Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/280

 260 the intense strain on the feelings of the minority than the fire and passion in this utterance of one of the coldest of their number.

The Archbishop's warning produced no practical effect.

A French pamphlet, entitled "The Freedom of the Council and Infallibility," said to be the work of the Archbishop of Paris, gives an extremely powerful description of the situation in Rome, from the minority standpoint, on the 1st of June. Only fifty copies were printed, and it was intended exclusively for circulation among the Cardinals.

"Wide-spread complaints exist," says the writer, "that the Council is not free. This is momentous, for it affects its ecumenicity. Some indeed assure us that all is well since the Pope is free. This is not the Catholic conviction, and will only satisfy one side. It is useless to bid us observe a respectful silence. The integrity of history must be secured against party spirit. Moreover we have now reached the second period of the Council's activities.

"From the very beginning Papal Infallibility has been the main affair. To-day it has become the only interest. The time for concealment is past. The Council has only been assembled for this end. And now the Pope has postponed all other considerations and proceeds to throw this doctrine suddenly and irregularly into their midst. This is an amazing act of sovereign authority, a sort of coup d'etat. Nevertheless, it has been throughout the aim, although the secret aim, of the Assembly at the Vatican. The majority declares the doctrine to be urgently necessary. But why this urgency? A question which without peril to the Church has waited eighteen hundred years might possibly still afford to wait, at least for months. Precipitation,