Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/345

 ] Döllinger sent a frank but decided reply. Return was impossible. He said that his excommunication had been unjust, his treatment unexampled in the history of the Church. The mediæval theory of excommunication rendered the individual liable to bodily harm, It would appear that this theory was not obsolete; for the chief of the police had warned him to be on his guard, as they had knowledge that an act of violence was plotted against him. Friedrich says elsewhere that the house in which he and Döllinger lived, was specially protected by the police for a year after the excommunication. These dangers, said Döllinger, were long since past. But he could not enter again into relationship with the authors of these actions. He had long ago challenged his former colleagues to know how they reconciled acceptance of the Vatican expositions with their conscience and their knowledge of the facts:—

This was Döllinger's final attitude toward the Roman Communion up to the last moment of consciousness on earth. He never by any act of will deviated from testimony to the Church's traditional Faith, in which the theory of Papal Infallibility was not included. To the end of his days he held that this theory could not possibly be reconciled with the broad facts of Christian history.