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ship becomes necessary, monarchy pure and absolute, as an ordinary and lasting system of government, is an institution full of miseries and perils, and ought to be regarded as one of the most faulty forms of government. Yet Bellarmine himself teaches, that the government of the Church, being of Divine origin, ought to be the best of governments; and he hesitates not to make this superiority of ecclesiastical regimen to consist in a sort of admixture of the three forms of government, monarchy, aristocracy, democracy. True, that, in developing his system, he entirely sacrifices the two last elements to the first. But, despite of these inconsistencies, his principle, that the ecclesiastical government ought to be the best of governments, subsists; and this principle destroys his system. Never will reason and conscience admit (and at this day doubtless less than ever), that pure and absolute monarchy, as an ordinary system of government, is the best of all. To maintain this desperate thesis, one must entirely ignore the instructions of history and experience. Let it not be said, that it is an imitation of the Divine Monarchy. Does humanity admit of this absolute participation in the Divine attributes?

"Without approving all the political theories produced in modern times, without amnestying in any way all the revolutions which have been made, it may be affirmed that, in the society issued from the Gospel, there is not a tendency more imperative, more durable, or more invincible than that which would prescribe bounds to power, which seeks for counter. poises and counterforts to power. In the midst of this Christian society, so deeply troubled by this need of regulating power, is the Apostolic See to proclaim as a new dogma of faith, that God has established in His Church a monarchy, pure, absolute, indivisible, because it is the best of governments ? What gain would there be to faith in placing itself in opposition so direct with the surest results of experience and reason?

"And this opposition, would it not become a new leaven of mistrust and hatred against the Church? What politician, what statesman, what sovereign, would behold without alarm at the head of the Catholic Church a power which should, in the inmost constitution of that Church, find no limit, no really

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Mgr. Maret: Effects of defining

efficacious barrier against the abuses, the excesses, the errors which human nature cannot always avoid? The divine promises made to the Church and to its head cannot here be pleaded; for the question is, what are the true conditions of the realization of those promises? If the Divine Master did not will to make His Church a Monarchy pure and absolute, has one a right to plead the Divine promises in favour of that institution? In vain too should we say with Joseph de Maistre, that, in the nature of things, every thing would serve to limit the absolute power of the Pope; for what absolute power is there which this 'nature of things' has preserved from the gravest faults?

"What satisfactory explanation, what serious guarantee could be offered to the powers of this world, who should choose to see in the Pontifical power, such as these would make it, a rival or rather a master-a formidable master, capable of carrying trouble into States as well as into consciences ?

"To avoid these misunderstandings, an attempt would doubtless be made to restrain Papal infallibility within the most narrow limits. But would not the opinion of the masses extend it to every thing? In the prestige of the Pope, infallible, singly and alone, the man would disappear. All the words of the Pontiff would be oracles for the main body of Catholics; all his wills would be laws. Would not these new perils occasion the aggravation of all the laws which restrict the liberty of the Church? Would not the most difficult complications, the greatest misfortunes, occur at the end of this perilous journey? One may, at least, fear that the abolition of Concordats, and a violent separation of Church and State, would be a prompt result of the new régime.

"Yes, if the designs of extreme spirits could succeed, if the new dogma, which they long for, could be proclaimed, the whole Church would be in the Pope, as the State is in the absolute monarch. What good could result from this transformation? The Pope is mostly an aged man, as venerable from his years as from his virtues. Human passions have doubtless little empire

"Du Pape," i. 8.

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over his soul.

Still he is man: and if his brethren, the Bishops, owed him an absolute and blind obedience; if they never had the right or duty to counsel, warn, or act, under the like circumstances, as the Vth General Council did in regard to Pope Vigilius; the VIth., VIIth., VIIIth., in regard to Pope Honorius-if the Pope needed none but himself to govern the Church of God-if he were bound to take counsel only as far as he should judge convenient-is it not evident that he would be exposed to the gravest temptations which could assail human weakness? And would the government of the Church be always directed with all the insight, wisdom, consistency, and firmness which the great interests at stake demand?

"In the transformation which this would bring about, the authority of Bishops would lose all, which that of the Pope would gain. The rights which the Bishops have used in and out of Councils, would become for ever inapplicable. The weakening of the authority of the Bishops, already so fatal to the Church, would then be an evil without limit and without remedy.

