Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/11

Rh Accordingly the following pages are written under a strong sense that the material is ample, that the history of the minority has never yet for English people been fully told, and with a desire to supply the omission.

It should be added that the adverse criticisms herein repeated are almost entirely derived from Roman Catholic sources, and are, as far as possible, given in the actual words. Protestant criticism has been systematically excluded. The object being simply to describe how the doctrine of Pontifical Infallibility appeared; what difficulties, intellectual, historic, and moral, it created; what fierce and desperate strife its increasing ascendency awakened; how, and with what results, moral and intellectual, it was finally regarded, not by the outer world, nor by other religious communions, but by clergy and laity within the limits of the Roman Catholic Church.

Since these pages have passed through the press, Turmel's Histoire du Dogme de la Papauté has been placed upon the Roman Index of prohibited books (5th July 1909). It is therefore among that lengthy list of modern writings which no member of the Roman Obedience may "dare to read or retain." The interests of edification are conceived by Authority as incompatible with those of historical research. Such procedure deprives the historian of that freedom to report results without which history cannot be written.

The author desires to express his deep indebtedness to the kindness of the Reverend Darwell Stone, Librarian of the Pusey House, who has read through the proof sheets of this book. He is of course in no