PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 316, 19 March 1875, Page 4

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

• The commotion excited by Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet is far from having yet subsided, though little that is fresh is now 1 being elicited, anil it does riot appear that there is much more to be said: about it. • The Pope has disclaimed the remarkable description of ..Mr. Gladstone as an intoxicated viper that had attacked, the barque of St. Peter ; it must have been an audacious invention of some Protestant Jesuit, vvho wished to confirm the impression that the infallibility of the Holy Father does not extend to figures of speech, an impression already suggested by someof the Encyclicals. The replies issued by - Ultramontane authorities, short of Pontifical, confine themselves mainly, to two points ; .they pity Mr. Gladstone for having ruined his position, and assure him that the Vatican decrees have made no change whatever in the assumptions of the Papacy. Mr. Gladstone they say, has made a mistake, politically as well as historically. Whether Mr. Gladstone has made ci political blunder remains to be seen But the chiff point in his historical retrospect was that English Liberals granted Catholic emancipation under the belief , that the doctrine of Papal Infallibility was virtually obsolete, and would- not have granted it otherwise. . In this Lord Camoys agrees with Mr. Gladstone; and there can ; be little-doubt that, whatever may be thought of the wisdom of their motives, it is the fact. Some fresh infor- . mation on the subject is supplied by Mr. . M. A.Shee, in a letter in yesterday's . 'Times'. In 1788 an English Catholic - Committee, 'at that time agitating for a relaxation of: Catholic disabilities, sent a -'■ pamphlet to Mr. Pitt as a printed sum- , inary of their tenets, which they were persuaded every Catholic would sign. It was signed by the Vicar-Apostolic of. the { London - district, and affirmed distinctly that "it was no matter of faith, to believe that-the Pope -is 'himself infallible se- . parated from the Church, even in expounding'the .faith." And, at.a meeting of the Catholic Committee in the'same year, an unqualified declaration was made that we acknowledge no infallibility in the Pope,'.' It :is not possible for the R.o■ man Catholic Church, without doing vio- . , Jence to the plain meaning of words, to vindicate the boast of Semper t Eadew, at least as regards its prcoeedings in England. —Examiner.' —: > ■ "Progrefl? " writes to the ' CYoinvvelj . Argua-ad.- .gold not ..been .dis : .covered in Mew Zealand, the Proyin--cial form of ; Government would have " 'BUited the requirements -of the Colony for-perhaps a hundred years to cornel Kothing-ean .-equal "the. discovery of gold for drawing population toa;cpuntry. So it has not beefi the Provincial or any other system' of government that has en used the wilderness of New Zealand to be so quickly peopled. , Therefore ihold that the. work of Pro; vineial government is done, although not done by it. What could bo a better proof of this than that some of'the Provinces aro hanging on to the gold doty as the only means of keeping the PrAvincial machinery in motion. I hold that nothing could be more damaging to a young' Colony than to nave one government raii-utig the money for another government to.spend." Phe following conundrum ooim p •from -Christ ehurtli '•—Why is Major Palmer ;he greatest fool that ever came to- Canterbury ? Because he brought ciirhtv tons of fittinga 15,000 miles to I bmp'om (Burriham). ]