‘DOCTRINAL PROPOSITIONS OF THE POPE, SIMPLE AND “EX CATHEDRA.  
ACTS OF POES BEARING UPON THEIR RELATIONS TOWARDS STATES, COUNTRIES, PEOPLES, AND INDIVIDUALS.’

  14.  In this portion of his treatise, Dr. Schulte has been at the utmost pains to rake together from every quarter, especially from the middle ages, everything odious he can find against the Popes.

In order to throw light upon this chapter of his Pamphlet, I must call the attention of my reader to the results of the investigation I made in the preceding chapter on the true extent of the subject-matter of Papal Infallibility according to the de fide definition of the Vatican Council, as a right appreciation of what follows depends strictly on what I have already said.

(1)  Thus, in my present answer I have nothing to do with what the Popes have thought, or said, or done, or ordained to be done, but only with what they have defined to be a doctrine of faith or morals ex cathedrâ, and the propositions on the faith which a Catholic must therefore accept as already decided in ex cathedrâ utterances by the Popes, in virtue of their Infallible supreme teaching authority, if, as he is in duty bound to do, he accepts the de fide definition of the Vatican Council.

(2)  Acts of Popes undoubtedly are not Papal utterances ex cathedrâ.

(3)  All that Popes have said in daily life, or in books of which they are the authors (supposing them, i.e., to have written books), or in ordinary letters, are not dogmatic definitions or utterances ex cathedrâ.

  (4)  Utterances of Popes, either to individuals or to the whole Church, even in their solemn rescripts, made by virtue of their supreme power of jurisdiction, in issuing disciplinary laws, in judicial decrees[33] and penal enactments, and in other acts of ecclesiastical government, are not dogmatic Papal definitions or infallible utterances ex cathedrâ.

(5)  Accordingly, none of these matters, acts of Popes (2), what Popes have said (3), utterances of Popes (4), have anything to do with the subject we have under discussion—which is exclusively about Infallible definitions.

(6)  Moreover, if we have before us a real and true dogmatic definition of the Pope, still only that portion of it is to be looked upon and accepted as an ex cathedrâ utterance, which is expressly designated as ‘the Definition;’ and nothing whatever is to be so regarded which is only mentioned as accessory matter.

Now, then, having laid down these general rules for our guidance, when I come to examine this portion of Dr. Schulte’s treatise, I have to keep the two following questions, which arise out of it, entirely separate, and to give them a separate answer.  They are:

First, whether the particular proposition, which he arrays for our consideration, have been defined by an infallible Papal utterance as Catholic doctrine de fide on faith or morals?

And, secondly, if they are not this, then what is really to be held as regards these propositions?

15.  So, in considering these propositions, I shall begin by answering the first of these questions, which it is clear, from the object Dr. Schulte has in view in his Pamphlet, is the principal question.

The FIRST Proposition which he brings before us as Papal doctrine is: ‘Temporal power is of the Evil One, and must therefore be subject to the Pope.’

For this proposition he refers to a certain Brief of Gregory VII. where, however, it is not found in these express words, and where the context gives a different meaning.  But Dr. Schulte himself adds, ‘These passages, however, are not uttered ex cathedrâ.’  As he says this himself, he saves me the trouble of proving that his proposition has nothing to do with Papal Infallibility, and cannot therefore be here considered.

16.  The SECOND Proposition is: ‘The temporal power must always act unconditionally in subordination to the directions of the spiritual.’

In proof that this proposition is a Papal utterance ex cathedrâ, Dr. Schulte brings forward the celebrated Bull Unam Sanctam of Pope Boniface VIII.  This Bull, starting with de fide proposition of the Nicene-Constantinople Creed, which has so long existed in the Church, contains a detailed exposition of the mutual relations of the temporal and the spiritual power; and ends with a dogmatic definition, which is as follows: ‘And this we declare, we say, we define, and we pronounce, that it is necessary for the salvation of every human creature that he should be subject to the Roman Pontiff.[34]  These words, and only these words, are the definition de fide of the Bull Unam Sanctam.  All the rest of the foregoing, after the very first words, which lay down an acknowledged article of faith as a basis, is a partly theological, partly canonical exposition of the relative positions of Church and State, made after the fashion viewing such matters then in vogue; but it constitutes no dogmatic definition at all, which evidently commences with the words, ‘We declare and we define (definimus).’[35]  The definition itself asserts only the Catholic doctrine of the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff;[36] for if the Pope has been appointed by God to be the Head of His Church, and if every one who cares for the good of his soul must belong to that Church, then it follows that he must be subordinate to the Pope as Head of the Church (subesse Romano Pontific).  This surely is a truth which Catholic princes have ever acknowledged, and I do not imagine any Catholic prince denies it at the present day.

It will be said, no doubt, ‘Yes, in spiritual things the Catholic prince is subject to the Pope, but not in temporal things.’  To this I answer: The decision of the above-named decretal contains nothing whatever about the Catholic prince being under the Pope in temporal things; still less does it say, as Dr. Schulte formulates his second proposition, ‘That the temporal power must act unconditionally in subordination to the spiritual.’

But here again, perhaps, I shall be answered, ‘True, it is not said so, but it is implied.’

To this I answer: According to the exposition, partly theological, partly canonical, certainly it might be supposed that this was the meaning; but it is a general rule that whenever, in any dogmatic definition, a question to which it gives rise has not been touched upon (as is here the case with the question whether this definition extends to temporal matters), then this question is to be looked upon as still undefined.[37] It would have been defined if the Pope had said in his definition ‘that every human being was subject to the Pope, not only in spiritual but also in temporal matters.’  But then the Pope did not say this, although the question lay, so to speak, at his elbow.

