Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/259

 ] heretical world would rejoice. Various local synods, moreover, had already passed resolutions for Papal Infallibility.

Petitions were also issued on the other side. Copies of a circular had reached them requesting the definition of Papal Infallibility. Accordingly they are constrained to address the Pope. This is not a time in which the rights of the Apostolic See are questioned by Catholics, and it is undesirable to add to the doctrines of the Council of Trent. The difficulties which the writings of the Fathers, and the genuine documents and facts of history suggest to many minds, on the subject of Infallibility, preclude the definition of this doctrine as a truth divinely revealed, until the difficulties have been removed. They implore the Pope not to impose such discussions upon them.

This was in January. Nothing was immediately done. But on the 6th of March a notice was sent to the members individually, informing them that, in response to the appeal of many Bishops, the Pope had consented to the introduction of Papal Infallibility into the Council. They were accordingly requested to send in their written remarks within ten days.

Accordingly written criticisms were sent in to the Commission on Faith. And it is to this fact that we owe a large portion of our knowledge of the actual argument employed by Infallibilists by the minority in the Council. For their criticisms were condensed and printed for distribution among the members, and copies of this have survived the Council. This is all the more important since the proceedings of the Council were nominally secret, and no official report of the speeches was ever given to the world, and the actual minutes are buried in the Vatican archives. A Jesuit