Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/266

 246 assertions, Parliament admitted the English Catholics to civil liberty. How will Protestants believe that Catholics are loyal to their honour and good faith if they see them acquiring political advantage by professing that Papal Infallibility is no part of the Catholic religion, and afterwards, when those advantages are secured, departing from their public profession and asserting the contrary?

Bishop Purcell, an American Bishop, was of opinion that a definition of Papal Infallibility would be not only inopportune but also dangerous. It would, if passed, effectually frustrate conversions in the United States. Bishops in controversy with Protestants will be unable to refute them: for Protestants will say, "Hitherto this doctrine was, so you asserted, an optional opinion in the Church; now you declare it to be a dogma of the faith. Either therefore your former assertion was untrue, or the doctrine of the Church has suffered variation. In which case, what becomes of your objection to Protestant variations?"

Another Bishop, on the contrary, maintained that the definition was not only opportune, but also necessary, in order to deepen reverence for highest authority, and to suppress the systematic rebellion which is very widely spread. He desires that a Canon should be formulated to anathematise all who hold the opposite view.

Another Bishop declared that he could see no necessity for any definition. If there were, eighteen centuries would not have elapsed without one or other of the Councils defining it. Nor could he see the least utility. They who will not hear the Church certainly will not hear the Pope. In the present discussion now raging evil influences daily increase. There were many