It may be still further objected: ‘Well, if the Pope did not say so, he has shown clearly enough the plain common sense and import of the definition from this Bull.’

I answer again: Granting even the intention of the Pope in this definition did go beyond the plain words, and indeed so far beyond them as the subsequent conduct of Pope Boniface VIII. towards King Philip indicates, still we must not overlook the fact that a mere intention, even if it may be assumed from actions to have existed, if it is not expressed), is not to be looked upon as a dogmatic definition.  Moreover, it must not be forgotten that Pope Clement V., in an explanation of the Bull to its right proportions;[38] and this interpretation probably corresponded with the real intention of Pope Boniface VIII. as far as can be gathered from his acts.[39]

For the rest it may be conceded that in this constitution Unam Sanctam of Pope Boniface VIII. there is a second dogmatic definition, and it is this: ‘That there are not, according to the vain fancy and erroneous teaching of the Manichees, two principles.’[40]  This is de fide, since in theology it serves as a sure note of a dogmatic definition when an opposite doctrine is branded by the Pope as heretical, as is the case here, where the doctrine at variance with the true doctrine is stigmatized as ‘heretical.’

17.  The THIRD Proposition of Dr. Schulte is: ‘The Church is entitled to bestow and to take away every temporal sovereignty.’

(1)  His first proof is taken from the words of Pope Gregory VII. spoken in a solemn session of a Council at Rome in the year 1080.  Well, what are the words which Dr. Schulte brings forward?  Our readers will be astonished to hear.  They are a prayer which the Pope addresses to two Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, earnestly entreating them to exercise the just judgment, which God has committed to them, on the Emperor Henry IV., and so to make manifest that in very deed they can both take away and bestow upon this earth empires, kingdoms, principalities, and the possession of all men, according to the Apostles, forsooth, is to be construed into a dogmatic definition?  To expect that his readers will admit that, is assuredly to suppose them to be very deficient in judgment.

(2)  He continues: ‘It is a fact that Gregory VII. did depose King Henry IV., did release his subjects from their oath of allegiance, and did install Rudolph in his place.’ 

Well, that is an action of the Pope,[41] but it is not an Infallible definition which a Catholic must accept.

(3)  Again: ‘Pope Gregory IX., in the year 1249, declares the Emperor Frederick IX., in the year 1239, declares the Emperor Frederick II. excommunicated, and release from their oath of allegiance[42] all who had pledged their fidelity to him.’  Well, that is a penal sentence whereby excommunication, with all its legitimate consequences according to the laws of that period, was fulminated on the offender; but it is not a definition of faith, it is not an utterance of the Pope ex cathedrâ upon faith or morals at all, as anybody who will open his eyes may see.

(4)  The same answer holds good in regard to the deposition of the above-named Emperor Frederick II. by Innocent IV. in the year 1245, in which were bound up the consequences of such a sentence, according to what was the Jus publicum common in those times.[43]

(5)  ‘Pope Nicholas V. deposed the Antipope Felix, (Duke Amadeus of Savoy) in the year 1447, and declared all his possessions confiscated, as the possessions of an anathematized heretic.’[44]  Neither is this a definition of faith, but an execution of the punishment which, according to the Jus publicum common in those times, was bound up with the Anathema, an execution (executio) with which, in this case, the King of France was charged.[45]

(6)  No more is there a dogmatic definition before us in the Papal Bull whereby King Henry VIII. of England, in the year 1535, was threatened with an excommunication, carried into effect in the year 1538, with all its legal consequences, according to the Jus publicum common in those times.[46]  It is a simple penal sentence in the spirit and in the form which once was customary, but which in later times fell into disuse.

(7)  The same holds good of the penal sentence pronounced upon Queen Elizabeth of England by Pope Pius V., issued in the year 1570.[47]

Now since all the Bulls here brought forward—(3) to (7)—have not the faintest trace of being Papal, doctrinal, or de fide definitions, utterances of the Popes ex cathedrâ; and since they plainly and uncontestably belong to an entirely different class of Papal deliveries, it clearly follows that no one of these is to be regarded as an infallible utterance of Popes, and this alone it is which, by the definition of the Vatican Council, a Catholic is to believe and obey as part of the doctrine of the Catholic Church.  It is hardly credible that a learned man like Dr. Schulte should have asserted all these Bulls to be infallible.  Such an assertion is both unscientific and contrary to common sense.  If, however, he has not put forward this assertion in earnest, why has he piled up all these quotations out of the Bulls he has ransacked, which have really nothing whatever to do with the teaching office of the Pope?

(8)  Dr. Schulte proceeds with another Bull of Pope Paul IV., issued in the year 1559[48] which is rightly described in the collection of Papal Bulls under the title of ‘Renewal of previous censures and punishments against heretics and schismatics, with the addition of further penalties.’  Why, the very title, which gives a true account of its contents, is of itself alone enough to show every one who reads it, that this Papal delivery is not a definition de fide, and cannot, therefore, be an utterance ex cathedrâ.  And yet Dr. Schulte, in the most decided way, asserts that it is, saying that ‘it is directed to the whole Church, signed by the Cardinals in the most solemn form, so that it is certainly delivered ex cathedrâ (Dr. Schulte’s Pamphlet, p. 34).[49]  One can hardly believe one’s eyes when one sees such manifestly erroneous assertions set forth with such an affectation of demonstrated certainty.  One really feels sorry for Dr. Schulte that he should have made such an enormous blunder in the sight of every one who knows anything at all about such matters.  To us it is beyond all question certain, that this Bull, is not a definition of faith or morals, not an utterance ex cathedrâ.  It is simply an outcome of the supreme Papal authority as legislator, and an instance of his exercising his power of punishing; it is not done in the exercise of his power as supreme teacher.  I should abuse the patience of my readers if I were to attempt to prove in detail what is manifest to all mankind in every line of the Bull.  Who ever imagined before Dr. Schulte that the Pope was infallible in the province of declaring legal pains and penalties.?

