Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/195

 ] he never entered in so many words on the theological question."

"If Dupanloup says that he does not discuss Infallibility but opportuneness," observes a shrewd critic writing against him from Rome, "yet two-thirds of the letter are directed against Infallibility itself; for if the errors ascribed to the Popes were historic, such a definition would not only be inopportune but false."

Why, then, it will be asked, did Dupanloup conduct his antagonism on the basis of opportuneness rather than on that of truth? It was simply because the opponents of Papal Infallibility, the German Episcopate in particular, refused to commit themselves unanimously to the latter position. They knew, of course, that they were greatly in the minority, and they believed that they could secure a numerical strength on the basis of opportuneness, which they could not expect on that of explicit rejection. And in the first instance their impression was correct. The position served its purpose for several months. It drew adherents to the opposition. "It provided waverers with a comparatively innocent method of resistance." It left an easy loophole for escape in case the pressure at Rome became too strong. It gave its advocates immunity from graver accusations, to which they would be liable if the doctrine were decreed. It would be safer afterwards to be able to plead, "I did not assert its falsity, I only thought it inopportune."

But however much the plea of the inopportune might increase at the beginning the party's numerical strength, it involved it ultimately and fundamentally in the most incurable weakness. The plea of inoppor-