BISHOP STROSSMAYER'S SPEECH.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 262, 6 November 1871, Page 4

BISHOP STROSSMAYER'S SPEECH.

To the Eer. A, M. Garin, per favor of the Nelson Evening Mail. Sir, — In reply to your letter in Friday night's Mail, I must state that Bishop Strossraayer did make a very eloquent and most powerful appeal against the Infallibility dogma, and received at the Vatican a very rough handling in language not fit to be published in this paper, but often heard at the Chamber of the (Ecumenical Council. His speech was recognised as a severe blow at the new dogma, and was supported by 152 different memorials, addressed to the Bishops by the inhabitants of as many Roman Catholic parishes. And Bishop Strossmayer was not the only man as you state, but one of many. The Pope received on the 30th January, 1871, a protest against the dogma from the Cardinals Ransher and"Swarzenburg, signed by 187 Bishops, representing many millions of Roman Catholics, and you say Strossmayer was the only one agaist eight hundred. you,v ou, M. Gar", would condemn him as a hypocrite and as a perjurer. But by the same reasoning, would not St. Paul also be a hypocrite and a perjurer ? Did he not also take an oath to persecute and slay those who belonged to the then new sect of Jesus, the man from Nazareth ? But light came, and he saw his error, and the consequence you will find in the history written by himself in the New Testament. And as St. Paul was the hero of a new era, so are men like Strossmayer and Swarzenberg fit champions to fight against a dogma both foreign to the holy Gospel, and the sense expected to be possessed by any sane man. Further, you state that Strossmayer did not make this, speech, but. always .believed in the Infallibility of the Pope, and that the whole Episcopate of Germany did the same. Well, I am most proud to be able to state that you are greatly mistaken. As above mentioned, nearly all the German Bishops were opposed to it. and, as once before it was a German who fought with light against the darkness of your Church, so it was again a German who first spoke against this dogma. His concluding words, when he stood erect aDd calm before an Assembly, not much inferior to that which Luther had to meet, were as follows : — " You call me a heretic, but I will not stop until I have uttered the last word which my duty and my conscience command me to say against this Infallibity dogma." And this man always has been, both before and after the Council, a strong opponent of the Infallibility of the Pope, In conclusioo, I will for once follow you and say with Voltaire — " Lie, lie," &c. Yours, &c. John F. Rockstrow.