Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/310

 290 endeavour to reconcile Catholics to the new Decree by extenuating the greatness of the change. Bishop Ullathorne informed his people that "the Pope always wielded this Infallibility, and all men knew this to be the fact. What practical change, then, has the definition made?" Yet the same writer could urge that the character of the age, and the opposition within the Church, "rendered it all the more important that the Pope should be armed with that full strength." It was then a great practical change. And this is what many Romans felt. There was something naïve in the simplicity with which Ullathorne wrote: "The Infallibility leaves all things as before, excepting that now it is a term of communion." Leaves all things as before! except that formerly men could disbelieve it and openly deny it, while now it is a term of communion, and to disbelieve is to be cast out. Ullathorne clearly found it beyond his power to give any satisfaction to the intelligence of his people. It amounted to a demand of blind assent to the hitherto discredited.

It remains to trace the attitude of the minority toward the new Decree. As a whole they give the impression of having been crushed, almost stunned. The dreamlike rapidity of the movements during these last six months; the sudden forcible erection of a hitherto controvertible and controverted opinion into an essential element of the Eternal Faith; the consequent intellectual and moral reversions demanded of them, left them in a state of complete disorganisation and confusion. Their collective inability in Rome to resist in the final Public Session; their opinion that such resistance would be incompatible with the respect due to the papal office, form conclusive evidence beforehand of their inability