Dr. Schulte finds in this Bull various things which he designates by the terms ‘remarkable!’ ‘still more remarkable!’ ‘most remarkable!’ until he comes to the epithet ‘inconceivable!’ pp. 34, 35.  And indeed it is ‘very remarkable,’ nay quite ‘inconceivable,’ that Dr. Schulte, who is a canonist, should have so utterly misunderstood the introduction to this Bull, and the sense of a passage further on in it, § 6.  I am conscious I am giving utterance to a grave re-proof, and I must entreat my reader’s patience while I prove it.  Dr. Schulte finds it ‘very remarkable;’ he says that ‘the election of a heretic as Pope is valueless from the first, and is here declared to be null and void.’  That is, he says, ‘The Pope and Cardinals assume the possibility of an infallible Pope being found deviating from the faith!’

To set this supposed case in its proper light the following remarks may be useful.  Pope Paul IV., no doubt, supposes the case possible (however improbable it might be) that a man who clings to an heretical doctrine might be chosen Pope, and also that after he has mounted the Papal throne, he might still hold heretical doctrine, or, even it may be, express it in his intercourse with others; not, however, that he would teach the whole Church this heretical doctrine in an utterance of his supreme teaching office (ex cathedrâ).  From making such an utterance God Himself, through His special assistance, preserves the Pope and the Church.  If, then, as has been suggested, a man were elected Pope who might uphold heretical doctrine to the whole Church formally as Catholic doctrine de fide, or prescribe it to be held as such), then we should have the case before us for which Pope Paul IV., in the above-named Bull, § 6, provides, by quashing the election of such a man to the Papacy, and declaring it ‘null and void.’  This is one of the cases which theologians mean when they say the Pope (homo privatus), as a private individual, may err in a matter of faith; that is, when he is considered simply as a man, with merely his own human conception of a doctrine of the faith.  As Pope, as supreme teaching of the Catholic Church, he cannot err, when, by virtue of the assistance of God, promised and vouchsafed to him, he solemnly defines a truth revealed by God, and prescribes it to be held by the Universal Church.  It is clear that there are in the one person of the Pope two different active powers (έυεδγείαί): first, the ordinary power of thinking and viewing things;[50] and, secondly, the solemn defining power for the whole Church.  I might illustrate this point by the parallel case of a judge who has to decide upon a suit.  In his own private life he may, perhaps, hold and express his opinion, and that on very various occasions, but in the suit nothing passes for law but his solemn judicial utterance, which, however, will suffice to show that a man who is invested with an official position can be readily conceived as thinking and speaking as a man, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, as an official personage in his forensic utterances and acts.

After making this distinction, plain enough as I conceive it to be, the introductory words of this Bull will be quite intelligible; why, that is, the Pope expresses his conviction how perilous it would be if, even his private life, a Pope were to admit an error in doctrine, and what sad confusion would arise if the said Pope, as a private individual, were to be guilty of heresy, and yet had to put into force penalties against heretics, he as Pope having no judge higher than himself.[51]

(9)  Dr. Schulte says further on, p. 35: ‘It is, moreover, quite an ordinary introduction to Bulls to find that the Pope is “Lord of the world,” at least as far as it lies I his words and acts to make himself so.’  So, for instance, says he, ‘We find the ex cathedrâ(!) speaking Bull of Leo X.  Divina disponente, in the eleventh session of the Fifth Lateran Council of Dec. 19, 1516, says Through the grace of God, . . Elevaed on the high watch-tower of the Apostolate, and placed over peoples and lands,’ &c.

Here, again, we have, according to Dr. Schulte, an ex cathedrâ speaking Bull.  But what is it about?   Why, it is really neither more nor less than the well-known Concordat between Pope Leo X. and King Francis I. of France.[52]  This is the Concordat which for more than two centuries regulated the relations between Church and State, and which the kings of France themselves have so energetically upheld.  And pray will any oe be so good as to tell me when Concordats were first elevated to the rank of dogmatical decisions and utterances of the Pope ex cathedrâ?  The honour of this discovery rests with Dr. Schulte.  But will any one in sober earnest believe that the kings of France from the time of Francis I., kings who have been so jealous of the prerogatives of their crown, a Louis XIV., and other equally zealous sticklers for the rights of kings, would have been likely to be so mightily pleased with a Bull in which, according to Dr. Schulte’s view, the Popes were called the Lords of the world?  Or how comes it that Dr. Schulte has had the good luck to discover so dangerous a doctrine in this Bull, which for more than two centuries has escaped the observation of French kings and learned men?  And now the truth must be told that Dr. Schulte has mutilated this Bull of a most essential portion of its introduction; for the real introduction runs as follows: ‘By the grace of God, through which kings rule and princes exercise authority,[53] (the Pope) elevated on the high watch-tower of the Apostolate, and over peoples and lands,’ &c.  the words ‘through which kings rule and princes exercise authority’ (the very exact words whereby the temporal power of kings and princes is expressly acknowledged to be of divine grace), Dr. Schulte has thought fit to omit!  I leave it to my readers to pass their own judgment on such mutilations and omissions.

