and pernicious question would be opportune, and that it might for ever be set at rest by the condemnation of the propositions following:—
1. That the decrees of the Roman Pontiffs in matter of faith and morals do not oblige the conscience unless they be made in a General Council, or before they obtain, at least, the tacit consent of the Church.
2. That the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks in matter of faith and morals, as the Universal Doctor and Teacher of the Church, may err.
They have also a desire, which springs from their fraternal and grateful affection for the illustrious Church of France, the Mother of S. Germanus, from whom England derived the Episcopate, and the Guardian of the Holy See, glorious for a long history of splendid deeds of faith: it is, that the Bishops of France should, in this first Council of the Vatican, stand forth to lead the voices of the Episcopate in asking that the infallibility of the Vicar of Jesus Christ may be declared by a decree of the universal Church.
There was a day in which the great family of S. Dominic rejoiced the whole Catholic world, when, at the feet of Gregory XVI., it laid its petition that the words 'conceived without original sin' should be inserted in the Litanies. The suffrage of that illustrious Order closed up the circle of unity among the faithful.
The suffrage of the illustrious Church of France for the closing of a divergence, now become historical, among the pastors and faithful of that great Catholic
