Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/328

 308 plaining that the majority interfered with the minority's freedom of speech; that the Pope's personal interventions and criticisms on the minority made their independent action exceedingly difficult; that these experiences were diminishing the courage, if not the numbers, of the opposition; that it was difficult to know what movement to take when a halter was round your neck; that hardly anybody dared openly to say what their ultimate intentions were; that the majority meanwhile confidently assured them that the Pope would settle everything, and that then the alternative would be submission or excommunication.

On the 13th of July Hefele voted in the negative. On the 17th he signed the protest and then returned to his diocese without waiting for the Public Session. In a letter to Döllinger he attempted to justify this. He said that from the number of negative votes on the 13th of July he had hoped that many Bishops would remain for a final protest in the Public Session of the 18th. But in the general exodus this hope evaporated. He acknowledged that the written protest sent to the Pope was weak, because destitute of formal validity. It could not possibly avert the public definition of the Decree. As for himself he feels that his duty is clear. He has been in consultation with his Chapter and his Theological Faculty. He cannot accept the new dogma, as it stands, without the necessary limitations. He knows that Rome may suspend him, and excommunicate him. Meantime he has been urging upon another Bishop that disbelief in the Council's validity is not heretical. His own line consists in quiescence, so long as Rome does not actively intervene. What else to do he does not know in the least. At any rate to hold as Divinely revealed what is not true is for him simply impossible (September 1870). He can no more conceal