Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/282

 262 no liberty. Is there," asks the writer, "any deliberative assembly in Europe or America similarly restricted? And yet the necessity of freedom is more imperative here than in any assembly in the world, considering the eternal interests here involved.

"The minority feel themselves still more crippled by the power of numbers. There exists a majority and a minority; unequal in numerical strength, but far more equal considering the Churches which they represent. The composition of this majority raises serious thoughts. The Council includes, besides diocesan Bishops, whose right alone is indisputable, Bishops with no diocese; Vicars Apostolic, dependent on Rome and removable at will; Cardinals who are not Bishops and some not even priests; superiors of religious Orders." According to the author, the proportion whose right of membership was uncertain amounted to 195. "Moreover the preponderance of Italian influence is shown in the fact that it is represented by 276 Bishops, while all the rest of Europe has only 265. A considerable proportion of Bishops are being maintained by the Pope, which increases the difficulties of real independence.

"If it be said that decision by majorities is the method of all deliberative assemblies, the answer is, that this is not true of a Universal Council of the Church; least of all can it be permissible with an Assembly so constituted as that of the Vatican. Creation of dogmas by such a method is impossible. It has never been done in the Church. And, accordingly, the protest of a hundred Bishops declares that moral unanimity alone can determine dogmatic questions. So serious they declare is this matter that unless their protest against the New Regulations be attended to, and that without delay, their consciences will be burdened with intolerable difficulties. A hundred Bishops say this. And they have secured no reply whatever. The perplexities resulting from this treatment may be well imagined. Certainly the function of an Episcopal minority in a Council is no sinecure. Some desired at once to withdraw altogether. Others, and these the more numerous,