(10)  Finally, in the last passage brought forward by Dr. Schulte from a Bull of Pope Sixtus V. in the year 1586, he stumbles on the following words: ‘As the Roman Pontiff, the successor on the chair of Peter and true Vicar of Christ, holds by the divine preordination (divina præordinatione), the crown of the highest Apostolical dignity, and thus is in the place of Christ and of Peter upon earth; so the Cardinals of the holy Roman Church stand at the side of the Pope upon earth, representing the person of the holy Apostles, as they served Christ our Lord, when He preached the Kingdom of God, and wrought out the mystery of the salvation of man.’  On this passage he makes the following commentary: ‘The theory is a simple one; the Pope is Peter; the Cardinals are the Apostles; ergo the Catholic Church is wholly concentrated in the Roman Church.  The Bishops, apart from six Cardinal Bishops, are mere assistants.  This, then, is the meaning of the third chapter of the dogmatic constitution of July 18, 1870’ (p. 36 of Dr. Schulte’s Pamphlet).

Strange that it should be now near three hundred years since Sixtus V. issued his Bull, and that we Bishops have, during all this time, never gained even an inkling from this Bull that we were no longer looked upon as the successors of the Apostles, and had been degraded to the position of mere assistants!  The honour of this discovery also rests with Dr. Schulte.  He seems not to be aware that as long ago as the time of St. Ignatius of Antioch, the immediate disciple of the Apostles, that holy Bishop says: ‘Strive to do everything in union with God, under the presidency of the Bishop, who is in the place of God, and with the priests, who are in the place of the Council of the Apostles.’[54]  If this great and renowned disciple of the Apostles thus spoke, then surely might Sixtus V. speak as he did.  Moreover, the Bull of Pope Sixtus V. is not a definition de fide, not a Papal utterance ex cathedrâ; it is nothing more than a simple Bull for the organization of the College of Cardinals, settling how many the number of the Cardinals ought to be, what qualifications those ought to have, who are to be taken into the high office of Cardinal, and the like.[55]  Surely no sensible person will count as one of the doctrines of the Catholic Church how many Cardinals there ought to be, and what should be their qualifications?  Moreover, to quiet all anxiety as to whether, from this Bull of 1586, the Bishops have lost their old privileges and their former dignity, we may bring forward what took place on April 24, 1870.  On that day, in the third session of the Vatican Council, Pius IX. uttered the de fide definition: ‘The Bishops of the whole world, gathered together with our authority in the Holy Ghost in this Ecumenical Synod’ (they are the Pope’s own words), ‘sit together with us, and give their judgment with us.’ Just as was done in the Church of old.  Well, then, from the year 1586 up to the year 1870, this Bull of Pope Sixtus had not deprived the Bishops of anything that belonged to their most important rights.  There is here, however, just one point in which I find I can agree with Dr. Schulte—it is where he says ‘that nobody compares a Papal utterance with the Gospel;’ but then I do so on very different ground from him; my ground being that I am thoroughly convinced that there is no man living who would utter such a downright untheological absurdity as to compare a Papal utterance with the Gospel.  The Gospel is, as is the complete Word of God, inspired by Him; that the Papal definitions de fide, infallible utterances ex cathedra as they are, are inspired by God, no one has ever taught, either in the Vatican Council or in the Catholic Church.

18.  The FOURTH Proposition of Dr. Schulte is: ‘The Pope has the right to bestow upon Catholic rulers lands and peoples who are not Catholic, and rulers so made may make them slaves.’

In proof of this he alleges: ‘Pope Nicholas V., by his Bull Romanus Pontifex, as regards Western Africa, gave full leave to King Alphonsus of Portugal to take possession of all Saracens and heathen, and other enemies of Christ in all those parts, as well as of their kingdoms, and to make them their own inheritance,’ &c.  Now I hope it is, by this time, clear that a Bull giving over any temporal property, of any kind whatsoever, is not a Catholic article of faith; and of its being so there is not a trace in the Bulls cited by Dr. Schulte directed to King Alphonsus of Portugal.[56]  Surely any man of ordinary abilities can distinguish between an infallible definition of faith and a certain course of conduct which, at a particular time and under particular circumstances, seemed proper for the extension of the Catholic faith amongst Turks and heathen; and this it is, which the Bulls quoted by Dr. Schulte are concerned with.  And the case is the same in respect of all the Bulls quoted by Dr. Schulte under this fourth head, as any one may see who will be at the trouble of carefully reading these Bulls.  But perhaps some of my readers may ask, ‘Have the Popes really, in the fifteenth century, given away countries by virtue of their apostolical plenipotentiary authority?’  To this I reply: It is not what Popes do in the plenitude of their authority, but what they define and teach by virtue of their supreme power of teaching in matters of faith, that is an utterance ex cathedrâ, and this it is which alone belongs to the question in hand.  Here plainly is nothing whatever about a definition de fide.

19.  The FIFTH Proposition of Dr. Schulte is: ‘The Pope can enslave and bestow away those Christian subjects whose sovereign, or temporal superior, is under the anathema of the Pope.’

It would indeed be dreadful if, together with the definition de fide of the Vatican Council, delivered by the Infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, this was an article of faith which every Catholic, who hoped to be saved, was obliged to believe and obey.  But if anybody has felt a qualm on reading this proposition, he may set his fears at rest.  The case is not, after all, so desperate; it is only one of Dr. Schulte’s self-invented Catholic de fide doctrines, of which the Catholic Church really knows nothing at all; it was invented by Dr. Schulte to horrify people, and to keep them from giving their assent to the real de fide doctrine on the Infallibility of the Pope in doctrinal definitions.  This is the proof he gives of his proposition:

‘It took place, and was declared by Pope Clement V., who in the year 1309, in a quarrel with the Venetians, excommunicated doge, senate, and people, declared them deprived of all rights, bade ecclesiastics refuse to exercise their office except in administering baptism and penance for the dying, confiscated all the possessions of the Venetians, and preached a crusade against them.[57]

Anybody may see that there is nothing here but a penal sentence,[58] which, however, Dr. Schulte has not even taken the trouble to give us correctly, as it is not the whole people who are excommunicated, and there is no mention of a crusade.  But I will not be at the pains to enter into the correction of matters which are wholly irrelevant.

