Page:Rome and the Revolution - Manning.djvu/7

Rh creature with the Creator, and to mistake the Mother of Jesus for the infinite, eternal, incomprehensible, uncreated God? Here, again, then, we are in agreement. And, lastly, we are warned against 'addressing prayers to her as the Intercessor between God and man.' But here, once more, we have no difference. 'The Intercessor' here must mean, if it mean anything, 'the Intercessor of redemption.' The Catholic Church does not believe the Blessed Mother of God to be the Intercessor between God and man. She did not shed her blood for the redemption of the world. Against such a portent of heresy we protest even more intensely than the protesters. We are, therefore, in full accordance on this point also; unless it be meant that the Blessed Virgin is not an intercessor at all. If this be meant, these high authorities have need to look to their faith. And how far this denunciation of asking the prayers of the Blessed Mother of God will promote the union which the Anglican Church is so ardently seeking with the Churches of the East, it is not for me to say. I am afraid the Oriental Christians will not stay to analyse the proposition as we have done, hoping to make the best of it; but will take it as it sounds, and treat it promptly, with no favour. But, for ourselves, let us take the benefit of such rules of interpetration as are current in these days; and so interpreted, this solemn protest is altogether an innocent proclamation. I am not sure that I have attained its meaning or the intentions of its framers; but, like a nebula, half luminous, half obscure, it passes harmless over our heads, and the festival of the Holy Rosary will wipe it out of the sky.