on m'a frappd. J'ai employd ce temps k me livrer
bi des dtudes et recherches rditdrdes, h puiser dans
les sources, k suivre la tradition d'un siecle k I'autre.
Un examen approfondi des tdmoignages prdtendus,
qui ont dtd amassds dans les ouvrages dcrits en faveur
du concile, m'a fait voir qu'il y a 1^ un amas d'altdra-
tions, de fictions, de falsifications dont la plupart
avaient dtd ddjA reconnucs comme telles au 17
siecle.

i64 THE VATICAN DECREES, iS6g-iS87.
Maintenant, Monseigneur, que me demandez-vous ?
Devrais-je dire au monde : catholiques et protestants,
voyez ddsormais en moi un homme d'une ignorance
grossiere qui pendant un demi-si^cle s'est trompd
lui-mdme et a trompd les autres, qui n'a reconnu la
vdritd qu'an bout de sa longue carri^re .' Les hommes
qui sont capables de juger de telles questions, m'en
croiraient-ils. Je sais bien ce qu'on dirait ; les uns
diraient : c'est un vieillard retombd en enfance
(rimbambito) ; les autres diraient : c'est un menteur
et un vil hypocrite ; il doit I'avoir dtd pendant toute
sa vie, ou il Test a prdsent Et puis mon premier
devoir serait alors de refuter moi - meme, mes
ouvrages, ouvrages traduits en plusieurs langues, et
de montrer qu'ils ne sont qu'un tissu de faussetds.
Ce serait vraiment un fait unique et vous ne sauriez
citer dans toute I'histoire de I'dglise un tour d'esprit
dgal k celui-1^.
Et iei, Monseigneur, je me permets de vous citer
un fait caractdristique. Lorsque I'archeveque, obdis-
sant, a ce qu'il disait, aux ordres de Pape, me
communiqua la sentence portde contre moi, il me fit
annoncer, que j'dtais assujetti k toutes les peines
accumuldes par le droit canonique contre les ex-
communids. La premidre et la plus importante de
ces peines est contenue dans la cdldbre bulle du
Pape Urbain IL, qui ddcide qu'il est permis a tout
le monde de tuer un excommunid, quand on le fait

DOLLINGER TO NUNCIO RUFFO SCILLA. 165
par un motif de zdle pour I'dglise. En meme temps
il fit precher contre moi dans toutes les chaires de
Munich, et I'effet que ces ddclamations produisaient,
fut tel que le chef de la police me fit avertir que
des attentats se tramaient contre ma personne, et
que je ferais bien de ne pas sortir sans accompagne-
ment Oserais-je soulever la question, Monseigneur,
si, en cas de ma soumission, je serais obligd de
ddclarer au monde que je trouve cette ddcision du
Pape infaillible parfaitement conforme a la morale
dvangdiique ?
Je ne vous ai fait entrevoir qu'une partie des
raisons qui me forcent a renoncer a I'idde d'une
revocation ou soumission ; j'en ai encore beaucoup
d'autre-s. Mais ce que j'ai ecrit iei, suffira, me
semble-t-il, pour vous faire comprendre, qu'avec de
telles convictions on peut dtre dans un dtat de paix
intdrieure et de tranquillitd d'esprit, meme au seuil
de I'dternitd.
Agrdez, Monseigneur, I'expression du profond
respect, avec lequel je signe J. DOLLINGER.

TRANSLATION.

Most Reverend Sir, — At my age it is the thought of an
approaching death, and of what must follow this catastrophe, that
especially press themselves on the mind. My principal care is, as it
ought to be, to set my conscience at rest and in safety. Laid under

