Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/370

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The Infallibility of the Pope is no mere isolated dogma, separable from a system without detriment to the remainder: it is the final conclusion and crown of a theory of absolute authority; the completion of a whole process of centralisation of power in the hands and control of a monarchy. It is significant to note that the three theories which assign Infallibility to the Church, to the Episcopate, to the Pope, are respectively democratic, aristocratic, monarchical. The Roman instinct, the Imperial tendency, has shown itself in grasping, with an undeniable tenacity and grandeur of conception, the monarchical view. The whole drift of Roman development for centuries had been towards centralisation. Power after power became gradually appropriated and placed under the exclusive control of the central rule. Often this was done with the full consent, even at the instigation of the ruled. It was at times prompted by their loyalty and devotion. At other times it was reluctantly yielded to an authority which men had not the power to resist. Out of all this accumulation of prerogatives a speculative theory of primacy naturally grew. Texts were quoted in defence, but they are not really the basis: nor is it possible by any rigorous interpretation to derive the theory out of them. No mind which was a stranger to the historic Roman evolution could arrive at the Ultramontane conclusions. We may take exposition of the giving of the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven as an example. And we quote it more especially because Hurter's compendium is the seminarist's guide par excellence. In its theories thousands of the Roman priesthood have been, and are being trained. The keys of the kingdom,