Josef Fessler

“ For it is perfectly well known to every one who is acquainted with the literary works, both old and new, which have reference to this subject, that the advocates of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, as well as its adversaries, appeal to the history of the Church and to its sources. History experiences the same fate that has befallen Holy Scripture. The advocates, as well as the enemies, of every particular Catholic doctrine on which, in the course of ages, dogmatic definitions have been pronounced, have always appealed to Holy Scripture. ”

“ But if this assertion is made to represent as a fact that it is not the will of God, in the foundation of His Church, that the Pope and the Bishops should instruct and govern His Holy Church, and that the laity should listen to them in the Church, then is this a great misrepresentation of the truth. When, however, I say it is the will of God that the Pope and the Bishops should instruct and govern the Church, of course I mean to say this in that ordinary sense in which the words have ever been understood, and the thing practised in the Church. ”

“ For the bishops and the priests are quite aware that when there is no authentic explanation of a Papal ex cathedrâ utterance, the Theological Faculty, which has been for centuries engaged upon this question, has to be heard upon the marks of a real utterance; and that in reality the short de fide definition in the Vatican Council in its few words does but contain what the science of Theology has been this long time investigating at great length, with the full knowledge and admission of the difficult questions arising out of the history of ancient times. ”

“ Such a man is Dr. Schulte, Professor of Canon and German Law at the University of Prague, who has just published a pamphlet with this high-sounding title, 'The Power of the Roman Pontiffs over Sovereigns, Countries, Peoples, Individuals, according to their Doctrines and Acts, held up to the Light, in order to afford persons the means of making a true estimate of their claim to Infallibility.' Misleading indeed is the light this pamphlet holds up for our guidance, the subject being really presented to our view in a light wholly false and extremely repulsive. ”

“ It is perfectly true, if it is a question of the transgression of a law which I may have had the misfortune to commit, which transgression a third person may, perhaps, say he will take upon his own shoulders; as if a person were to say, 'If you commit such and such a murder, such and such an adultery, such and such a theft, such and such an act of fraud, I will take upon myself the responsibility of the deed.' In such matters assuredly the responsibility which another person takes upon himself, will in no wise avail me before God. ”

“ Of my own self God will, in the next world, require a reckoning of my life. To the doctrine of the Apostle (Rom. xiv. 12, 2 Cor. v. 10 [3] ) I hold fast, and will never shield myself under the responsibility of any one but myself.'
When then Dr. Schulte says, 'Neither Pope, nor bishop, nor parish priest, can bring me to heaven by his prayers, if I live not as a Christian and believe in Christ,' no doubt he states perfectly correctly that no one goes to heaven by another's prayers, if he does not believe in Christ and live according to his faith. ”

“ As they did before the Council, so now also afterwards, will the Popes summon Councils; ask the advice of the Bishops scattered over the world; use every means in their power to obtain a full understanding respecting that deposit of the Faith which has been confided to the Church. It will be according to this only and immutable rule of the Faith that they will decide, as if in court of supreme and last instance, and infallibly, for the Universal Church, all questions which can possibly arise on matters of Faith or Morals. ”

“ For the Fathers of the Fourth Council of Constantinople, treading in the footsteps of their forefathers, made the following solemn confession: "The first condition of salvation is to keep the rule of sound faith. And as the declaration uttered by our Lord Jesus Christ can never fail, [3] when He says, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build My Church,' so have the words there said actually come to pass, forasmuch as in the apostolical chair the Catholic faith has ever remained inviolate and its holy doctrine been celebrated. ”

“ The chief country of these difficulties was Germany, and what has been the spectacle presented to our view since the definition of In fallibility, and the publication of Bishop Fessler's pamphlet upon its true meaning? Those Bishops who doubted the opportuneness of the definition, or who in other ways hesitated to receive it, and who, for conscience' sake, absented themselves from the final and decisive session, [2] have since become the chief confessors and witnessess of the doctrine, before a cruel and persecuting government! ”

“ Fessler, a person is to draw the perfect removal of his apprehensions; no proof, no logical reason is presented to us that anything which a Pope solemnly enunciates, which he has had signed by the Cardinals and sent to all Bishops, may not have the weight of a definition in the sense of the Vatican Council,'—I thereupon point to the simple, literal, dogmatic, and logical explanation of the meaning of the definition of the Council in pages 55 to 60 of my pamphlet as the 'proof and logical reason' for my statement. ”

“ Schulte proceeds to assert 'that only the Pope himself can define the subject-matter, the comprehensiveness, and the limits of an utterance ex cathedrâ.' This assertion is so far true, that it is certain that no human authority can prescribe any thing to the Pope in this matter. If, however, it is meant that the Pope, according to his own will and fancy, can at all events extend his infallible definition even to matters relating to the Jus publicum, to which the divine revelation does not extend, then he has laid the case before us quite erroneously. ”

“ An Augsburg reviewer takes objection to my expression: 'It is by no means an established fact amongst Catholic theologians, that the Syllabus with its eighty propositions belongs to those definitions of doctrine which are to be characterised as infallible;' and is of opinion that in saying this I show that the notes cannot be relied on, which I have given to make it plain how an utterance of the Pope may be recognised as ex cathedrâ. ”

“ So he drew up from the declarations and acts of the Popes of the Middle Ages a catalogue of what he called doctrinal propositions, which he presented to his horror-stricken readers as the decisions of the Infallible teaching office of the Sovereign Pontiffs, and so, of course, since the Council of the Vatican, as Catholic dogmas. If it can be shown that all that Dr. Schulte so laboriously quotes has nothing whatever to do with Infallibility, his book is answered, and falls as a dead letter. This feat it is that Mgr. Fessler has so victoriously performed. ”