1 66 THE VATICAN DECREES, iS6<)-iZ87.
sentence of excommunication by a prelate who for this act was over
whelmed with eulogies by Pius IX., I have felt now for sixteen years
the imperious necessity of neglecting nothing that could contribute
towards throwing light on the line of conduct to be observed in such
a painful situation, I might have committed numerous transgressions
without having been punished for them, because clerical discipline in
Germany is extremely indulgent ; but the crime imputed to me was
of an unheard-of enormity. I refused to change my faith ; I refused
to believe and teach a new dogma, the contrary of which I had been
taught in my youth, and the falsity of which I had learned by the study
and research of fifty-six years. This was sufficient to infUct on an old
man of seventy-two, who up to that time had incurred neither reproach
nor blame, a punishment which, according to the teaching of the
Church, is worse than death.
Permit me. Most Reverend Sir, to cite here a few personal facts.
Perhaps they wUl serve somewhat to mitigate the severity of your
judgment. For forty-seven years, from 1823 to 1871, I was an active professor of
theology. During this long period I always taught the contrary of what
was decided by Pius IX. in 1870. The whole world knew or might
have known what I believed and taught on this question. The various
apostolic nuncios who succeeded one another here could scarcely be in
ignorance of it. They all treated me with benevolence, and neither
they nor any German, French, or English bishop ever said a word to
me, or gave me any intimation, from which I could have gathered that
they were dissatisfied with my teaching. I taught what I had leamed
from my masters, what had been confirmed by my researches, and
what I had found in the historical and theological works which I
judged to be the most reliable, namely, that the infallibility of the
pope was an opinion that had appeared at a very late period, but
which was now tolerated in the Church ; but that to ascribe it to the
whole Catholic world would be, as a widely circulated English cate
chism expressed it, "a Protestant calumny."
From many irreproachable witnesses, and from confessions which
escaped them, I know that the Vatican CouncU was not free, and that
they employed menaces, intimidations, and seductions there. I know it
from bishops whose letters I have, or who have confessed it to me orally.

DOLLINGER TO NUNCIO RUFFO SCILLA. 167

The same Archbishop of Munich who afterwards excommunicated
me, came to my house on the day after his return from Rome, and
related details to me which left no doubt on the point. It is true all
these prelates have made their submission; they all excused their
conduct by saying : " We do not wish to cause a schism.'' Nor do I
wish to be a member of a schismatic society : I am isolated. Con
vinced that the sentence decreed against me is unjust and legaUy null,
I persist in regarding myself as a member of the great Catholic
Church ; and it is the Church herself, who, through her holy Fathers,
tells me that such an excommunication cannot harm my soul.
Sixteen years have passed since the anathema was pronounced
against me. This time I have employed in devoting myself to renewed
sludy and research, in drawing from the sources, and in following
tradition from one century to another. A thorough examination of
the alleged testimonies, which have been gathered in the works written
in favour of the Council, has shown me that it is here a question of a
mass of alterations, fictions, and forgeries, the greater part of which had
been already recognised as such in the seventeenth century.
And now. Most Reverend Sir, what do you require of me ? Am I
to say to the world : " Catholics and Protestants, behold in me hence
forth a man of gross ignorance, who for half a century has been
deceiving himself and others, and who has only recognised the trutii
at the end of his long career?" Would those who are capable of
judging in such questions believe me ? I know well what they would
say. Some would say, "He has fallen into his dotage." Others,
" He is a Uar and a vile hypocrite : he must have been one during his
whole Ufe, or he is one now." And then my first duty would be to
refute myself and my works, — works which are translated into several
languages, — and to show that they are only a tissue of errors. This
would indeed be a unique fact, and you would not be able to cite from
the whole history of the Church any mental change like it.
And here. Most Reverend Sir, I take the liberty of citing a charac
teristic fact. When the Archbishop, according to his own words,
obeying the orders of the pope, communicated to me the sentence that
had been pronounced against me, he informed me that I had incurred
aU the punishments which are heaped by the canonical law upon those
who are excommunicated. The first and most important of these

1 68 THE VATICAN DECREES, \i(^9-i%Z7,
punishments is contained in the celebrated Bull of Pope Urban II.,
which decides that every one may put to death one who is excommuni
cated, when it is done from a motive of zeal for the Church. At the
same tirae he had sermons preached against me from all the pulpits of
Munich, and the effect produced by these declamations was such that
the Chief of the Police informed me that attacks were being plotted
against me, and that I should do well not to go out without company.
May I dare, Most Reverend Sir, to raise the question whether, in case
I should submit, I should be obliged to declare to the world that I
consider this decision of the infallible pope in perfect harmony with
the morals ofthe gospel?
I have only intimated a few of the reasons which compel me to
renounce the idea of a recantation or submission. I have still many
others ; but what I have written here will, I think, suffice in order to
make inteUigible to you that with such convictions one can be in a
state of inward peace and tranquillity of mind even on the threshold of
eternity. Accept, Most Reverend Sir, the expression of profound respect with
which I sign myself J. DOLLI.N'GER.

