Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/303

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is to speak the truth in charity, ἀλεηθεύειν ἐν ἀγάπῃ; to diminish the precision of truths which are certain, or to suffer them to be treated as dubious, or to veil them by economies, or to modify them to meet the prejudices of men or the traditions of public opinion, is not moderation, but an infidelity to truth, and an immoderate fear, or an immoderate respect for some human authority.

Mgr. Maret further declares: 'We do not combat the Pontifical authority, except so far as it is identified with the system of the pure, indivisible, and absolute monarchy of the Roman Pontiff, and so far as his absolute monarchy and his personal infallibility are made one exclusive whole.'

Once more I am afraid of doing injustice to the Bishop of Sura. If I understand the doctrine which I suppose I must now call Ultramontane, but would rather call, as all the schools of Christendom do, Catholic, it is this—that the supreme and ultimate power, both in jurisdiction and in faith, or the clavis jurisdictionis and the clavis scientiæ, was committed first and for ever to Peter, and in him, as the Council of Florence says, to his Successors. The Episcopate succeeding to the Apostolate received, servatâ proportione, a participation of the pastoral care and of the endowments of the Church. What Peter was to the Apostles, the Pontiffs are to the bishops. What they have in part, he has in plenitude. I am unable to see that the primacy and infallibility of Peter in any way lessened or detracted from the authority and endowments of the Apostles; nor does it appear how the authority and endowment of his