Appendix
I. In “The Key to the Building,” p. 3: As to citation (concerning truth) from St. Augustine. The rendering is that given in the English translation of the Commentary of Cornelius À Lapide, edited by Mr. Mossman. It brings out the sense well. The original passage is regarded as an excerpt by St. Prosper of Aquitaine from St. Augustine’s Treatise De Verâ Religione, cap. xxxi., n. 57. St. Prosper slightly alters the first sentence: …
“Prosperi Acquitani Quæstiones ex Augustino delibutæ” (Migne, Patrol. S. Aug. oper., tom. x., col. 1896, n. 388 not. 386).
II. Ibid., pp. 5 and 6: To the questions asked about the meaning of the word “truth,” as spoken by our Lord in the Prætorium of Pilate, may be added what has been asked recently and not inappropriately: Was this truth an entity which would never be perfect as a whole until there had been mixed up with it, or superadded to it, certain results of scientific research? Was it a body of doctrine which the teaching ministry in His Church would not be able to understand fully without the help of enlightened and scientific members of the laity? Was it something which He knew neither hierarchy nor laity could grasp thoroughly and express accurately until eighteen or nineteen hundred years after His Ascension, when natural science and critical research had reached a certain height? And was it His will that, when that perfection of worldly knowledge had been attained, the human mind, thus elevated and illuminated, would be able of itself to reach truth of even a higher level than that which He came to announce: that then His revelation which He had called “truth” would become obsolete, die and disappear from the sphere of practical religion? And further: was it His will that certain doctrinal truths, solemnly defined by His Church in General Councils, should come to have an entirely different meaning some centuries later?
III. Chapter ii., p. 22: Allusion to argument “from Design”. … The argument from “Causality” has doubtless more weight with the philosophical and the highly educated; but we think it is conceded the one from Design comes home more directly to the intelligence of the masses.
IV. Chapter v., p. 41: The argument given in italics applies with equal directness to those who speak and act, as if Christ designed a Church which was to have different sacraments, different organisations, and even different doctrine, to suit the different tastes and temperaments of different nationalities.
V. Chapter vii., p. 82: As to the words: “Would it not be a kind of blasphemy,” etc., the meaning is, that it would be equivalent to blasphemy to assert what is there referred to.
Alleged Failures of Infallibility
It was not thought necessary or expedient to introduce this matter into this chapter, (vii.), as it did not come directly within its scope. Nor is it intended to treat it at length now. It would be rather out of place to do so in an appendix. We shall merely make a brief allusion to it, by way of disabusing and putting on their guard readers, who may have been misled by calumnies and studied misrepresentations, such as those given to the public by men of Dr. Littledale’s tendency, i.e., readers who may have seen the misrepresentations alluded to, but may not have seen the full and conclusive refutations of them which have been written by eminent Catholic theologians.
History itself has superabundantly refuted the supposed cases of lapsed infallibility. In this connection there has been what may be called, in a certain sense, a happy irony of fate. In the seventeenth century it was alleged that at least forty Popes had taught heresy ex cathedra. And it was asserted with boisterous confidence that progress in the study of history would show that the number of lapsed Infallibles was far beyond that figure.
What is the state of the case at present? Libraries have been ransacked, all the histories available have been consulted; and the result has been the very reverse of what the enemies of the Church desired and anticipated. Historical research has reduced the cases of alleged failures from forty to practically three—i.e., that of Liberius, that of Honorius, and the case in connection with Galileo. And not one of these three supposed failures can stand the test of honest investigation; they fall to pieces in analysis.
1. Liberius: There is not a shred of evidence to show that Liberius, in his capacity of Supreme Teacher of the Universal Church, taught heresy. It would be easy to prove this, if an appendix were the place for it. But perhaps the argument which is likely to have most weight with the bulk of non-Catholics, is the admission which was made by eminent Anglican writers a few years ago. … The distinguished authors of the English Church Defence Tracts, who wrote after and upon the Vatican Council of 1870, allow (speaking of Liberius) that the case of Pope Liberius cannot be “fairly described as presenting a fatal difficulty to Roman Catholics, if the decree” (Vatican) “be strictly construed. Liberius was not, in the sense of the Vatican Council, speaking ex cathedra.” To this may be added the words of Mr. Mallock, a well-known Anglican author, who seems to have studied the question of infallibility much more deeply than the majority of his co-religionists. In his very popular and widely-read book, Is Life Worth Living, he says: “The claim to infallibility is one, as we shall see when we understand its nature, that no study of ecclesiastical history can invalidate now, or can even promise to invalidate.” (Chap. xii.).
2. Honorius: The charge against Honorius may be disposed of with similar brevity.
(1) The famous letters, about which there has been so much noise, contained no heresy. (2) Even if they had, the fact would be no argument against the doctrine of infallibility, since he distinctly declared he was not putting forward a dogmatic definition of faith. (3) As a matter of fact, what he wrote was genuinely orthodox in the sense in which he wrote it. (4) True, he was censured in a subsequent Council; but why? Not on the ground that he had taught heresy, but on the ground that he had neglected to condemn and suppress it. He was blamed for having been silent when he ought to have spoken, not for having defined false doctrines. That is, he was blamed precisely for not exercising his prerogative of Infallibility, for negligence in the discharge of his duty as Supreme Pontiff, for being too credulous in believing the hypocritical representations of the cunning heretic, Sergius, and for a want of energy by which the Faith was endangered through the wiles of that archdeceiver.
The circumstances of the case called for a definition: he neglected to give it, and he was censured for the omission. His fault was a moral, not a doctrinal one; and has nothing whatever to do with the question of infallibility.
3. Galileo: It is only to those who do not understand the class of official Pontifical utterances, for which the Church claims infallibility, that the case of Galileo can present any difficulty. The shortest answer to the objection is: There are two documents which bear on his condemnation—one is the decree of the Index, March, 1616; the other, that of the Holy Office seventeen years later. Both decisions were disciplinary, not dogmatic. Both emanated from Roman Congregations, whose decisions are not claimed by the Church to be infallible. Neither of the two was ever confirmed by the Pope modo speciali. And therefore neither compromises in any sense his prerogative of infallible teacher.
This view of the case (the only true one) is well expressed in the Encyclopædia Britannica; it says: “This edict, it is essential to observe, of which the responsibility rests with a disciplinary congregation, was never confirmed by the Pope and was virtually repealed in 1757, under Benedict XIV.”
It would be easy to quote numbers of distinguished and learned non-Catholic writers who freely concede that these cases militate in no way against the doctrine of infallibility, in the sphere within which the Church of Rome maintains it.
Neither was it thought relevant to introduce into chapter vii. the objection that infallibility interferes with individual or intellectual liberty. … Dr. De Costa, formerly an eminent Episcopalian divine (in America), answers that objection briefly, yet so adequately, as to leave nothing to be desired. His words are:—
“Infallibility and Liberty”
“It is time for candid non-Catholics to address themselves to the subject of infallibility, and learn that the notion that it interferes with individual liberty is as true as that the mariner’s compass renders the sailor an abject slave. Without instruments and guidance the sailor would be as free as the ancient Sidonian in his ivoried galley with purple sails, without even an astrolabe to take the height of the polar star, dead-reckoning and guessing his way, gazing with strained, uncertain eye over pathless sea and perilous shore. The freedom that the devout Catholic loses is the freedom to lose his way in storm and night and fog.”
Dr. De Costa was received into the Catholic Church a little more than a year ago. In the statement of his reasons for becoming a Catholic he spoke the above words. Quoted from The New York Freeman’s Journal, 9th December, 1899.