XXVII.
NUNCIO RUFFO SCILLA TO DOLLINGER.
(October 14th, 1887.')
Tr£s-illustre Professeur ! Je vous en prie, ne
m'accusez pas de sdveritd ! Que Dieu me garde de
traiter ainsi mon prochain !
Je suis Isold, vous dites. — Voila le mot ddsolant,
la triste position de Iaquelle nous desirous touts de
vous voir sorti. — Mais ce n'est certellement pas moi
qui pourra vous ddcider a la courageuse resolution ;
c'est au contraire Notre Seigneur, qui est le Roi de
coeurs. Vous ajoutez que la serait un frait vraiment
unique dans I'histoire, vues les circostances du passe.
— Tant mieux, cher Professeur : vous etes done a
meme de procurer a I'Fglise une joie unique et a
votre ime un mdrite enorme. Quant'aux quelques
imbecilles (permettez-moi ce mot), qui oseraient vous
juger comme vous le craignez, ils seraient mis bien
vite k leur place, soyez en sur. Eux seulement
pourraient affirmer que vous avez pendant des
anndes trompe le monde. Puisque, avant 1870, vous
' Printed exactly as in the manuscript.
169

I70 THE VATICAN DECREES, \%b9-\%%7-
aviez avec vous touts les antifaillibilites qui dans
I'enceinte et dehors du Concil userent de leur droit
d'opposition avec libertd et mdme avec violence.
Tandisque votre si penible insolement apr^s juillet
1870 vous prouve que tout le monde catholique est
convencu que vous etes dans I'erreur. Faites-vous
done moins cas du monde catholique que des im
becilles .''
Que rien done vous trouble, trds-illustre Professeur,
si vous voulez sortir de votre isolement Confiez-
vous d'abord trds-ouvertement a N. S. Pdre le Pape.
Vous savez bien que d'autres celebritds ont eu a
s'applaudir de leur confiance en ce grand Pontife.
Vous serez fier de votre soummission et la grande
famille catholique en celebrant le Jubild du Pdre
verra a ses cotd le Fils bien aimd.
En' attendant je suis toujours disposd a vous rendre
service et vous dtre util en vous priant de croir a
mon aff'ection toute particulidre.
^ L. Archeveque de Petra,
Nonce apostolique.
Ce 14. Octobre 1887.

translation.

Most Illustrious Professor, — I beg you not to accuse me of
severity ! God forbid I should treat my neighbour so !
" I am isolated," you say. Those are comfortless words, and it is the
sad position from which we all wish to see you escape. But it is certainly

NUNCIO RUFFO SCILLA TO DOLLINGER. 171
not I who can move you to the courageous resolve. Our Lord, who is
the King of hearts, alone can do it. You add that this would be a
really unique fact in history with respect to the circumstances of the
past. All the better, dear Professor. You are thus in a position to
procure for the Church a. unique joy, and for your soul an extra
ordinary degree of merit. As for the few imbeciles (permit me the
use of this word) who would dare to judge you, as you fear, be sure of
this, that they would very soon be shown their place. They alone
could assert that you had been deceiving the world for years. For
before 1870 you had on your side all anti-infallibilists who, within
and without the Council, made use of their right of opposition with
freedom, and even with violence, while your very painful isolation
since July 1870 proves to you that the whole Catholic world is con
vinced you are in error. Do you then esteem the Catholic world
more lightly than imbeciles ?
Let nothing trouble you then, Most Illustrious Professor, if you are
willing to forsake your isolation. First of all, unbosom yourself freely
to our Holy Father the pope. You are well aware that other cele
brities have had reason to congratulate themselves on their confidence
in this great High Priest. You will be proud of your submission,
and the great Catholic family at the celebration of the Jubilee of the
Father will see the well-beloved son at his side.
In the meantime I am always ready to render you any service and
be of any use to you, and I beg you to believe in my special affection
for you.
^ L. Archbishop of Petra,
Apostolic Nuntio.
October \\th, 1887.

