he punished the contemner of the Syllabus.(100) Yet in spite of all this, he is a member of the Opposition, and the majority believe it would probably soon melt away, if the Pope could resolve on adopting this policy. Moreover their leaders speak as though the Opposition had already incurred censures. They expect to make short work with the German Bishops who signed the Fulda Pastoral. In that document it is said, “The Holy Father is accused of acting under the influence of a party, and desiring to use the Council simply as a means of unduly exalting the power of the Apostolic See, changing the ancient and genuine constitution of the Church, and setting up a spiritual domination incompatible with Christian liberty. Men do not scruple to apply party names to the head of the Church and to the Episcopate, which hitherto we have been accustomed to hear only from the lips of professed enemies of the Church. And they plainly avow their suspicion that the Bishops will not be allowed full freedom of deliberation, and will themselves be deficient in the knowledge and straightforwardness requisite for the discharge of their duties in Council. And they accordingly call in question the validity of the Council and its decrees.” Here in Rome the Bishops have to listen to these and similar observations _usque ad nauseam_, which their adversaries use only to remind them of this Pastoral. While denying before the world that the definition of infallibility was the object of the Council, or was intended at all by the holy Father, they at the same time wrote to Rome to deprecate it, being perfectly well acquainted with the designs of the _Curia_, and corresponded with friendly prelates on the means of averting it. And thus the other party may now say to them, “You acknowledge yourselves that the unity and strength of the Church is to be preferred to strict veracity, and that in so sacred a cause some measure of deception is allowable. Don’t choose then to be better than your neighbours. You have already abandoned the ground of objective truth, and you may as well come over to us altogether.” But the chief means of breaking the Opposition consists in the Pope’s making the Bishops feel the full weight of his authority and compromising himself yet more deeply. The _Curia_ has succeeded in setting aside the attempted intervention of the Governments, and the battle will have to be fought out, as is fitting, by the Bishops themselves. In the mind of the majority it is already over; the Deputation has issued a reply to the objections of the minority, which deserves the most careful attention of the theological world. It contains a flat denial of the force of historical evidence, and closes with a repudiation of the necessity of moral unanimity.(101) This points out the road which the loyal Bishops of the Opposition must follow.