for evasion. “Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat hanc paginam nostrae declarationis extensionis concessionis et mandati infringere uel ei ausu temeraris contrarie Si quis autem attentare pracsumpserit indignationem omnipotentis Dei ac beatorum Petri et Pauli Apostolorum eius se nouerit incursurum.” If any man shall presume to go against the tenor let him know that therein he will bring down upon himself the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
Could words weightier be found?
Are we then to class this Bull with the Bulla dogmatica Ineffabilis Deus wherein Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception? Such a position is clearly tenable, but even if we do not insist that the Bull of Innocent VIII is an infallible utterance, since the Summis desiderantes affectibus does not in set terms define a dogma although it does set forth sure and certain truths, it must at the very least be held to be a document of supreme and absolute authority, of dogmatic force.[1] It belongs to that class of ex cathedra utterances “for which infallibility is claimed on the ground, not indeed of the terms of the Vatican definition, but of the constant practice of the Holy See, the consentient teaching of the theologians, as well as the clearest deductions of the principles of faith.” Accordingly the opinion of a person who rashly impugns this Bull is manifestly to be gravely censured as erronea, sapiens haeresim, captiosa, subuersiua hierarchiae; erroneous, savouring of heresy, captious, subversive of the hierarchy.
Without exception non-Catholic historians have either in no measured language denounced or else with sorrow deplored the Bull of Innocent VIII as a most pernicious and unhappy document, a perpetual and irrevocable manifesto of the unchanged and unchangeable mind of the Papacy. From this point of view they are entirely justified, and their attitude is undeniably logical and right. The Summis desiderantes affectibus is either a dogmatic exposition by Christ’s Vicar upon earth or it is altogether abominable.
Hansen, either in honest error or of intent, wilfully misleads when he writes, “it is perfectly obvious that the Bull pronounces no dogmatic decision.”[2] As has been pointed out, in one very narrow and technical sense this may be correct—yet even here the opposite is arguable and probably true—but such a statement thrown forth without qualification is calculated to create, and undoubtedly does create, an entirely false impression. It is all the more amazing to find that the writer of the article upon “Witchcraft” in the Catholic Encyclopaedia[3] quotes Hansen with complete approval and gleefully adds with regard to the Bull of Innocent VIII, “neither does the form suggest that the Pope wishes to bind anyone to believe more about the reality of witchcraft than is involved in the utterances of Holy Scripture,” a statement which is essentially Protestant in its nature, and, as is acknowledged by every historian of whatsoever colour or creed, entirely untrue. By its appearance in a standard work of reference, which is on the shelves of every library, this article upon “Witchcraft” acquires a certain title to consideration which upon its merits it might otherwise lack. It is signed Herbert Thurston, and turning to the list of “Contributors to the Fifteenth Volume” we duly see “Thurston, Herbert, S.J., London.” Since a Jesuit Father emphasizes in a well-known (and presumably authoritative) Catholic work an opinion so derogatory to the Holy See and so definitely opposed to all historians, one is entitled to express curiosity concerning other writings which may have come from his pen. I find that for a considerable number of years Fr. Thurston has been contributing to The Month a series of articles upon mystical phenomena and upon various aspects of mysticism, such as the Incorruption of the bodies of Saints and Beati, the Stigmata, the Prophecies of holy persons, the miracles of Crucifixes that bleed or pictures of the Madonna which
- ↑ Similarly, Leo XIII undoubtedly meant the Bull “Apostolicae Curae,” 18 September, 1896, to fix the belief and practice of the Catholic Church for ever. In a letter to Cardinal Richard, 5 November, 1896, the Pope declared that his intention has been absolute iudicare et penitus dirimere, and that all Catholics must receive his judgement as perpetuo firmam, ratam, irreuocabilem.
- ↑ “Zauberwahn … im Mittelalter,” Munich, 1900.
- ↑ New York, The Encyclopaedic Press, Inc., Copyright, 1913, Vol. XV, pp. 674–77.