APPENDIX.
DdLLINGER TO A DIGNITARY OF THE CHURCH.
(February 7th, 1868.')
Reverend Sir, — Your letter lays me under the
obligation of expressing my warmest thanks to you,
for — in spite of all that has been said and done — it
still betrays such a friendly disposition that it would
be a sin to place the slightest doubt in its pure and
sincere intention.
Hence, how gladly would I fulfil your request, and
follow your counsel, if I could only do so without
wounding my convictions !
You require that I should make a public protest
against the abuse to which Herr Scholl has sub
jected my name. He has named me in the same
breath with Galileo, Fdnelon, Hirscher, etc. etc., in
^ The letter to which this is an answer has unfortunately not been
found among DoUinger's literary remains.
[It has since been found, and was written by Dr. Westermayer,
Rector of St. Peter's, Munich. — Translator.] 172

DOLLINGER TO A CHURCH DIGNITARY. 173
short with those who have been ill-treated or cen
sured by the Roman Curia. Now I have experienced
neither the one nor the other. Hitherto, my writings
have not yet been placed on the Index. Accordingly
I do not belong to the above-named society. It is
true I could have this printed in a couple of words.
But such a declaration would probably not satisfy you
yourself, much less others. The contributors and
readers, for instance, of the Volksbote, of the Donauzei-
tung, and other " well-affected " papers would say : " If
DoUinger is not yet condemned, it is only an oversight
on the part of Rome, for he has merited it long
ago." You know our " Ultramontanes of the purest
water," as they now title themselves in the Pastoral-
blatt, and what they think of my writings and their
author; But people in general would say: ""Why
trouble" the public with a declaration about some
thing every one already knows, i.e. every one who has
any interest in these matters ? " Besides this, for many
years I have experienced a steadily growing dislike
to sending any notice, concerning my person to the
daily papers. I have done it but seldom, and every
time I have rued it afterwards. I know of a certainty
that if I were now to meet your wishes, I should
repent of it within a few days.
You require that I should come out of the sulky
corner into which I have withdrawn. In this way
you describe me as a man who simply exists, and in

174 THE VATICAN DECREES, i?,6()-ii87-
gloomy inactivity broods over insults, real and sup
posed. This is by no means the condition of my mind.
I do what I have always done. I follow the course
of affairs calmly and attentively, and I strive daily
to supplement and correct my knowledge. It is
quite true that much of what is now done in the name
of the Catholic religion fills me with pain and some
times with indignation, and that it frequently seems
to me as though the Church were being worse treated
by her supposed friends and protectors than by
her declared adversaries. But do you call this
"sulking"? If so, then St Bernard, Fdnelon — and
how many others I — were also in sulky corners in
their time.
Further, according to your views and requirements,
I am to give a public assurance of my submissiveness
to the Papal See. Well, I think you know the pro
verb, and have' often proved the truth of it — " Qui
s'excuse, s'accuse." '' Habemus confitentem reum,
ex ore tuo te judico, serve nequam," would be the
general cry of that party which has for its exponents
and teachers the Volksbote and the Donauzeitung,
"the Ultramontanes of the purest water," as they
now call themselves in well-merited self-confidence.
Do you believe, then, that these people would ever
forgive me for having been so audacious as to have
had my own convictions now and then, which were
not quite identical with the present current opinion

