Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/234

 214 beloved sons and the humblest of Bishops, who ventures, prostrate before your feet, to address a few words to your Holiness. I confess that I signed my name to the Appeal which was presented to you, most clement Father, by certain Oriental Bishops, entreating you with all humility and reverence not to yield to a request signed by the majority of Bishops that the Vatican Council should be directed to define the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. I signed my name to the Appeal, chiefly on the ground of the difficulties which such a decree of such a kind might create among schismatics if misunderstood and misinterpreted; also on the ground of the difficulty in reconciling with such a definition the facts about Pope Honorius. But I had no other ground of objection than these. I was not actuated by any other human or less honourable motive; nor by party spirit; nor, as certain ill-disposed persons have maliciously insinuated, and which God forbid, by any hostile or disrespectful sentiment either toward yourself, most Holy Father, or towards the Apostolic Roman See, which is the fortress of truth and of religion, the immortal centre of our glory. Nevertheless, considering that certain newspapers have most unreasonably inferred from this Appeal that the Orientals were hostile towards the Roman Pontiff and the Holy See; considering also that other newspapers have made it an opportunity for advancing and strengthening the so-called Gallican views, identifying us with them, whereas we have never really had anything in common; whereas, both as teacher in theology and as Bishop, I have always held and taught the belief that the judgment of the Sovereign Pontiff, speaking ex cathedra as universal doctor by the institution of Jesus Christ, and as head of the Immaculate Church, must be actually irreformable; having accordingly studied the subject more deeply and the consequences involved; having also made myself familiar with the replies to the exaggerated and blamable tracts of the priest Gratry, particularly the excellent and solid refutation recently composed by Father Ramière of the Society of Jesus; finally having