A similar penal enactment of Gregory XI. against the Florentines, in the year 1376, which he next mentions, belongs just as little to the province of Infallibility, and the same may be said of what he says about Adrian IV. and Paul III.

20.  The SIXTH Proposition of Dr. Schulte is: ‘The ecclesiastical laws upon ecclesiastical immunity, and upon Papal authority, rest upon divine inspiration.’

This is a very remarkable proposition.  In proof of it, Dr. Schulte continues, ‘Accordingly, Pope Julius II., in the fourth session of the Fifth Lateran Council, declares this, in the following words: “Julius, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, for a future memorial of this transaction, with the consent of the holy Canons, of the holy Fathers, and Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors, and which have been sanctioned in legitimate[59] General Councils for the defence of the freedom of the Church and its dignity, and for the protection of the Apostolic See, after mature deliberation must be held inviolate by all, and their decrees are esteemed unalterable, as if they had issued under divine inspiration,” &c.

Upon this proposition I have three remarks to make: first, the passages quoted from Pope Julius II, do not occur in a dogmatic definition, but in a ‘peremptory judicial citation,’[60] and it is going a great way for any one to say that a judicial citation on a matter of discipline is to be regarded as an utterance ex cathedrâ.  In the second place, Dr. Schulte would have done well to have quoted, not merely the preamble, ‘Albeit the dispositions of the holy Canons are esteemed unalterable,’ but also what follows in the preamble,[61] where in we are told how far, nevertheless, the Pope is authorized to alter them.  In the third place, it really is too bad that, when in the record quoted it is said, in the very words of the Pope, that the decrees of the canons are esteemed as if they were issued under divine inspiration, that Dr. Schulte, in his proposition, should omit this very expression, as if,[62] with all its important signification, simply saying, ‘The laws of the Church upon ecclesiastical immunity and on Papal authority rest upon divine inspiration.’

21.  The SEVENTH Proposition of Dr. Schulte is: ‘The Church has the right to exercise an unconditional censure upon all writings.’

The Bull of Pope Leo X., issued in the tenth session of the Fifth Lateran Council, in the year 1515, Inter Sollicitudines,[63] serves as Dr. Schulte’s proof for this.

This Bull is simply a disciplinary law with a penal threat, but is no definition on doctrine; this is clear for two reasons.  The first reason is, that in the express words of the enactment in question the Pope says: ‘That to restrain the bad results of a misuse of the invention of printing—a thing so good in itself, and so useful—he feels himself constrained to adopt certain regulations proper for the purpose; (volentes de opportune super his remedio providere).  This is not the way in which the Church utters her solemn definitions de fide.  That, however, this enactment, which not the Pope alone, but the General Council of Lateran, had issued, belongs to the alterable discipline of the church, the rescript of Pope Pius IX. of June 2, 1848, shows: in which important alterations are adopted in respect of this Bull of Pope Leo X.[64]

22.  The EIGHTH Proposition of Dr. Schulte is: ‘The Pope has the right to annul State laws, State treaties and constitutions, if they appear to him derogatory to the right of the Church and clergy.’

(1)  In proof of this, he brings the following: ‘That he has power to annul laws generally is shown and maintained in the Bull Pastor Ǽternus of Leo X.  Dec. 19, 1516, in the eleventh session of the fifth Lateran Council, wherein the pragmatic sanction in France was rescinded under penalty of the greater excommunication.’  (The pragmatic sanction is a kind of edict de religione of the fifteenth century.)  Well, this is quite true, viz. that in this Bull of Leo X. the pragmatic sanction was annulled in France, but Dr. Schulte should not have  kept his readers in ignorance that in this same Bull it is said in plain words that the King of France, Louis XI., had already previously annulled this same pragmatic sanction,[65] and that after this the Pope took from it all its validity on all points,[66] in an ecclesiastical point of view.  This puts the matter in quite a different light, and we may well wonder how it came to pass that Dr. Schulte, who is so ready to bring before us the Acts of this Council, never saw this passage in them.  I must not forget to add that, irrespective of all that has just been said, there is here no question of a definition de fide in the Bull.  This anybody can see without any remark of mine.

(2)  The second proof of his proposition, which Dr. Schulte introduces after the following fashion, is as unfortunate as the first.  ‘Against one whole category of laws subjecting the clergy to the temporal jurisdiction, or taxing Church property, there are, as is admitted, innumerable Papal statutes, so that it is hard to make a selection.  Some proofs will suffice from the so-called Bull In Cœna domini.[67]  We curse and we damn—Lat. Excommunication et anthematizamus[68]—all those who lay upon their country new burdens or taxes besides those which are due in equity, or which are imposed in particular cases by special Papal permission, all those who increase such taxes, or who impose new taxes, or who seek to revive those already forbidden.”’

Well, a simple ecclesiastical penalty is not a dogmatic definition, and, even if issued by the Pope, is not a Papal utterance ex cathedrâ.

Does not Dr. Schulte really know that this Bull has been cancelled now for a hundred years and more, and has ceased to be published on Holy Thursday?

