Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/64

52 of the Immaculate Conception, the encyclical, and the syllabus were the most prominent and the most recent. We see, then, half the episcopate of the Church proclaiming that from the moment that the voice of Pius the Ninth reached them, all the declarations and condemnations of the successor of Peter were to them, not necessarily in all things matters of faith because the greater part of the syllabus is in matters not revealed, but the rule of their teaching. With what consistency or sincerity could this be said of any teacher for whose declarations and condemnations there was no special guidance and guarantee? Without doubt these words did not explicitly declare the Roman Pontiff to be infallible, but half the episcopate of the Church would be not unreasonably accused of great temerity in their language if they had not believed the head of the Church to be in some special way guarded from error in his teaching.

7. The address from which this passage is taken was prepared as follows. Nothing can more clearly show how consciously present to the mind of the bishops at that time was the infallibility of their head. A general meeting of bishops was convened at the Altieri Palace, to draw up an address in reply to the allocution of the Holy Father. Bishops of every nation were present, and it was found impossible to frame any document in so