What the Council had done was merely to assent to a definition of the dogma of the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff which Pius IX had issued, proprio motu, a few days before. The definition itself was perhaps somewhat less extreme than might have been expected. The Pope, it declared, is possessed, when he speaks ex cathedra, of 'that infallibility with which the Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals'. Thus it became a dogma of faith that a Papal definition regarding faith or morals is infallible; but beyond that, both the Holy Father and the Council maintained a judicious reserve. Over what OTHER matters besides faith and morals the Papal infallibility might or might not extend still remained in doubt. And there were further questions, no less serious, to which no decisive answer was then, or ever has been since, provided.
How was it to be determined, for instance, which particular Papal decisions did in fact come within the scope of the definition?
Who was to decide what was or was not a matter of faith or morals? Or precisely WHEN the Roman Pontiff was speaking ex cathedra? Was the famous Syllabus Errorum, for example, issued ex cathedra or not?
Grave theologians have never been able to make up their minds. Yet to admit doubts in such matters as these is surely dangerous. 'In duty to our supreme pastoral office,' proclaimed the Sovereign Pontiff, 'by the bowels of Christ we earnestly entreat all Christ's faithful people, and we also command them by the authority of God and our Saviour, that they study and labour to expel and eliminate errors and display the light of the purest faith.' Well might the faithful study and labour to such ends! For, while the offence remained ambiguous, there was no ambiguity about the penalty. One hair's-breadth from the unknown path of truth, one shadow of impurity in the mysterious light of faith, and there shall be anathema! anathema! anathema! When the framers of such edicts called upon the bowels of Christ to justify them, might they not have done well to have paused a little, and to have called to mind the counsel of another sovereign ruler, though a heretic--Oliver Cromwell?
'Bethink ye, bethink ye, in the bowels of Christ, that ye may be mistaken!'
One of the secondary results of the Council was the excommunication of Dr. Dollinger, and a few more of the most uncompromising of the Inopportunists. Among these, however, Lord Acton was not included. Nobody ever discovered why. Was it because he was too important for the Holy See to care to interfere with him? Or was it because he was not important enough?
