Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/327

 ] perhaps above any man then living, in the Councils of the Church, was held in high reputation for his history of the Councils, which is still the best modern authority on the subject. He was well known as the reverse of ultramontane. Twelve years before the Vatican Council assembled he stated the facts about Pope Honorius in such a manner as to show that history absolutely forbade the ascription to a Pope of the attribute of Infallibility.

Being consecrated Bishop at the end of 1869 he had a place in the Vatican Assembly, where he was most active in opposition. Just in the critical hour of the Infallibility debate he published (in April, 1870) at Naples, since Papal regulations prevented its publication in Rome, a forcible pamphlet on the case of Pope Honorius, and his treatment by the Sixth General Council. Hefele now declared that Honorius "set aside the distinctively orthodox technical term for the two wills, human and Divine, in Christ; sanctioned the distinctively technical term of the Monothelite heresy; and commended this double error to the acceptance of the faithful." Further, he maintained that the sixth Ecumenical Council had claimed the right to pass judgment on this authoritative Papal decision, and to pass anathema upon the Pope as a teacher of heresy. Finally, he maintained that from the fifth to the eleventh century each Pope in his consecration oath had made a declaration which involved two things: first, that a Council can condemn a Pope for heresy, and secondly, that Honorius was rightly so condemned for having supported an error by his decree on faith.

This emphatic rejection of Infallibility was circulated among the members of the Council in Rome, with intention to prevent the doctrine from being decreed.

Hefele also wrote from Rome to Dllinger, com-