Page:Rome and the Revolution - Manning.djvu/6

Rh authoritative document, so formidable and hostile in expression, should contain, when analysed, nothing which any Catholic would hesitate to affirm. I do not say what was the intention of the framers, nor whether this interpretation be such as the Catholic Church would warrant. But let us hope the best. Certainly it is not the work of charity to exaggerate discrepancies, nor to elevate what can be swept away, into mountains of separation. The chief teachers of the Anglican Communion have protested against the 'pretension of universal sovereignty over God's heritage asserted for the See of Rome.' But who asserts this universal sovereignty? Primacy of honour and supremacy of jurisdiction over the universal Church, in virtue of the power of the keys given to Peter and his successors, is indeed a truth, for which all Catholics would lay down their lives. Sovereignty over the patrimony of St. Peter; this, too, we know and understand. But sovereignty over the universal Church, no council, pontiff, or theologian has ever claimed. Here, then, we are in accordance. Next, the protest denounces those who practically exalt 'the Blessed Virgin Mary as mediator in the place of her Divine Son.' To this also we say, if any man put the Mother of God in the place of her Divine Son, let him be anathema. The protest does not say that the Catholic Church, dogmatically or doctrinally, sets the Blessed Virgin in the place of her Son—thus far, at least, is gain—but that it practically does so. You can best answer this imagination. Is there one of you so unsound in mind, is there any little Catholic child so unintelligent, as to confound the