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the attitude of the Roman Catholics is concerned, they ought to seek and obtain an authoritative statement of that which their Church requires. But while this may be a very excellent and prudent course for them to take as members of the Church of Rome, they cannot expect that Protestants will submit their claims or position to the tribunal he suggests,—the Roman Pontiff,—at the moment when in the Province of Quebec, we see the interpretation put upon the Syllabus and Vatican Decrees by the Hierarchy. "Ultramontane" writes apparently under the impression that the Bishop of Montreal is the only prelate who has taken up an extreme position, whereas, in point of fact, the difficulty would be to find one who had not. It is true, Mgr. Bourget is the most outspoken, but his opinions are equally acted upon by other Bishops, and have in no respect been condemned by the Archbishop or Council of Bishops.
At the fifth Provincial Council of the Hierarchy, held at Quebec in 1873 (approved by the Pope in Sep-
I do not see my way to accept it for what it is not. I do not speak as if I had any difficulty in recognizing and condemning the Errors which it catalogues, did the Pope himself bid me; but he has not as yet done so, and he cannot delegate his Magisterium to another. I wish with St. Jerome to "speak with the Successor of the Fisherman and the Disciple of the Cross." I assent to that which the Pope propounds in faith and morals, but it must be he speaking officially, personally and immediately, and not any one else who has a hold over me. The Syllabus is not an official act, because it is not signed, for instance, with 'Datum Romæ, Pius P.P. IX.,' or 'sub annulo Piscatoris,' or in some other way; it is not a personal, for he does not address his 'Venerables Fratres,' or 'Dilecto Filio,' or speak as 'Pius Episcopus;" it is not an immediate, for it comes to the Bishops only through the Cardinal Minister of State.
"If, indeed, the Pope should ever make that anonymous compilation directly his own, then, of course, I should bow to it, and accept it as strictly his. He might have done so; he might do so still; again, he might issue a fresh list of Propositions in addition, and pronounce them to be Errors, and I should take that condemnation to be of dogmatic authority, because I believe him appointed by his Divine Master to determine in the detail of faith and morals what is true and what is false."
