Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/166

154 jealously protect them from the breath of the world, whether in slander or in praise.

But next as to their conduct. When Pius the Ninth first announced his thought of holding an Œcumenical Council, he not only invited but laid upon his counsellors, whether in Rome or from other nations, the obligation to declare to him as before God whether it was opportune to hold a Council, and what it would be opportune for the Council to treat. Everybody was then either opportunist or non-opportunist, for the main question was "what is opportune? " The Council was not called together to register edicts; it was convened for the purpose of discussion. Discussion, among mortals, means divergence of minds, and two sides at least. When the schemata were laid before the Council, Pius the Ninth expressly told the bishops that they were not his work, and did not bear the stamp of his authority. They were put into the hands of the Council to examine, discuss, amend, reject, and even "bury," as one said, if found to need interment. The Council had a liberty of speech so great that a bishop of one of the freest countries of the world said: "Our Congress has not greater liberty of discussion than the Vatican Council." Why then should it be turned to the reproach of any bishop if he used the right which the whole Council possessed? The bishops opposed