Page:True and False Infallibility of Popes.pdf/183

12 this definition can have, it would be very difficult to say.

To return back on this narrative to the unsound German professors and their disciples; no sooner did the Pope convoke the General Council than they took alarm. Whatever good was hoped from it by all stanch Catholics, who received its announcement with joy, these lax professors felt that it boded no good to their designs. When the Pope invited the Bishops to send theologians and canonists to Rome, inviting some men distinguished for learning and prudence from various parts of the world himself, that they might give their assistance in preparing drafts of decrees for the corning Council, it is a well-known fact that certain men of this party, one especially whom we need not here name, were bitterly disappointed at their being overlooked.

In the month of March 1869, nine months before the Council met, the party of whom I speak opened fire upon the coming Council in the Augsburg Gazette, They proclaimed to the world that it was the work of the Jesuits; that the Syllabus was to be made a dogmatic decree; that the Infallibility was to be carried by a trick, a surprise, a sudden call for its acclamation by the Fathers; that the rights of the Catholic civil powers in the Council were to be set aside—the fact being that the Catholic powers declared it to be their intention to watch the proceedings, but to abstain from interfering. It was proclaimed in a voice from Styria that 'the efforts of the Council were declaring war against civilization;' and the organ of the party especially devoted itself to the protection of State