DOLLINGER TO A CHURCH DIGNITARY. 175

in Rome, and to have given utterance to them?
Never ! I know with whom I have to deal.^ In
these circles they say of me irrevocably : " Hic niger
est, hunc tu, Romatie, caveto ! " You yourself would
be astounded, I think, if you knew by whom and for
what reasons I have been denounced in Rome. I
could tell you some pretty stories about it I I sup
pose you yourself know something about the fate of
the Assembly of Catholic scholars, which must now,'
of course, remain a unicum. What we undertook
at that time was done with fullest consent and even
sympathy of three bishops, and among them our own
archbishop. We all believed, forsooth, that we had
acted in the best interests of the Church; and how
did Rome reward us, especially me, for it ? To think
of all I had to hear about my boldness and arrogance
in inviting German scholars to a conference ! And
all this burst over me, notd bene, in consequence of
German denunciation and incitements !
What, I should like to know, would my old friends
and fellow-combatants, Moehler and Goerres, have
said had they lived to see such things? I know
what they would have said. I know that both of
them — the one more sharply, the other more mildly
— would have said to those who to-day call them
selves the true Ultramontanes : " Away with you I
'[Lit. : "I know my Pappenheimers. '' An allusion to SchUler's
Wallensteins Tod^ iii. 15. — Translator.]

176 THE VATICAN DECREES, \l(i^\?&7-
Quid nobis et vobis ? You are a race with which we
have no dealings."
After having devoted oneself, as I have done, for over
fifty years to the study of history, and after becoming
thoroughly absorbed in the past, one must at last surely
have learned something of an historical Nemesis, and
of the connection between cause and eff'ect. I have
studied the history of Spain, and hence the events
that have just taken place there did not surprise me.
On this subject I could easily write an instructive
book which would clear up many things, but shall
not do so. Well, of late years Rome has had much
urgent business with Spain, and of what nature was
it ? First : The pope, as a token of his special favour,
and in recognition of her services, sent the Golden
Rose to . . . (Queen Isabella). . . . Second : Only
very recently, at an open meeting of the Consistory,
he delivered a eulogy on the Inquisition, and declared
it to be an excellent, beneficial, and genuinely ecclesi
astical institution. You will have read this in the
P astor alblatt. Third : He has canonized an inquisi
tor, and recommended all Spaniards to honour this
man in future as a pattern of Christian virtues, and
as worthy of imitation. Spain has just given her
answer to this threefold allocution, and will give it
again. Yes, there is a Nemesis !
What is your opinion. Honoured Sir and Patron ?
If I were now, after all, to give a public assurance of

DOLLINGER TO A CHURCH DIGNITARY. 177
my devotedness and submission to the Roman See,
which would, of course, be without conditions and
without limitations, should I not, in order to leave
no room for any more doubt, have to give expression
also to my most submissive adhesion to the eulogy
on the Inquisition, and to the canonisation of Don
Pedro de Arbues ? Should I not have to say :
" Hitherto, it is true, in agreement with all who have
made a study of Spanish history, I was of opinion
that the Inquisition had brought an unspeakably
large amount of harm to Spain ; but since the publica
tion of that allocution I at once gave up my opinion,
and from this time forward I shall maintain against
any and every man, ' Roma locuta est,' the Inquisition
is excellent, and Spain could not do better than re
introduce it ? " You know that whoever says A
must also say B. I am curious to know your opinion
and your advice.
In conclusion, a word about Dr. Pichler. It is
sufficient to remark that I have seen him but once
within three months, and then only for five minutes,
on the occasion of his announcing to me the visit of
a foreign gentleman, who wished to be introduced by
him. This is the sum-total of my contact with that
man. From this letter, which has become somewhat long,
you will at least be able to conclude that I lay great
value on maintaining your friendly and favourable
M

178 THE VATICAN DECREES, i?,6()-i?,Z7-
disposition towards me. I have given you deeper
glimpses into my inner life, into my thoughts and
motives, than I am wont to allow others. Refute
me where you see I am in error. You know I do
not close my mind to the censure and correction of
my opinions.
Finally, I must beg you to please return me this
letter at your convenience after you have read it. I
have no copy of it, and I might easily happen to be
so situated that I should be obliged to give an ex
planation of my present position to others.
Totus tuus, J. DOLLINGER.
P.S. — As a token of my sincere and friendly affec
tion, I send you along with this letter the second
edition of a book i with which you are already
acquainted. A few additions have been made here
and there.
1 Undoubtedly The First Age of Christianity -andthe Church.

MORRISON AND GIB3, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

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