"secular review." Does he mean then to represent it as an improper course for a Review,-which is edited indeed by a layman but published under ecclesiastical censorship,-to express a conviction, that the Syllabus is cognisable as having certainly been issued ex cathedrâ? He does not give reasons for such an opinion, nor can we conjecture any.

Then (3), he speaks of our "utterances " as "dogmatic by which he evidently does not mean that they relate to dogma, but that they are self-opinionated. Yet his very complaint is virtually, that they are not self-opinionated; that we alternate between "assertion, retractation, and retractation of retractation"; or, in other words, that we entirely distrust our own theological reasoning, when it seems to bring us into conflict with the voice of authority. We retracted a certain previous assertion, in deference to what seemed such a voice; and, we retracted the retractation, when we found that the voice had not spoken.

But (4), he considers us to have maintained for a number of years, that "a certain view of Catholic obligation" concerning the Syllabus is "the only view consistent with Catholicism" or, in other words (so far as we can make out what he means) to have maintained that any one who departs from this view is no Catholic. But so far from this having been our position-in the very article which provoked this assault, we said (p. 371) that the difference between Mgr. Fessler and ourselves concerning the Syllabus is to our mind "a matter of very small practical importance." The difference is merely this. He accounts it part of the "true obedience which "the faithful owe to the Pope," that they regard every proposition contained in the Syllabus as having been justly censured: while on our view they are bound by divine faith ("fides mediata") to regard those propositions as infallibly censured. On either view Catholics are under an obligation of interiorly renouncing the errors catalogued by the Syllabus, in the sense in which the Pope has condemned them.

We now come to the substance of our critic's argument. As we implied in our first letter to the "Tablet,"-we entirely accept his proposition, that Pius IX. could not have addressed Mgr. Fessler with a Letter of gratulation, "if in the opinion of the Pope and his advisers the Bishop was absolving the faithful from a certain obligation." Consequently, if the Pope and his advisers, on April 27th, 1871, knew of those few and subordinate statements concerning the Syllabus, which the Bishop had published in Germany in German during the previous February, a Catholic might thence reasonably infer, that those statements did not absolve the faithful from a

certain obligation. Consequently again, if our critic could now show that the Pope and his advisers knew of those statements-and if we had nothing further to rejoin-we should feel no blush of shame whatever, in retracting the retractation of our retractation. God forbid we should ever be indocile to any intimation of the Holy See, on any ground of private argument and judgment !

At the same time we must point out, that even if our critic did prove his allegation, a further question would have to be considered. Mgr. Fessler said in 1871 that the ex cathedrâ character of the Syllabus was by many considered doubtful, "until a fresh declaration should be made by the Holy See." But then there have been several such declarations since February, 1871.

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However we admit that "H. I. D. R." would make an important point for his purpose, if he could show that in April, 1871, "the Pope and his advisers" were acquainted with the Bishop's statements concerning the Syllabus. our first letter therefore to the "Tablet,' we begged that he will at once publish every fact bearing on this issue, which he knows or may come to know. One would think that such facts might easily be discovered. For instance. It is certain from the Pope's Brief, that the Bishop accompanied his gift of the treatise by a letter addressed to the Holy Father. A copy of that letter must be easily accessible to "H. I. D. R."; and to our mind a great deal would turn on the question, whether the Bishop gave therein any hint of his doctrine on the Syllabus. If he did, we will at once accept the inference, that on April 27th, 1871, that doctrine did not contravene any certain Catholic obligation. If he did not, it is clear that the Bishop himself did not seek to obtain any sanction from the Pope for that particular doctrine.

Our critic, in his reply, adduced no further facts, but enlarged the scope of his argument. In this second letter he lays stress on the circumstance, that "Mgr. Hefele's strong desire that the treatise might be approved at Rome, was made known to the Roman authorities." This circumstance, he considers, shows that "their attention was directed in a most emphatic way to what the DUBLIN REVIEW would call the minimistic teaching of the book." Now this allegation seems to us very far more serious than the former; because it implies that what the Pope approved, was not merely an incidental statement concerning the Syllabus, a statement which at last is of no very appreciable practical importance-but a certain general "minimistic" tone. We must maintain, however, that nothing can be more demonstrably unfounded

than any such allegation. We reply to it (1) that we never called the "teaching" of the treatise "minimistic," but emphatically the reverse; (2) that its general drift is in fact widely removed, from what we have ever called "minimistic"; and (3) that Mgr. Hefele's earnest desire of its being approved does not afford the slightest presumption against the truth of our present representation.

Firstly then, did we ever describe the Bishop's teaching as "minimistic"? In April, 1875, we said (p. 323) that he had "performed with triumphant success a work which urgently needed doing"; that (p. 340) he had "justly earned imperishable gratitude from children of the Church, and hearty gratulation from the common Father of all the faithful." July we "once more expressed our sense of the invaluable service rendered in Germany by the treatise" (p. 105).

