4. To Dupanloup's support came Gratry, priest of the Oratory, member of the Academy, Professor of Moral Theology at the Sorbonne. Gratry is certainly one of the most attractive personalities of the period. A refined and beautiful character, tender and sympathetic; he combined, as a contemporary acknowledged,[1] the imagination of a poet with the gifts of a metaphysician.
Gratry's famous letters attacked the Ultramontanes on the historical side. It is manifestly essential to the Infallibilist position that no solitary instance should be produced of a Pope officially defending heresy. Gratry therefore took the case of Honorius. "Heretical he cannot be," said the Ultramontane, as represented by Manning. "And yet," replies Gratry, "he was condemned as such by three Ecumenical Councils in succession."
Here is the language of the first of these:—
Anathema to the heretic Cyrus.
Anathema to the heretic Honorius.
Anathema to the heretic Pyrrhus.
Two other Ecumenical Councils repeated this condemnation of Honorius. The solemn profession of faith recited by successive Popes for centuries on the day of their election repeated this condemnation. It was mentioned in all the Roman Breviaries until the sixteenth century. Then a significant change took place. The name of Honorius disappears. They have simply suppressed his condemnation. These things are now said otherwise, "for the sake of brevity"! The Liber Diurnus contained the papal profession of faith. "As Pope Honorius is condemned in the profession of faith of the new Pontiffs," says Cardinal Bona, "it is better not to publish this work." "That
- ↑ Baunard, Hist. Card. Pie, p. 371.
