Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/327

Rh not far to seek. The writer proceeds to assign the cause, and in so doing passes at once, with a gravity befitting the occasion, to a disquisition on Sir William Hamilton's theory of perception, and on 'the gigantic gooseberry.'

Such is the earnestness and the sincerity with which English journals, even of high repute, have treated the subject of the Œcumenical Council.

Let me, also, assign the cause why the un-Catholic and anti-Catholic world took so clamorous an interest in the opening of the Council, and in the end affected so ill-sustained a tone of indifference. I know of no public event in our day the explanation of which is more transparent and self-evident. It is this.

When the Council assembled, it was both hoped and believed that the 'Roman Curia' and the 'Ultramontane party' would be checked and brought under by the decisions of the Bishops. A controversy had been waged against what was termed 'Ultramontanism,' or 'Ultra-Catholicism,' or 'Ultra-Romanism,' in Germany, France, and England. When I last addressed you I used the following words, which I now repeat, because I can find none more exact. They have been fulfilled to the very letter.

'Facts like these give a certain warrant to the assertions and prophecies of politicians and Protestants. They prove that in the Catholic Church there is a school at variance with the doctrinal teaching of the Holy See in matters which are not of faith. But they do not reveal how small that school is. Its centre would seem to be at Munich; it has, both in France and in England, a small number of adherents. They