were to be so accommodating as to set its seal to this doctrine too as an article of faith!

We know that the Order expects another important service from the Council, viz., that the gymnasia and schools of higher education should be placed in its hands, as being specially called and fitted for the work, and that the Bishops should engage, wherever they have the power, to hand over these establishments to the Fathers of the Society. It is therefore extremely desirable, nay necessary, that that ever-gaping wound in the reputation of the Order—its moral system— should be healed by a decree of the Council.

IT

CHAPTER III.

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

§ I.-Ultramontanism.

is the fundamental principle of the Ultramon

tane view that when we speak of the Church, its rights and its action, we always mean the Pope, and the Pope only. "When we speak of the Church, we mean the Pope," says the Jesuit Gretser, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Professor at Ingoldstadt, and one of the most learned theologians of the Order. Taken by itself, as the community of believers, clergy, and bishops, the Church, according to Cardinal Cajetan the classical theologian of the Roman Court -is the slave (serva) of the Pope. Neither in its whole nor its parts (National Churches) can it desire, strive for, approve, or disapprove, anything not in absolute accordance with the Papal will and pleasure. In an

article of the Civiltà, entitled "The Pope the Father of the Faithful," we read as follows:

"It is not enough for the people only to know that the Pope is the head of the Church and the Bishops; they must also understand that their own faith and religious life flow from him; that in him is the bond which unites Catholics to one another, and the power which strengthens and the light which guides them; that he is the dispenser of spiritual graces, the giver of the benefits of religion, the upholder of justice, and the protector of the oppressed. And still this is not enough; it is further requisite to refute the accusations directed against the Pope by the impious and the Protestants, and to show how serviceable the Papacy and the Pope have at all times been to civil society, to the Italian people, to families, and to individuals, even in regard to their temporal interests."

"1

1 Civ. 1867, vol. xii. pp. 86 seq. —"Non basta che il popolo sappia essere (il Papa) il capo della chiesa e dei vescovi: bisogna che intenda da lui derivare la propria fede, da lui la propria vita religiosa, in lui resiedere il vincolo che unisce insieme i cattolici, la forza che li convalida, la guida che li dirige lui essere il dispensiere delle grazie spirituali, lui il promotore dei beneficii che la religione impartisce, lui il conservatore della giustizia, lui il protettore degli oppressi. Né ciò solo basta; si richiede di più che dileguinsi le accuse lanciate contro del Papa dagli empii e dai protestanti, e che dimostrisi quanto benefico alle società civili, ai popoli italiani, alle famiglie e agli individui, eziando in ordine agl' interessi temporali sia stato in ogni tempo il Papato e il Papa."

It was St. Jerome's reproach to the Pelagians that, according to their theory, God had, as it were, wound up a watch once for all, and then gone to sleep because there was nothing more for Him to do. Here we have the Jesuit supplement to this view. God has gone to sleep because in His place His ever wakeful and infallible Vicar on earth rules, as lord of the world, and dispenser of grace and of punishment. St. Paul's saying, "In him we live, and move, and are," is transferred to the Pope. Few even of the Italian canonists of the fifteenth century could screw themselves up to this point, those greedy place-hunters and sycophants, who were blamed even in Rome as mainly responsible for the corruption of the Church caused by the Popes. Under the lead of the new Order of the sixteenth century all hitherto said and done for the exaltation of the Papal dignity was thrown into the background. We owe it to Bellarmine and other Jesuits that in some documents the Pope is expressly designated "Vice-God." The Civiltà, too, after asserting that all the treasures of divine revelation, of truth, righteousness, and the gifts of God, are in the Pope's hand, who is their sole dispenser and guardian, comes to the conclusion that the Pope carries on Christ's work on earth, and is in relation to us what Christ

would be if He was still visibly present to rule His Church.1 It is but one step from this to declare the Pope an incarnation of God.2

Ultramontanism, then, is essentially Papalism, and its starting-point is that the Pope is infallible in all doctrinal decisions, not only on matters of faith, but in the domain of ethics, on the relations of religion to society, of Church to State, and even on State institutions, and that every such decision claims unlimited and unreserved submission in word and deed from all Catholics. On this view the power of the Pope over the Church is purely monarchical, and neither knows nor tolerates any limits. He is to be sole and absolute master; all beside him are his plenipotentiaries and servants, and are, in fact, whether mediately or immediately, the mere executors of his orders, whose powers

1 Vol. iii. p. 259, 1868. "I tesori di questa revelazione, tesori di verità, tesori di giustizia, tesori di carismi, vennero da Dio depositati in terra nelle mani di un uomo, che ne è solo dispensiero e custode. . . quest' uomo è il Papa. Ciò evidentemente è racchiuso nella sua stessa appellazione di Vicario di Christo. Imperocchè se egli sostiene in terra le veci di Christo, vuol dire che egli continua nel mondo l'opera di Christo; ed è rispetto a noi ciò che sarebbe esso Christo, se per sè medesimo e visibilmente quaggiù governasse la chiesa."

2 [Compare with this Pusey's Eirenicon, p. 327: "One recently returned from Rome had the impression that 'some of the extreme Ultramontanes, if they do not say so in so many words, imply a quasi-hypostatic union of the Holy Ghost with each successive Pope.' The accurate writer who reported this to me observed in answer, This seems to me to be Llamaism.'” -TR.!