And does he not know also that Pope Pius IX., in his Bull Apostolicæ Sedis moderationi, Oct. 12, 1869, has expressly declared that from that time only censures imposed ipso facto for certain cases were still to be held in force, and that all other ecclesiastical penalties of this kind were then revoked?  The Pope at the same time gave his reason of this revocation of penalties in these words: ‘These ecclesiastical penalties, which for security of the Church herself, and for the maintenance of her discipline, as well as for the restraint and improvement of the unbridled license of evil-disposed men, having been at different times issued with the most excellent intentions, have now become very numerous; and a portion of them, from altered times and altered habits of mind, having lost the object and the reason for which they were introduce, have also lost their former usefulness and their applicability.’[69]

It is not a particularly happy line of argument that has to draw its proofs from the obsolete cancelled Bull In Cœna Domini, in order to demonstrate to the world what a Catholic has to believe and to accept, if he accepts the definition of the Vatican Council on the Infallible teaching office of the Roman Pontiff.

(3)  Dr. Schulte’s third proof is drawn from the fact that Innocent X. in his Bull Zelo Domus Dei of the year 1648,[70] by virtue of his apostolical plenipotentiary power, declared the articles of the Peace of Westphalia, which were displeasing to him, to be null and void.  First, I have to remark upon this, that the Pope did not declare the articles in question void as simply displeasing to himself, but as violations of the just rights of a third party.  It was the duty of the Pope, as Head of the Catholic Church, to protect the rights of the Church in their full extent.  For this purpose he here makes use of all the means afforded him by his spiritual office which circumstances admit of his using, such as earnest remonstrances, protests, or declarations of the infringement of his rights, and also ecclesiastical penalties, especially excommunication.  It is undeniable that in the Peace of Westphalia, as well as in the acts of the Congress of Vienna in later times, the rights of the Church were in many ways violated.  Against these violations of rights the Pope protests before God and before the world.  He might, indeed, be pretty certain that the protest would be of little avail, but no fair inquirer will find fault with any one who has been despoiled of his rights for raising his voice and crying out aloud before God and men:[71]  This spoliation is invalid;  I do not acknowledge it to be just.’  A person who so acts is not to be branded as a disturber of the peace, and still less should be taunted with this when, after having given clear and manifest proofs of his rights, he showed that, in the interests of peace, he made no objection to come to terms with the despoiler.[72]

(4)  A further proof is drawn from the Austrian Concordat, because ‘in this the Holy See gives its consent that in certain cases the secular court may pronounce judgment on spiritual matters and persons.’

It is inconceivable what this can have to do with the Infallibility of the Pope.  And why upon earth is it to be considered a thing a contrary to justice for the Pope to give his consent or permission to a change in an existing law of the Church?  If even this is not allowed him, then, indeed, is the independence and autonomy of the Catholic Church come to an end altogether!  A person who sanctions this simply wishes to annihilate the Church.

(5)  The Allocution of Pope Pius IX. June 22, 1868, after the fundamental State laws—the so-called confession laws—had been passed in Austria, is here brought forward by Dr. Schulte, because these laws were judged and partially condemned from an ecclesiastical point of view.  But is it to be considered an infallible definition de fide that the Pope has expressed his own view of this matter?  If not, why does Dr. Schulte introduce the subject at all?  Surely the Pope had a right to ask for justice to be done him?  Surely he might demand that a solemn concordat should be observed, which had been formally made in all its constituent parts?  And as it was not observed, he, in his Allocution, protested against, rejected, and pronounced invalid, all that was contrary to the doctrine and to the rights of the Catholic Church; and in particular protested against all that was contrary to the treaty that had been made.  At a time when we hear complaints on all sides of broken treaties, why should we take it ill of the Pope that he, too, should oppose a breach of treaty with himself by such means as he had at his command?

(6)  Finally, Dr. Schulte rakes together several statements out of the Syllabus to serve as a proof of this proposition.  These statements, however, are not given as in the words of the Syllabus, but in the form which a certain learned theologian has formulated the opposites of the rejected theses.  But granting that this theologian is to be highly esteemed as a learned man, yet it is a generally received fact in the Catholic Church that the formulæ of Catholic theologians are not definitions de fide.

For the rest, Dr. Schulte assumes that the Syllabus, with all its eighty propositions, is one of those Papal definitions of doctrine of which the Vatican Council speaks in its fourth session.  This assumption he has failed to prove.  Dr. Schulte assumes it to be so as a fact, whilst the truth of the matter is, that this fact is called in question by the gravest theologians.  Their doubt is founded especially upon this, that the form of the Syllabus is quite different from that which the Pope usually adopts when he delivers a solemn definition de fide.  In order to convince himself of this, Dr. Schulte need only peruse the Bull of Leo X. against Luther, the Exsurge Domine, which he himself adduces as a Bull speaking ex cathedrâ, p. 27 of his book; or the celebrated Bull of Pius VI. Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794.[73]  In these and in similar documents the intention of the Pope is expressed in the most decided manner, either at the beginning or at the end, that certain propositions must, by virtue of his supreme apostolical power, be regarded s incompatible with the Catholic doctrine on faith or morals.  Now it is true that the propositions of the Syllabus are designated[74] in the title of the document as ‘Errors of our time which the Holy Fathers have on different occasions denounced;’ but then it is certain that many of the documents in which a special error is denounced, and from which the propositions are drawn, are not utterances ex cathedrâ.  But it may be said, perhaps, that the Pope, by requiring that the Syllabus should be made known to the whole Episcopate, desire to raise all his utterances on the errors contained in the Syllabus to the position of doctrinal definitions, such as would be, according to the definition of the Vatican Council, utterances ex cathedrâ.  This many theologians think may be assumed to be doubtful, until a fresh declaration is made on the subject by the Holy See.  For, as the Syllabus stands, neither the introduction nor the conclusion is sufficiently clear upon this point.  It is true the Bishops had an authentic announcement made to them through a letter of the Cardinal Secretary that the Syllabus was arranged and sent out at the command of the Holy Father, but the reason for this is given, and it comes to no more than this, that perhaps many persons would not be able to meet with the printed documents from which the propositions of the Syllabus are drawn.  Certainly in the Papal Encyclical Quanta Cura, Dec. 8, 1864, which was promulgated with the Syllabus, it is said that Pius IX. has often raised his voice during his Pontificate against the principal errors of our time; but in that Encyclical there is nothing to show absolutely that the Pope in any one single word thought of the Syllabus.

