Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/110

98 subject of the infallibility of the head of the Church should be added to complete the doctrine, which would otherwise remain in an unfinished state. We have already seen that the Commission of Direction, when it came to this point in preparing the schemata, suspended its work, and left the subject incomplete. The work, therefore, was to be begun over again, for no complete preparation existed.

The legitimate or constitutional course open, to the bishops who desired that the doctrine of the infallibility should be introduced, was to present a petition to the Commission of Postulates or Propositions, asking that a chapter on the subject of infallibility should be added to the schema. It was necessary, therefore, to frame such a petition and to obtain the signatures of any members of the Council who desired the addition to be made.

While these things were being done, the bishops who thought the discussion of the infallibility would be, as they said, inopportune, were not inactive. About a hundred bishops signed a petition asking that the subject of the infallibility should not be laid before the Council.

And here it is a duty of justice to those who signed either of these two petitions that we should review the reasons for which some thought it inopportune that any such definition should be made,