"Whether, then, one views the Church in its relation to public reason, to modern society and its tendencies, to governments and peoples, or whether one considers it in itself and relatively to its Divine mission and the spiritual good of the faithful, the new dogma, far from offering any advantage, would present only dangers and threatenings.

"One last consideration.

"The divisions which exist in the bosom of Christendom are one of the most active causes of its weakness and its inability to work the general transformation of the world and the perfect accomplishment of its mission.

"If idolatry still reigns over half the globe, if Mohammedanism desolates Christian countries, once flourishing, if a disguised atheism ravages the Christian world itself, one of the most powerful causes of so many moral miseries, of so many social sorrows, of so much humiliation and shame, is in that unhappy interior rending of Christianity, which constitutes schism and heresy. If the Eastern Churches were, at length, to re-unite with the mother Church; if our brethren, separated from unity by the violent revolutions of the sixteenth century,

300 Mgr. Maret: Moral Holiness, often not possessed

returned at length into that unity; what new power of transformation, of conquest, and of victory would not Christianity, purified and united-Christianity reuniting in one magnificent band all the living forces, all the elements of progress of a renewed science and civilization, develope in the world! Then would come upon earth the reign of God and of His Christ.

"Whatever then could place any obstacle to this return, to the reconciliation of hearts and minds, to pacification and religious unity, ought to be regarded as the greatest of evils, since it is the obstacle to the greatest of goods.

"We fear not to say that the new definition, dangerous, useless, contrary to the true theological principles, would alienate for ever from the Church our separated brethren.

"May God vouchsafe to shed His light over His Church, and to inspire, in all, the designs most conformable to the needs of humanity!"

With these touching words of Mgr. Maret I would gladly have concluded, but that there is one topic of his which I do not remember in other discussions of this subject; I would also say a few words as to the way in which it would probably affect our English people.

The topic of Mgr. Maret is the connexion of 'dogmatic infallibility and moral holiness." To abridge what he says,

"In the Italian system, infallibility, as we have seen, is attributed, not to the man, but to the Pontiff. Still, since the man cannot be separated from the Pontiff, since the Pontiff is a man, even in the most solemn exercise of his supreme charge, it necessarily results that the infallibility of the Pontiff becomes that of the man. According to that system, the man, quá Pontiff, is infallible: what, then, is affirmed, is the infallibility of the man-Pontiff.

L. iv. c. 13, p. 235, sqq.

by Popes, a condition of Infallibility.

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"But that a man should be infallible, i. e. that he should become partaker of one of the attributes of God, a real miracle is required.

"Let us measure the extent of the miracle necessary to elevate the individual, the man-Pontiff, to this sublime attribute of personal infallibility. The highest sanctity does not confer it; for the greatest saint may be mistaken. A very especial ordering of Divine Providence is necessary here.

"In order to be preserved from all doctrinal error in his dogmatic judgments, the Pope, at the moment when he pronounces his sentence, must be safe from all ignorance, all prejudices, all prepossession, all forgetfulness, all distraction, all precipitation, all weakness, all passion; in a word, he must be endued with philosophic impeccability.

"But this is not all. If one would examine the deepest depth of man's judgment, one cannot but recognize that moral holiness, although it does not by itself confer infallibility, is logically a condition of philosophic infallibility. The irregular passions of the heart of man, his egoism, pride, ambition, interest, all those depraved inclinations which engender sin, do they not often exercise a preponderating influence over doctrinal judgments, wherein some personal elements almost always mix themselves up?

"May one not also say that the moral purity of the supreme head of the Church is of as much moment to the spiritual good of the faithful as the exactness or orthodoxy of his doctrine? May one not say that the scandal of a bad Pope will be almost as injurious to the Church as an error in his instruction?

"So, then, the connexion between moral holiness and infallibility has been thought so natural, that from the time when we see the system of personal infallibility make its appearance, we see also that of the essential holiness of the Pope have its birth.

"This last system is mentioned, in plainest terms, in the Dictatus falsely attributed to Pope Gregory VII., and in many writers of that age, especially Otho of Freisingen.

"That the Roman Pontiff, if he be canonically ordained, by the merits of the Bl. Peter, is indubitably rendered holy, as