23.  The NINTH Proposition of Dr. Schulte is: ‘The Pope has the right to reprove all temporal sovereigns, emperors, and kings for their misconduct, and on occasion to punish an offence (in foro externo), as well as, in the case of a mortal sin, to bring it before the spiritual forum.’

In proof of this Dr. Schulte brings two passages from the book of Canon Law written by Popes.[75]  The first of these is directed to the Grecian Emperor Alexius; the second to the French prelates, and concerns the King of France.  Neither the one nor the other of these decretals is a definition de fide.  No trace of a definition occurs therein.  In both the Pope justifies his conduct towards the one and against the other of the two rulers mentioned, according to the point of view common in the Jus publicum of those times.

24.  The TENTH Proposition of Dr. Schulte is: ‘Without the consent of the Pope no tax or impost can be laid upon any cleric or church.’

In proof of this Dr. Schulte brings forward a Bull of Boniface VIII., which, however, as he admits, was soon limited by Benedict XI., and afterwards entirely cancelled by Clement V.  ‘But,’ he concludes, ‘the Bull In Cœna Domini took up the matter, and in the Syllabus it is defined that Popes have never overstepped the limits of their powers.’  I have already shown, No. 22(2), that the Bull In Cæna Domini is now no longer in force; it is, in fact, entirely revoked.  Dr. Schulte is thus left quite in the lurch, without the shadow of a reason for his assertion.  His remark, by the way, ‘In the Syllabus it is defined that Popes have never overstepped the limits of their powers,’ does not help out his tenth proposition, and could only serve to strengthen the proof from the Bull In Cæna Domini.  But as that Bull no longer exists, why, it follows that it cannot be strengthened.

Nor can it for a moment be admitted that the Pope has defined this in the Syllabus.  The general assertion that the Popes have overstepped the limits of their powers is, indeed, mentioned amongst other errors.  And the proposition, wherein it is laid to the charge of the Popes that they have in general overstepped the limits of their powers, is most justly condemned as erroneous. But that is a very different thing from a positive dogmatic definition that a Pope never in any respect overstepped the limits of his power.

25.  The ELEVENTH Proposition of Dr. Schulte is: ‘The Pope has the right to nullify the oath of allegiance taken to sovereigns whom he has excommunicated, and to forbid his subjects to obey him or his laws.’

In proof of this he brings forward the previously-mentioned Bulls of Gregory IX., Innocent IV., Paul III., and Pius V.  Since however, as I have already shown, no one of these Bulls is a definition de fide, not an utterance ex cathedrâ, they do not belong to the subject in hand, and can constitute no proof that any one is obliged to receive the above-named proposition as a Catholic doctrine de fide.

26. The TWELFTH Proposition of Dr. Schulte is: ‘The Pope can deprive excommunicate persons of all their social rights, and in particular can dissolve their marriages.’

(1)  The first proof of this is: Innocent IV. in his Bull Cum adversus of Oct. 31, 1243,[76] confirms the laws of the Emperor Frederick II. by accepting them.  These laws condemn those guilty of heresy to the punishment of death at the stake; so in his Bull Ad extirpanda of May 15, 1243,[77] there follows a long list of punishment against heretics.  Here Dr. Schulte himself relieves me of the trouble of proving that there is here no definition de fide, no Papal utterances ex cathedrâ, by saying that ‘the Pope only confirmed in the first of rescripts, just mentioned, the penalties declared by Frederick II. against heretics.’  This is the fact.  And nothing could be a clearer proof than this, that there is no question in these rescripts of a definition on faith or morals; for I fancy everybody knows now that imperial penal laws are not the place to seek for or to find Catholic doctrinal propositions.  It ought to be mentioned, moreover, that this confirmation of the Pope was not issued for the whole Church, but expressly only for Lombardy, the Marches of Treviso, and the Romagna.  Dr. Schulte’s second Bull, that of Innocent IV., is wholly irrelevant as a dogmatic definition.  It is designated simply a law, and nothing more.  If I am asked the reason of this statement, I point simply to the wording of the Bull, which consists of thirty-eight paragraphs, each of which is noted down as ‘Lex,’ with ciphering ‘Lex 1,’ ‘Lex 2,’ ‘Lex 3,’ &c.  Surely this is sufficient proof.  Moreover, this enactment is expressly limited by the Pope to Lombardy, the Romagna, and the Marches of Treviso.  It really is difficult to characterize as it deserves such a mode of treating the subject under consideration.  Dr. Schulte recklessly brings forward as infallible, and therefore unalterable definitions of doctrine issued for the whole Church, laws of Popes expressly made for particular occasions.  The penal laws of the Popes against heretics, he has piled together in his notes, have nothing whatever to do with unalterable definitions of doctrine, but are examples of the spirit of the age in which they were passed, and of a discipline subject to change, but they in no way belong to the Infallibility of the Pope.

