Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/54

42 has ever so united the bishops with himself. Each of these three assemblies had a special significance. In 1854 the bishops assisted at the promulgation of a doctrine of faith by the sole authority of their head; in 1862 the bishops with an unanimous voice declared their belief that the temporal power or princedom of the Roman Pontiff is a dispensation of the providence of God, in order that the head of the Church may with independence and freedom exercise his spiritual primacy. In 1867, 500 bishops unanimously proclaimed their adhesion to the pontifical acts of Pius the Ninth, both in the teaching of truth and in the condemnation of errors—that is to say, to the syllabus then recently published, which is a compendium of the acts of Pius the Ninth in the many and important encyclicals and other letters of his pontificate promulgated before that date.

In these three assemblies at the Tomb of the Apostle and around the throne of his successor there was an explicit act of submission to his primacy, and a more than implicit confession of his infallibility.

2. It may be truly said that since the year 1854 the subject of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff had been more than ever before the mind of the episcopate. If Pius the Ninth did not bear an infallible office, what was the act of 1854? The bishops who assembled at the definition of the Immaculate Con-