Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/66

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note of theological censure had been attached to those propositions, no one could hold them without sin. And secondly, that good faith is required to clear a person of fault in holding opinions which have been condemned by the Holy See, although no such note of censure be attached.

Such is the history of the origin and immediate condemnation of the Gallican opinions. They had no antecedent traditions, no roots in the theology of the great Church of France. Cardinal Aguirre has abundantly shown that the Saints, doctors, episcopate, and schools of France taught one uniform doctrine with the Church of all other countries, as to the supremacy and infallibility of the Chair and successor of Peter. The Gallicanism of 1682 was a feeble imitation of the preamble of the 24th of Henry VIII., by which the schism of England was accomplished. The four Articles were imposed by Royal decree upon universities and schools, and continued to infect the teaching of France down to the end of the last century, as morbid humours run long in the blood. But the terrible scourge of the great Revolution finally expelled this and many other diseases engendered by the royal and secular corruption of the old French monarchy. The Acts of 1682 were succeeded by the Organic Articles; and the hierarchy and clergy of France have learned by a terrible and glorious conflict to rest upon the only Rock of ecclesiastical unity and truth. From time to time, here and there, the Gallican spirit may have shown itself, but in mitigated