(2)  As a further proof of his proposition, he mentions the Bull of Paul IV., Cum quorundam, of Aug. 7, 1555,[78] in which Bull those several penalties which are usually pronounced only against relapsed heretics are pronounced also against those who deny certain specially named truths of the Catholic faith, as the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c.  In his Bull there is no definition de fide, nothing but a simple penal law against certain persons who denied particular truths of the Christian faith which had been defined long ago.  Here Dr. Schulte permits himself to digress into a violent sally on the subject of the irregularity[79] which, according to the ecclesiastical laws, is incurred by those who pronounce sentence of death, or those who carry the sentence into execution, and the different treatment which the Church adopts towards those who pass a law declaring the sentence of death for certain offences, and the judge who condemns to death in virtue of that law.  When he here calls the Church’s action ‘a fiction to stifle the conscience,’ and nicknames it ‘Pharisaism,’ he writes without knowing what he writes about.  The irregularity spoken of is not ex delicto, but ex defectu; it is not incurred because the person who pronounces a just judgment has committed any sin which might burden his conscience.  It is only in case of a man committing sin that the reproach of ‘stifling the conscience’ has any meaning, or that the word ‘Pharisaism’ is at all applicable.  Irregularity ex defecta lenitatis was introduced by the Church, because the Church did not think it a proper or seemly thing that one who, even in the most just manner, had been brought into immediate contact with the death of a human being, be it by condemnation of him, or by the execution of the sentence, should receive or exercise the office of Holy Orders.  How far this respect for the dignity of the clerical office should be extended depends upon considerations which have nothing to do with sin.

(3)  Finally, as his last reason, Dr. Schulte brings forward, ‘The conduct of Pope Urban V. towards Bernard Visconti, Duke of Milan, in the year 1363.  As the matter is pictured to us by historians, he ordered his condemnation to be published, whereby he declared him a heretic, infidel, and schismatic, anathematized by the Church; he freed his subjects from their oath of allegiance, and his wife as a Christian from her marriage contract with a man who was a heretic and an infidel.’

 Here we have before us, as Dr. Schulte himself says, only a sentence of condemnation against a prince who was deserving of punishment, not a definition de fide.  Surely he is not going to make all judicial sentences which the Popes have pronounced for many hundred years past do duty as utterances ex cathedrâ?  In this case such decisions would be innumerable.  Canonist as he is, he cannot mean to assert this in sober earnest.  Besides, we may justly demand that the exact words of the sentence should be produced, in which the Pope, contrary to the clear and express directions of the ecclesiastical laws, dissolved the marriage tie on account of heresy.  Without this we cannot consider so grave an accusation against a Pope.  Instead of this sentence we have only the casual words of a late historian, Spondanus, and we are not told whether he ever really saw the sentence himself, or only reported it second-hand.  It would be waste of time to enter upon an exposition of the true meaning of a judicial sentence when the words used are of so much importance, and when we do not know what those words were.[80]

In Raynaldi’s great work mention is indeed made of the terms of this sentence, but the words respecting the dissolution of the marriage tie do not occur there.[81]

27.  Finally, the THIRTEENTH Proposition of Dr. Schulte is: ‘The Pope can release from an obligation (as of oath and vow) both before and after the oath or vow has been taken.

‘Proved,’ he says, ‘by the Privilegium which Clement V, gave to King John of France and his consort, and to all his successors, that all and every one of their father confessors, whether secular or regular, might dissolve and commute, for works of piety, all vows which they have already taken, and all which either they or their successors might take in future,[82] as well as all oaths which they had already taken, or which they or their successors might hereafter take, and change them into works of piety.’  But no one says that Papal Privilegia[83] are infallible definitions de fide.  And if they are not this, then they do not belong to the matter on hand.  Faculties to commute vows into works of piety are still reserved to the Pope.  As regards oaths;—in the case of an oath by which a promise is confirmed, where the oath ought not to be kept, but where the person, to whom something has been promised on oath, insists on the fulfillment of the promise, there a Catholic has the option of referring the decision either to the Pope, or to his father confessor, or he may decide for himself whether this is really a case in which obligation to stand by the oath ceases.  Should a case occur in which the obligation to the observance of an oath ceases, as for instance when its observance would lead to the violation of some moral duty, then it would be unadvisable to leave the decision to the person himself who has made the oath, as he often has an interest in the dissolution of the oath.[84]  For the rest, it is to be observed that the Pope, in granting this privilege to the confessor so chosen, does not give an unlimited power to commute vows and oaths into works of piety, as Dr. Schulte asserts, but only vows and oaths which a person cannot observe, according as the confessors for the time being judge to be desirable for the good of the souls intrusted to them.[85]  This last part of the document Dr. Schulte has entirely omitted.  That, moreover, this faculty should be exercised on such vows and oaths as were not yet in existence at the time of the grant of the privilege is just as natural as that, when a Bishop nowadays gives a priest power to absolve from sins for a period of four years, he should not limit this power of absolving to sins which have already been committed, but should give power to absolve sins which, in the course of one, two, or three years, may hereafter be committed and confessed.

The example adduced by Dr. Schulte of the nullification of an oath by Paul IV., A.D. 1555, will serve as confirmation of the explanation I have given: ‘the Pope, he says, ‘in the case of unlawful oath expresses his will to release the emperor, and declare him free from his obligation.’[86]  But a release from an oath, which the Pope has thought good to make in a particular case, has never yet been regarded by any one as infallible utterance ex cathedrâ.

We have now arrived at the conclusion of Dr. Schulte’s alleged Papal doctrinal propositions and acts.  The result of the whole investigation has been that the passages which he has brought forward as his proofs are not such expressions as are to be regarded as utterances ex cathedrâ, that is as infallible definitions on the Catholic faith or morals.[87]  Accordingly a Catholic who accepts on faith, in accordance with his obligation, the definition de fide of the Vatican Council on the Infallible teaching office of the Roman Pontiff, is in no way obliged to believe these thirteen propositions, which I have given word for word from his work, to be infallible utterances.

FOOTNOTES