business of the congregation was despatched. This unusual event caused both surprise and curiosity.
Pius the Ninth, in that short interval, had made known to the cardinals that for a long time the thought of convoking an Œcumenical Council as an extraordinary remedy to the extraordinary needs of the Christian world had been before his mind. He bade the cardinals to weigh the matter each one by himself, and to communicate to him in writing, and separately, what before God they judged to be right. But he imposed rigorous silence upon them all.
This was the first conception of the Vatican Council.
The duty of weighing and delivering a written and separate opinion on the subject of convoking an Œcumenical Council was thus imposed on all cardinals then in Rome.
In the course of two months fifteen written opinions were delivered in. Others soon followed, until the number reached twenty-one.
The Archbishop of Florence, after a careful study of all these documents, has analysed and distributed the matter of them into the following heads. They treat of—
1. The present state of the world.
2. The question whether the state of the world requires the supreme remedy of an Œcumenical Council.
