Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/182

 162 said that he had refrained from a public defence, partly from reluctance to correct the assertions of his spiritual chief, partly because such defence would be open to misconstruction as prompted by personal ambition.

The Pope, who thoroughly appreciated the allusion in these last words, replied sympathetically; adding that he would not henceforth believe any accusation against the Archbishop. He also expressed his gratitude for the security which the Imperial protection afforded him.

2. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, was in the year 1868 at the height of his reputation. No warmer advocate of papal rights existed in France. In youthful fervour he had written a thesis on behalf of Infallibility, a theory, however, which he had long since abandoned in favour of the French traditional view. That which more than anything else had confirmed this reversion to history was the issue of the Syllabus of 1864, which was to his mind a republication of obsolete mediævalism, most unsuited to the requirements of modern thought. For Dupanloup was in keen sympathy with modern ideas; and this example of the possible exercise of unlimited authority discouraged and alarmed him, as indeed it did most of the leaders of the Church in France. With this disconcerting fact before their eyes, nothing could be further from their desires than to extend an authority already so imprudently exerted. Distrust of infallible pretensions, decided preference for the older Gallican theory, accordingly, widely prevailed.

Dupanloup had no suspicion that the Vatican Council would determine the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. He was able, so late as 1868, to write to the clergy of his diocese a glowing, re-assuring letter on the coming assembly. It is an affectionate pastoral utterance, whose logical cohesion must not be too closely inspected. He