Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/267

 ] facts of history better buried in oblivion, which this discussion proclaims abroad. So much for the opportuneness of the dogma. What if the doctrine itself be without secure foundation? Quite recently the Bishop had vowed never to interpret Holy Scripture except in accordance with the unanimous consent of the Fathers. Now, previously to the Council, he had always interpreted the text "I have prayed for thee" in the sense of Papal Infallibility. But having begun to examine for himself, for the purposes of the Council, he finds that nearly all the extracts from the earlier Fathers given in theological manuals in behalf of Infallibility (as in the works of St Alphonso, Perrone, and others) are either inaccurate, or derived from forgeries. What the extracts from the early Fathers prove is primacy. They do not prove Infallibility.

Conciliar definitions, says another Bishop, ought not to be imposed by superior numerical force, but by intellectual persuasion. In the Council of Trent so great was the deference accorded to the minority that a decision was postponed for several years because thirty-seven of the Fathers declined to concur with the opinion of the majority.

Another Bishop affirmed that in his view a definition of Infallibility would be the suicide of the Church. Quite recently, certain Anglicans, who six months ago came over to Catholic unity, returned at once to Anglicanism, on reading the Archbishop of Westminster's imprudent Pastoral.

Bishop Kenrick made a very lengthy and elaborate protest. He appealed to Augustine's defence of Cyprian's opposition to Pope Stephen. Augustine manifestly was ignorant of pontifical Infallibility, otherwise he could not possibly have argued as he did. The oft-quoted phrase, "Peter has spoken by Leo,"