Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/354

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THE VATICAN COUNCIL.

confirmed already. It will confirm future acts, not those which are already perfect.

3. But perhaps some may have an idea that the question is not yet closed, and that the Council may hereafter undo what it has done. We have been told that 'Its decrees may have to be corrected,' and that two years elapsed before the Œcumenical pretensions of the Latrocinium of Ephesus were formally superseded. Some have called it 'Ludibrium Vaticanum.'

Let those who so speak, or think, for many so speak without thinking, look to their faith. The past acts of the Council are infallible. No future acts will retouch them. This is the meaning of 'irreformable.' Infallibility does not return upon its own steps. And they who suspend their assent to its acts on the plea that the Council is not concluded, are in danger of falling from the faith. They who reject the Definitions of the Vatican Council are already in heresy.