“ In the one case, a man offers to bear for another the consequences of an act of everyday life, be it of belief or unbelief, be it of a good or bad action, and, in the other case, a Catholic Christian, relying on the authority of the teaching Church, on which God has Himself taught him to rely, 'he that heareth you heareth Me,' accepts a doctrine as a truth revealed by God, because the teaching Church, under the special guidance of the Holy Spirit, has declared it to be so. ”

“ It is sufficient for us to direct attention to the fact, that when in the first and second parts of this proposition of the Syllabus, it is said that the Roman Pontiffs have, first, 'not overstepped the limits of their power,' and, secondly, that they 'have not usurped the rights of princes,' these assertions have no reference to a truth revealed by God, but bear upon historical events of a later period, which events have nothing to do with faith and morals, but only with the acts of the Popes. ”

“ If a man is not to be required to believe such a declaration as this, then all difference between an infallibly teaching Catholic Church and Protestantism in all its forms, with the unlimited right of private judgment, is at an end. Assuredly he says truly, 'God will some time call everyone to a reckoning for his conduct during life.' Certainly He will call our once-Catholic opponent, and will say to him, 'I gave you the grace to be born and bred up in the Catholic Church ”

“ A Vienna reviewer, amidst some cavils which have no great point in them, thus expresses himself: 'The sum and substance of the matter on which, according to Schulte, all depends is the question "Whether the dogma of Papal Infallibility really reaches to that extent which he assigns to it?" The principle here involved Fessler does not contest with his opponent; he admits that not only all future but all earlier utterances of Popes, if they have been made ex cathedrâ in the sense already explained, have a claim to the privilege of Infallibility.'
This is true, of course ”

“ Thus has he been able to show to men of good-will, but hitherto imperfectly instructed in the matter, that the doctrine against which their understanding rebelled is not the true Infallibility defined by the Council of the Vatican, but the creation of ignorance and of passion—in fact, "a false Infallibility."'
With these concluding words of the distinguished editor of the Français the work of Bishop Fessler is presented to the reader, in the hope that he will derive the same comfort and edification which it has afforded to many others. ”

“ For not all that the Popes have declared to be a doctrine of the Church is for that reason alone (because the Popes have said so) true, and to be believed by Catholics, and so followed by them in practice; but only that which Popes have declared in an ex cathedrâ utterance to be a dogma of faith or morals to be believed by the whole Church. ”

“ Schulte says: 'It is inconceivable that a proposition should be solemnly published as revealed by God, without its also of necessity influencing the faith and life of a Christian.' Again: 'Every man must be able to satisfy himself by objective proofs whether or no such a proposition is really proposed to him.' Again: 'There must be certain objective practical marks whereby every rational being can recognise an utterance ex cathedrâ.' Again ”

“ If even up to this point in the last General Congregation before the Solemn Session the bishop is not satisfied as to all his difficulties, or if he thinks it better that the decision should not yet be pronounced on such and such a doctrine, he may in the interval between the last General Congregation and the Solemn Session acquire a full conviction on the subject by discoursing with other theologians, by study of the subject, and by prayer, and may thus overcome his last difficulties, and see that it is well that the definition should be made. ”

“ And they add: "It is, then, the revelation given by God, the deposit of the Faith, which is the domain perfectly traced out and exactly circumscribed, within which the infallible decisions of the Pope are able to extend themselves, and in regard to which the faith of Catholics can be bound to fresh obligations. ”

“ Important documents well known in France, the collective declaration of the German Bishops of May 1871, the "Pastoral Instruction" of the Swiss Bishops, have already set the principles drawn out in form by Mgr. Fessler before the eyes of such of my readers who are not theologians. People have seen in a general way how these principles have to be applied to Bulls and other Papal documents, of which the adversaries of Infallibility endeavour to avail themselves. ”

“ Schulte shelters himself, and the ground on which he rests, in order to open his attack upon the Pope. The Bishops to whom he refers having acknowledged it to be the principal task of the Council 'to advance in the best way possible the greater glory of God, and the welfare of mankind in general,' find it natural that in so great a body of men different opinions should arise—not, however, so different as to split them up into parties. ”

“ By this expression, then, ex cathedrâ, the gift of God's divine grace conveying Infallibility in faith and morals to the Roman Pontiff, the visible head of the Catholic Church, and who in the person of St. Peter has received from our Lord Jesus Christ the full power to feed the universal Church, to direct and to guide it, is closely restricted to the exercise of his office as Pastor and Doctor of all Christians. ”

“ Any mere circumstances do not suffice to enable a person to recognise what a Pope says as an utterance ex cathedrâ, or, in other words, as a de fide definition. It is only when the two other marks just mentioned are acknowledged to be present that the circumstances of the case serve to support and strengthen the proof of the Pope's intention ”

“ Therefore have the Bishops of the whole world, sometimes individually, and sometimes assembled in solemn synods, acting according to the long-received custom of the Church, and according to the pattern of the ancient rules, brought before this apostolic chair those difficulties which were ever arising in matters of faith, in order that the rents in faith might there be mended, where alone the faith could never fail. ”

“ If he does not do this—if he represents Papal rescripts which belong to the province of reversible legislation, or are mere acts of government, as definitions of Popes upon faith and morals, or if from the records of real dogmatic definitions of Popes he extracts mere incidental remarks, obiter dicta, and alleges these to be ex cathedrâ—then assuredly he is leading his readers into error; he is disturbing their consciences without reason; he is arousing the suspicions of governments unnecessarily, and setting them against that Catholic doctrine which has been declared by the Vatican Council ”