There is but space left to us to notice the deposing power, “the most familiar to Englishmen” of all the “burning questions.” And the best way to notice this question is to set before our readers the _ipsissima verba_ of Pius IX. on the subject (as far as a translation can pretend to supply them) from the famous speech to the Academia di Religione Cattolica on July 20, 1871. The Pope said: “But amid the variety of themes presented to you, one seems to me at present of great importance, and this is to repel the attacks by which they try to falsify the idea of the Pontifical Infallibility. Among other errors, that one is more than all others malicious which would attribute to it the right to depose sovereigns and release nations from the bond of fidelity. This right, without doubt, was sometimes in extreme circumstances exercised by pontiffs; but it has nothing to do with the Pontifical Infallibility. Nor is its source the infallibility, but the pontifical authority. The exercise, moreover, of this right, in those ages of faith which respected in the pope that which he is--namely, the Supreme Judge of Christianity--and recognized the advantages of his tribunal in the great contests of peoples and sovereigns, freely was extended (aided, also, as a duty, by the public right and by the common consent of the nations) to the gravest interests of states and of their rulers. But the present conditions are entirely different from those, and only malice can confound things so diverse--as, for instance, the infallible judgment concerning the principles of revelation--with the right which the popes exercised in virtue of their authority when the common good demanded it. As for the rest, they know it better than we, and every one can perceive the reason why they raise at present a confusion of ideas so absurd and bring upon the field hypotheses to which no one gives heed. They beg, that is, every pretext, even the most frivolous and the furthest from truth, provided it be suited to give us annoyance and to excite princes against the church. Some persons wished that I should explain and make more clear the conciliar definition. This I will not do. It is clear in itself, and has no need of further comments and explanations. Its true sense presents itself easily and obviously to whoever reads the decree with a dispassionate mind.”