Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/135

 ] acter. It therefore remains unaccounted for that a fundamental of the Christian Faith should be described as a Protestant invention, and such description sanctioned by Catholic Bishops, and tolerated by Rome.

It is really incredible that a critically or historically trained intellect could venture on so daring and unhistoric a parallel. Such uncritical defence not only fails to secure its design, but suggests an insecurity in the Church's belief in the Divinity of her Lord. Such defence is necessitated by the school which is constrained to condemn what it previously taught, and to teach what it once condemned; but the necessity for such defence betrays the character of the doctrine which requires it.

The historical evidence, which might be considerably increased, shows that English Romanists in general did not hold Papal Infallibility even as a private opinion; that, on the contrary, they maintained principles by which that opinion is excluded; that they believed in the Infallibility of the Church, but placed that Infallibility in the Collective Episcopate whether assembled or dispersed.

7. Even in the great College of Maynooth itself an Irish Roman Catholic Professor could publish as late as 1861 such words as these:—

"That the Universal Church is infallible in its belief and profession of faith, that the body of pastors is infallible in teaching, are two dogmas of Catholic faith. That the Infallibility of the Chief Pontiff is a revealed truth, and therefore definable, as of Catholic faith, is to me personally perfectly clear. Nevertheless, since it belongs to the Church alone to determine what is essential to belief, and since that dogma has never yet been in that manner proposed to be believed, they who genuinely hold the contrary are by no means or only