by a monk of St. Augustine's, Ramsgate

“ This assertion, if spoken by a Catholic, would be harmless; in the mouth of the infidel it is simply impious. The Catholic looks on a State in which religion should be the prime mover of all political action, as a dream too bright to be realized. ”

“ I know many honest Protestants think, that whatever the Church defines, she defines as of faith; that the eighty condemned propositions are eighty heresies in the eyes of Rome, and the eighty contradictories so many articles of faith. This is a misconception. Opinions may be censured as heretical, or as approaching to heresy, or as dangerous, or as offensive to pious ears, or as erroneous, etc. [1] Hence I must say a word or two on the several kinds of definitions and of censures. Of course my non-Catholic friends will not allow that we are right ”

“ The tenor of the Encyclical, wherein the Holy Father commands all the children of the Catholic Church to hold every doctrine condemned by the Holy See as unlawful to be upheld or defended, coupled with subsequent declarations, leave Catholics no room to doubt that, in passing censure on each and every one of these propositions, the Pope claims intellectual obedience on the ground of his infallibility. ”

“ In "Countries called Catholic, the free exercise of other religions may laudably be allowed." Of course, the proposition contradictory to this would run thus: "In countries called Catholic, the free exercise of other religions may not laudably be allowed." ”

“ The pearls of the heavenly doctrine may receive lustre and grace, borrowed from on high, and may be set in gold or silver. Above all, they may acquire distinctness. The several parts of a fertile and complex principle may, one after another, be brought before the eyes of the faithful. ”

“ I think this will be allowed to be consistent; history shews that for the last eighteen hundred years the Church has sternly and unflinchingly acted on this principle. Dogmatic facts not contained in the deposit were defined, and obedience to the definition was enforced from the time when Arius was condemned by the Fathers down to our own day; but it would be beyond my scope to enter on ground so ably trodden by others. The intellectual assent required by the Church to a non-revealed proposition is not, of course, an act of divine faith. ”

“ By glancing down the headings of the several classes in which the condemned errors are arranged, the reader will see that while some of them involve abstract doctrines, by far the greater part deal with those principles of Christian morals, which are developed and applied as the individual comes into contact with society and with the State. ”

“ Now, a more childish want of the elements of logic was never displayed, and the pamphleteer's talk about the "fearfully energetic epithets" suggests an apt illustration of the narrow line that separates the sublime from the ridiculous. ”