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Page 7
Those who were too proud to submit to the definition followed, of
course, the example of earlier heretics in previous Councils. They
excused themselves on the plea that the Council was (_a_) not free, or
else (_b_) not sufficiently representative, or, finally, (_c_) not
unanimous in its decisions. But such utterly unsupported allegations
served only to accentuate the weakness of their cause and the
hopelessness of their position; since it would be difficult, from the
origin of the Church to the present time, to find any Council so free,
so representative, and so unanimous.
Pope Pius IX. (whom, it seems likely, we shall soon be called upon to
venerate as a canonised saint) convened the Vatican Council by the
Bull _�terni Patris_, published on 29th June, 1868. It summoned all
the Archbishops, Bishops, Patriarchs, etc., throughout the Catholic
world to meet together in Rome on 8th December of the following year,
1869. When the appointed day arrived, and the Council was formally
opened, there were present 719 representatives from all parts of the
world, and very soon after, this number was increased to 769. On 18th
July, 1870--a day for ever memorable in the annals of the Church--the
fourth public session was held, and the constitution _Pater �ternus_,
containing the definition of the Papal Infallibility, was solemnly
promulgated. Of the 535 who were present on this grand occasion, 533
voted for the definition (_placet_) and only two, one from Sicily, the
other from the United States, voted against it (_non placet_).
Fifty-five Bishops, who fully accepted the doctrine itself, but deemed
its actual definition at that moment inopportune, simply absented
themselves from this session. Finally, the Holy Father, in the
exercise of his supreme authority, sanctioned the decision of the
Council, and proclaimed officially, _urbi et orbi_ the decrees and the
canons of the "First Dogmatic Constitution of the Church of Christ".
It may be well here to clothe the Latin words of the Pope and the
assembled Bishops in an English dress. They are as follows: "We (the
Sacred Council approving) teach and define that it is a dogma
revealed, that the Roman Pontiff, _when_ he speaks _ex cathedr�_--that
is, when discharging the office of Pastor and Teacher of all
Christians, by reason of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a
doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the whole Church--in
virtue of the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter,
possesses that Infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed
that His Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith
or morals, and that, therefore, such definitions of the said Sovereign
Pontiff are unalterable of themselves, and not from the consent of the
Church. But if any one--which may God avert--presume to contradict
this our definition, let him be anathema."
"_Every Bishop in the Catholic world_, however inopportune some may
have at one time held the definition to be, submitted to the
Infallible ruling of the Church," says E.S. Purcell. "A very small and
insignificant number of priests and laymen in Germany apostatised and
set up the Sect of 'Old Catholics'. But all the rest of the Catholic
world, true to their faith, accepted, without reserve, the dogma of
Papal Infallibility."[4]
For over eighteen hundred years the Infallible authority of the
Pope-in-Council had been admitted by all Catholics. And in any great
emergency or crisis in the Church's history, these Councils were
actually held, and presided over by the Pope, either in person or by
his duly appointed representatives, for the purpose of clearing up and
adjusting disputed points, or to smite, with a withering anathema, the
various heresies as they arose, century after century. But in the
meantime, the Church, which had been planted "like a grain of mustard
seed, which is the least of all seeds" (Mark iv. 31), was fulfilling
the prophecy that had been made in regard to her, and "was shooting
out great branches" (Mark iv. 32) and becoming more extended and more
prolific than all her rivals. She enlarged her boundaries and spread
farther and farther over the face of the earth, while the number of
her children rapidly multiplied in every direction.
In course of time, the immense continents of America and Australia,
together with New Zealand and Tasmania and other hitherto unknown
regions, were discovered and thrown open to the influences of human
industry and enterprise. And as men and women swarmed into these newly
acquired lands, the Church accompanied them: and new vicariates and
dioceses sprang up, and important Sees were formed, which in time, as
the populations thickened, became divided and sub-divided into smaller
Sees, till at last the number of Bishops in these once unknown and
distant regions rose to several hundreds.
Thus the whole condition of things became altered; and the calling
together of an Ecumenical Council--a very simple affair in the
infancy of the Church--was becoming daily more and more difficult. Not
so much, perhaps, by reason of the enormous distances of the dioceses
from the central authority, for modern methods of locomotion have
almost annihilated space, but because of the immense increase in the
number of the hierarchy that would have to meet together, whenever a
Council is called.
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