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Nor (2) is the general doctrine of the treatise a doctrine, which we should at any time have dreamed of calling "minimistic." Our critic will at once see this, if he will but accept the Bishop's own statement of "the question at issue." The Bishop inscribes in his title-page, that what he intends is "a controversial reply to Dr. Schülte." When Schülte's pamphlet appeared, it was received by anti-Catholics throughout Germany with enthusiastic acclamation (see English Translation p. xiii); and it became a matter of extreme moment, that the blows of Dr. Schülte's mace" should be parried. To parry them was the Bishop's main purpose, and all the rest was subordinate. Now what was Schülte's position? "The question at issue," says Mgr. Fessler himself, "is whether the " Vatican "Definition extends to all the different expressions which a Pope may ever have casually uttered, and even to acts of the Popes; or whether it extends solely to those utterances wherein " certain "notes prescribed" by the Council itself "combine" (pp. 3, 4). According to Schülte (Fessler, p. 119), laws against heretics are definitions ex cathedra; "every expression" in Pontifical laws, "even merely introductory"; "even the motives leading to the issuing of such laws" (p. 127); nay the Papal decision on riage questions, patronage questions, church-building questions" (p. 43); all fall under the claim of infallibility. The Bishop in reply points out that, according to Catholic doctrine," the Pope is not infallible as a man, or a theologian, or a bishop, or a temporal prince, or a judge, or a legislator, or in his political views, or even in his government of the Church." The Pope never speaks ex cathedrâ, unless where the conditions are united, mentioned in the Vatican Decree. Nay, adds Mgr. Fessler, even when the Pope does issue an ex

mar

cathedrâ Act, it is the doctrine defined and that alone which Catholics are obliged to accept: preambles, arguments, obiter dicta, and the like being external to the defining intention, and external therefore to the obligation of belief. This is the "true" Catholic "infallibility," which the Bishop opposes against Schülte's "false" infallibility: to establish this contrast, and apply it in detail to the facts alleged by Schültethis is the one pervasive purpose of the whole treatise, and is performed with signal completeness and success. The few particulars on which we are ourselves unable to follow the Bishop, are really of not more than infinitesimal importance, in comparison with that great central argument for which we so heartily thank him. We need hardly say that with this argument our own humble judgment is in profoundest accord.

We do not deny, that here and there we observe in the treatise a certain tone of what we may call minimizing rhetoric, which to us is distasteful; and which indeed may give a false impression of the tendency of the treatise, to those who look at it superficially, and who fail to bear in mind the circumstances under which it was written. But such a tone arose very naturally and almost inevitably from the fact, that the Bishop's attention was wholly fixed on the unscrupulous opponents of the Church; on those, who so monstrously and outrageously-we cannot say exaggerated the Vatican Definition, but rather forged a spurious Vatican Definition of their own. We may also add that, as we said in April, 1875 (p. 340), he does not impress us as having examined with any care such points of difference as exist among Catholics; contending as he was on a far larger scale in defence of what is common Catholic ground. And in consequence of this defect as we pointed out in detail-some of his expressions may at first blush be taken in a sense, in which no doubt we should earnestly deplore them, but which other parts of the treatise show to have been utterly and absolutely alien from his intention.

But (3) our critic,-in support of his allegation that the Bishop's general teaching is what we should call "minimistic," -appeals to Mgr. Hefele's strongly expressed desire, that the treatise might receive Papal approbation. We reply that, on our view of the case no less than on our critic's, it would have been strange indeed if Mgr. Hefele had not strongly desired such approbation. The monstrous and impudent falsification which Döllingerites perpetrated of the Vatican doctrine, was obtaining large credence throughout Germany, and doing incalculable harm. The Bishop's treatise was a crushing refutation of these unprincipled falsehoods; and of course it was

of great importance, that the Pope himself should emphatically disavow the extraordinary prerogatives, which he was misrepresented as claiming.

"H. I. D. R.'s" argument apparently proceeds on the assumption-an assumption made both by the French and the English translator-that the Bishop's purpose was to vindicate some interpretation of the Vatican Decree, less stringent than that which he knew to be held by certain contemporary Catholics. To our mind, this is not only a fundamental misconception, but an unaccountable one. It was the direct purpose of our July article to rectify it; and we concluded that article by expressing our conviction (p. 105), that "there is nothing in Gulliver's Travels more simply fictitious," than this "pseudo-Fesslerian tradition." Our critic relies on the name of Mgr. Hefele: we will meet it by another name equally illustrious. Mgr. Fessler refers (p. 5) with unqualified sympathy to Mgr. Martin, "the learned Bishop of Paderborn," and to that Prelate's work on "The True Meaning of the Vatican Definition." Now we need hardly say that there is no Catholic in all Europe, who would be more assuredly called "extreme" and "ultramontane " by those who rejoice in using such expressions, than Bishop Martin of Paderborn. Yet Mgr. Fessler writes as being entirely accordant with that Prelate, on "the true meaning of the Vatican Definition."*

So much on the treatise itself. We must next consider what happened in regard to it, between February 1871 when it was published, and April 27th of the same year when the Pope issued his Brief of gratulation. The original romance about the International Commission is now abandoned; but what account of facts shall be substituted in its place? "H. I. D. R." furnishes some information on this subject, which we most unhesitatingly accept. M. Cosquin's letter,

We may take this opportunity of speaking on a small matter, and one which has very little connection with our present controversy. In July 1875 (p. 95) we represented Bishop Fessler as saying, that "in a hundred cases the question is one of real difficulty whether some given Act be ex cathedra." These are his words (p. 5): "I find that in this case [of the Syllabus] as in a hundred others, we can fully rely on the notes which have been given [by the Vatican Definition]... but yet, notwithstanding this, the application of the notes to particular cases may have its difficulties." It has been privately suggested to us, that these "hundred cases are not cases in which "the question has its difficulties," but cases in which "we can fully rely on the notes" assigned. But surely a moment's consideration will show that this cannot be the Bishop's meaning. He could not possibly say, that only in a hundred cases may we fully rely on the notes assigned; because of course he held that these notes may be fully relied on in all cases without exception, nay in all possible cases.