Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/261

 ] or altogether unknown to the faithful. Were it decreed, many Catholics in this age of indifference would remain within the Church without believing it, to the grave detriment of Religion.

Bishop Hefele said that if the error of Gallicanism consisted in separating the Church from the Pope, the present proposal committed the converse error of separating the Pope from the Church. We Catholics can accept neither of these extreme positions. Moreover we have been told that the subject of Infallibility is the Church; we are now told that it is the Pope. But it is difficult to see how these two subjects can be united, unless the one renders the other superfluous, and indeed excludes it. The theory of Papal Infallibility seemed to him founded neither in Scripture nor in History. The letter of Leo to Flavian was not accepted by the fourth Ecumenical Council because it came from an infallible writer, but because it contained an apostolic doctrine; nor was it accepted until the doubts of certain Bishops had been removed.

Another Bishop declared that if such Infallibility were dogmatically defined, the result in his own diocese, where not a trace of Tradition upon the subject existed, would be grievous losses to the Church. Nor could he personally profess himself convinced of it.

Melchers, Archbishop of Cologne, was prepared to accept Papal Infallibility as his personal belief, but was unable to assent to its erection into a dogma; for he could see no necessity. The authority of the Holy See was never greater than in modern times. And it is neither customary nor expedient to impose new dogmatic decrees without necessity. The subject of Papal Infallibility in particular is a controverted subject. Many learned and orthodox persons considered its dogmatic definition impossible, owing to the serious