Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/97

 ] Torquemada, it appears, had such regard for papal freedom of will that he could not deny the possibility of its erroneous exercise, even in the discharge of the highest papal function. But while admitting that the Pope might err in an official utterance to the whole Church, he evaded the disastrous consequence to the doctrine of Infallibility by affirming that such a misuse of authority would constitute the Pope a heretic, and, as such, ipso facto, Pope no longer. Thus he secures the Papal Infallibility by maintaining the self-deposition of any Pope who teaches erroneously.

Schwane remarks acutely enough that Torquemada's defence of Papal Infallibility virtually places the supreme decision not in the Pope but in a General Council of the Church. For it manifestly tends to ascribe to General Councils the right to revise all papal dogmatic decrees, in order to ascertain whether they are heretical or not; whether they proceed from one who is really Pope, or from one who, having taught erroneously, is not Pope at all.

To avoid these dangerous tendencies Torquemada, according to Schwane, ought to have denied the possibility of the Pope's misuse of free will in his ex cathedra pronouncements; and this on the ground that the promises of Christ cannot fail to secure their own fulfilment, and must accordingly override the metaphysical possibility of mistake. This theory of the unconditional character of Christ's promises, of the almost mechanical necessity of their realisation, irrespective of the human will and human compliance, constantly meets us in recent Ultramontane developments. Torquemada, however, knew nothing about all this, or did not see his way to accept such theories. There remain, therefore, grave discrepancies, according to recent Roman writers, between this papal theologian