The Purpose of the Papacy | Page 8

a doctrine regarding
faith or morals to be held by the whole Church--in virtue of the Divine
assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, possesses that Infallibility
with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be
endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that,
therefore, such definitions of the said Sovereign Pontiff are unalterable
of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church. But if any
one--which may God avert--presume to contradict this our definition,
let him be anathema."
"Every Bishop in the Catholic world, however inopportune some may

have at one time held the definition to be, submitted to the Infallible
ruling of the Church," says E.S. Purcell. "A very small and insignificant
number of priests and laymen in Germany apostatised and set up the
Sect of 'Old Catholics'. But all the rest of the Catholic world, true to
their faith, accepted, without reserve, the dogma of Papal
Infallibility."[4]
For over eighteen hundred years the Infallible authority of the
Pope-in-Council had been admitted by all Catholics. And in any great
emergency or crisis in the Church's history, these Councils were
actually held, and presided over by the Pope, either in person or by his
duly appointed representatives, for the purpose of clearing up and
adjusting disputed points, or to smite, with a withering anathema, the
various heresies as they arose, century after century. But in the
meantime, the Church, which had been planted "like a grain of mustard
seed, which is the least of all seeds" (Mark iv. 31), was fulfilling the
prophecy that had been made in regard to her, and "was shooting out
great branches" (Mark iv. 32) and becoming more extended and more
prolific than all her rivals. She enlarged her boundaries and spread
farther and farther over the face of the earth, while the number of her
children rapidly multiplied in every direction.
In course of time, the immense continents of America and Australia,
together with New Zealand and Tasmania and other hitherto unknown
regions, were discovered and thrown open to the influences of human
industry and enterprise. And as men and women swarmed into these
newly acquired lands, the Church accompanied them: and new
vicariates and dioceses sprang up, and important Sees were formed,
which in time, as the populations thickened, became divided and
sub-divided into smaller Sees, till at last the number of Bishops in these
once unknown and distant regions rose to several hundreds.
Thus the whole condition of things became altered; and the calling
together of an Ecumenical Council--a very simple affair in the infancy
of the Church--was becoming daily more and more difficult. Not so
much, perhaps, by reason of the enormous distances of the dioceses
from the central authority, for modern methods of locomotion have

almost annihilated space, but because of the immense increase in the
number of the hierarchy that would have to meet together, whenever a
Council is called.
On the other hand, with the greater extension of the Church, would
naturally come an increased crop of heresies. For, cockle may be sown,
and weeds may spring up, in any part of the field, and the field is now a
hundred times vaster than it was. Now, it is extremely important that as
fast as errors arise they should be pointed out, and rooted up without
delay, and before they can breed a pestilence and corrupt a whole
neighbourhood. But the complicated machinery of a great Ecumenical
Council, which involves prolonged preparation, considerable expense,
and a temporary dislocation in almost every diocese throughout the
world, is too cumbersome and slow to be called into requisition
whenever a heresy has to be blasted, or whenever a decision has to be
made known.
Hence we cannot help recognising and admiring the Providence of God
over His Church, in thus simplifying the process, in these strenuous
days, by which His truth is to be maintained and His revelation
protected. For the fact--true from the beginning, _viz._, that the Pope
enjoys the prerogative of personal infallibility--is not only a profound
truth; but a truth for the first time formally recognised, defined,
promulgated and explicitly taught as an article of Divine faith.
Consequently, without summoning a thousand Bishops from the four
quarters of the globe, the Sovereign Pontiff may now rise in his own
strength, and proclaim to the entire Church what is, and what is not,
consonant with the truths of revelation. This is evident from the
Vatican's definition, which declares that "THE POPE HAS THAT
SAME INFALLIBILITY WHICH THE CHURCH HAS"--"Romanum
Pontificem eâ infallibilitate pollere, quâ divinus Redemptor Ecclesiam
suam in definiendâ doctrinâ de fide vel moribus instructam esse voluit".
Words of the Bull, "PASTOR ÆTERNUS".
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: See Life of Cardinal Manning, vol. ii., p. 452.]

CHAPTER III.
WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT?
The most sacred