Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/93

Rh voice in the letter of Pope Agatho. In this they acknowledged that which Leo and Agatho had already promulgated, by their prerogative of supreme and universal teachers, to be the Catholic Faith. It was thus also that the Fathers of Trent defined the doctrine of original sin; which, till then, had rested upon the infallible declarations of S. Innocent I. It was thus they declared the Canon of the sacred books, which till then had rested upon the authority of S. Gelasius; and also condemned the errors of the so-called Reformers, already condemned by Leo the Tenth.

The future General Council, then, whensoever it be convened, will not turn back upon any of the acts of the Church or of its head; which already, in virtue of the Divine assistance, are, as it is called, irreformable and infallible. Its office will be of another kind, bearing upon the present and the future relations of the Church to the world.

If it be asked, then, what need is there of a General Council? it may be answered at once that the state of the whole Christian society of the world is such that no other remedy is proportioned to its need.

For three hundred years, perpetual changes have been working; a series of revolutions has swept away the old usages of the Christian world; an accumulation of errors and of evils, intellectual and moral, has gathered in every country.

Bellarmin enumerates six causes for which General Councils are usefully convened. The last is exactly in point:—'The sixth cause is the general reformation