Page:True and False Infallibility of Popes.pdf/39

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The True and the False

logy, after the authority of the teaching Church has solemnly and formally declared the truth revealed by God, to solve the difficulties which present themselves in respect of each particular doctrine, to aid every man to acknowledge the truth himself, and to help to obtain a victory for that truth in the world at large. After each dogmatic definition there have ever been found in the Catholic Church men, on the one hand, who contested the truth of the definition, and who enhanced its difficulty; and men who, on the other hand, have done their best to defend it, and who in the end have happily solved all difficulties which stood in the way of its general acceptance. The former have long since been subjected to the judgment of history and to the just judgment of God; the latter, the Catholic Church names through all ages with honor, and these, too, have had their reward with God.

2. The bishops who signed the address are, with the exception of four, not mentioned by name by Dr. Schulte. It is only said: 'It was signed by almost all the Austrian and Hungarian bishops, and by several of those German bishops who, since the Fulda pastoral of August 31, 1870, have been seeking, with a reckless arbitrary exertion of authority perfectly unintelligible, to introduce this same doctrine of the Infallibility of the Pope, so as to cause an open breach amongst Catholics.' A severe taunt this, to use towards a portion of the German bishops! to whose charge, moreover, he still further lays, that in their pastoral of 1870 they used no single word to imply that they themselves admitted the July doctrine in substance. And of these bishops he remarks: 'After they had persistently and boldly declared their