Letters From Rome on the CouncilDöllinger, Johann Joseph Ignaz von
History
Letters From Rome on the Council
Döllinger, Johann Joseph Ignaz von
Popes -- Infallibility; Vatican Council (1st : 1869-1870 : Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano)
“With these thoughts ever before me, I am continually asking myself
whether I ought not to make my feelings public; but all I do is to pray
those early doctors of the Church, whose intercession would decide the
matter (Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Basil)
to avert this great calamity.
“If it is God’s will that the Pope’s infallibility be defined, then is it
God’s will to throw back ‘the times and moments’ of that triumph which He
has destined for His kingdom, and I shall feel I have but to bow my head
to His adorable, inscrutable Providence.
“You have not touched upon the subject yourself, but I think you will
allow me to express to you feelings which, for the most part, I keep to
myself....”
Thus writes Newman in most glaring contrast to Manning. The latter was
long nothing but his admiring disciple, and does not possess a tenth part
of the learning of his master. He owes simply to his infallibilist zeal
acquired in Rome his elevation to the Archbishopric of Westminster, to
which the Pope appointed him, in anticipation of his present services,
against the will of the English Catholics and the election of the Bishops.
The Roman correspondent of the _Standard_ having published extracts from
Newman’s letter, he took occasion to come forward and say that he had no
wish to conceal that he “deeply deplored the policy, the spirit, the
measures of various persons lay and ecclesiastical, who are urging the
definition of that theological opinion” (of papal infallibility), while on
the other hand he has “a firm belief that a greater power than that of any
man or set of men will overrule the deliberations of the Council to the
determination of Catholic and Apostolic truth, and what its Fathers
eventually proclaim _with one voice_ will be the Word of God.”
No one knows better than Newman that, next to the Jesuits, two of his old
Oxford friends and disciples, Manning and Ward, are the chief authors of
the whole infallibilist agitation. Well for him that he does not live in
Manning’s diocese! In the English clerical journals, _e.g._, the _Weekly
Register_, the fact has lately several times come to light, that English
priests who utter a word against infallibility are promptly reduced to
silence by threats of suspension and deprivation. Every infallibilist, who
has the power, is also a terrorist, for he feels instinctively that free
and open discussion would be the death of his darling dogma. Under these
circumstances it is very significant that some of the English Bishops are
bold and honest enough to speak their minds plainly, to the effect that
the English Catholics had gained all their political rights on the
repeated assurance, and with the express condition, that the doctrine of
papal infallibility would not be taught and received in the English
Church, and that on that ground they have felt bound to repudiate this
opinion. The chief among these Bishops are Clifford, Bishop of Clifton,
and Archbishop Errington.(67)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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