Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/343

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The public papers repeatedly announced Dr Döllinger's reconciliation with the Roman Communion. On one occasion he replied:—

Ten years after the Vatican Decision, Döllinger received a pathetic, imploring appeal from a lady of high social position, entreating him to rescue himself from the everlasting destruction which his exclusion would entail, and to have mercy on his own unhappy soul.

Döllinger's answer is memorable:—

"I am now in my eighty-first year, and was a public teacher of theology for forty-seven years, during which long period no censure, nor even a challenge that I should defend myself, or make a better explanation, has ever reached me from ecclesiastical dignitaries, either at home or abroad. I had never taught the new Articles of Faith advanced by Pius IX. and his Council. … Then came the fatal year, 1870. … It was in vain that I begged them to let me remain by the faith and confession to which I had hitherto been faithful without blame and without contradiction. Yesterday still orthodox, I was to-day a heretic worthy of excommunication; not because I had changed my