Page:Pastoral letter of the first National Council of the United States - held in Baltimore in May, 1852 (IA PastoralLetter1852).pdf/7

Rh chosen, is the church built; to him, in the person of Peter, for whom Christ specially prayed, has it been given to confirm his brethren. As in the case of every other country where the Church has been established, our hierarchy has grown up under his fostering care; has developed itself, with his sanction and approval, in dignity and number; and its members, although spread over the wide extent which separates ocean from ocean, have, on the present occasion, joyfully obeyed his summons to assemble in National Council, under the presidency of a special representative of the Holy See in the person of the Most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore. We rejoice at the occasion of proclaiming our attachment to the centre of Catholic unity; and we exhort you, brethren, to cherish a love for the Holy See, in which is preserved an unbroken succession of Pastors from the time of Christ to the present day; which has condemned all the errors that men have sought to combine with the doctrines of revelation; and which ever watches over the integrity of faith and ever guards the purity of ecclesiastical discipline. Let us hope that the erroneous ideas entertained by so many of our fellow-citizens, of the nature of the power which we recognise in the Bishop of Rome, as successor of St. Peter, will be removed, and that this chief See, whence sacerdotal unity has derived its origin, may be acknowledged as the centre of ecclesiastical authority, the source of all that is grand and imposing in the extent, union and permanence of the Church. Let us pray that all who are separated from the Church may be brought to the knowledge of the truth; that the appalling extremes to which error is hurrying those who have cast off the authority appointed by Christ, may cause men to recognise a principle which alone can unite them in the one fold of the one shepherd. Let your united prayers ascend to the Father of mercies, who wishes all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth, that this most desirable end be attained, remembering that what is impossible to man may be rendered possible by the influence of Divine grace.

Among the causes which, in a few instances, and, principally in days now happily past, led to the forgetfulness of the extent which belongs to the authority that we exercise, must be reckoned the attempt to apply to the Catholic Church, in the