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)
On the other hand the genuine Catholic, who wishes also to be a good
Christian, cannot separate love for his Church from the love of goodness
and truth. He shrinks from lies in history as much as from present
adulation, and is divided by a deep moral gulf from those who deliberately
seek to defend the Church by sin and religious truth by historical
falsehood. This contrast is most conspicuously exhibited in the question
of infallibility, as one example may suffice to prove. The principles of
the Inquisition have been most solemnly proclaimed and sanctioned by the
Popes. Whoever maintains papal infallibility must deny certain radical
principles of Christian morality, and not merely excuse but accept as true
the opposite views of the Popes. Thus the Roman element excludes the
Catholic and Christian. Such differences obviously cut deep into men’s
ethical character, and divide them far more decisively than any striving
for common practical ends or community of interest and feeling can unite
them on the ground of prudence. In presence of so profound an internal
division the question of the opportuneness of the definition of
infallibility assumes a very subordinate place, and the mere inopportunist
is immeasurably removed from the decided opponent of the dogma. Between
Bishops who consider Popes fallible and those whose conscience is easy
enough to swallow certain doctrines of former Popes on faith and morals,
and who do not see any deadly peril for souls in giving a higher sanction
to these dogmas—between anti-infallibilists and mere inopportunists—the
difference is far deeper than the union. The inopportunists stand nearer
to the infallibilists than to those who oppose the dogma on principle.
They are divided from the one party on a mere question of prudence, from
the other on a question of faith and morality; with the one they are
united by an internal bond, with the other by an external bond, only which
circumstances may dissolve.
This is the true explanation of the halting policy so often observed in
the Opposition. The honest opponents of infallibility wished to secure the
support of those who do not properly speaking share their sentiments. But
they should never for a moment have forgotten that they have to attack
what Gratry has rightly described as an “école de mensonge.” And the
greatest honesty and outspokenness is necessary for defending the honour
and truth of Catholicism against that school. Instead of that they exhibit
themselves in a false light and obscure the situation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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