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Rh introduced this idea of obedience and submission. This obligation has existed time out of mind in the Catholic Church, and follows from the very nature of the Primacy. That, however, which was defined in the Vatican Council is another matter altogether, and it is this: that the doctrinal decisions of the Pope upon faith and morals, provided with all those notes which were prescribed in the well-weighed definition of the Council, are free from error. This definition of the Council has indeed its theoretical, as well as its practical side: the theoretical asserts that such doctrinal decisions of the Pope, made through God's assistance, are free from error; the practical side requires that every Catholic should, with a full conviction of their perfect and certain truth, devoutly accept them with that faith which belongs to truth revealed by God, and deposited in His Holy Church. I may spare myself the trouble of a longer exposition of this distinction which has its basis in theology, since the learned Bishop of Paderborn, Conrad Martin, has explained it so clearly and systematically in his work, The True Meaning of the Vatican Definition on the Infallible Teaching Office of the Pope (Paderborn, 1871).

An Augsburg reviewer takes objection to my expression: 'It is by no means an established fact amongst Catholic theologians, that the Syllabus with its eighty propositions belongs to those definitions of doctrine which are to be characterised as infallible;' and is of opinion that in saying this I show that the notes cannot be relied on, which I have given to make it plain how an utterance of the Pope may be