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102 this grave difficulty. Suppose the bishops not to be unanimous, what course should then be taken? Suppose again that they were unanimous in declaring the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff to be a revealed doctrine, would they not, in the very act of defining the dogma, seem to profess that there is no authority in defining the faith inherent in the Episcopate?

V. Such a definition would not only be of doubtful utility. It would probably hinder the hope of reuniting the Eastern Churches to the Holy See, for the Greeks and Orientals recoil from every new word. It is well known what serious and endless controversies the single phrase "Filioque" has stirred up. For which reason, in the profession of faith enjoined by Gregory the Thirteenth for the Greeks, and by Urban the Eighth and Benedict the Fourteenth for the other Orientals, the very words of the Florentine decree, without any change or addition, were retained.

VI. Such a definition might retard also the return, which we so much desire, of Protestants to the unity of the Church, inasmuch as the new dogma would excite and increase in large numbers a prejudice against the Catholic Church, and especially against the Roman Pontiff, thereby rendering it more difficult for them to understand and to embrace the faith by raising a suspicion that the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility is a novelty unknown in earlier ages.

VII. This question might possibly raise divergencies among the bishops, who now are of one mind and heart in their reverence and obedience to the Holy See; a result which would be most disastrous.

VIII. The defining of the Pope's infallibility might also cause doubts, or, what is worse, dissensions among Catholics who are otherwise sound, and willingly submissive, from conviction, to the authority of the Church; and that because certain historical facts and documents are not as yet sufficiently explained, so that in many countries the minds of men are not yet prepared for such a definition.

IX. Such a new decree would be no remedy for the perversity of the few persons who reject the decisions of the Supreme