is to say" exclaims Gratry, "behold a fact which overwhelms us. Let us prevent its being known."
The maxim that truth may be suppressed in the interests of religion roused Gratry's boundless indignation. Gratry himself had heard an Italian Prelate defend on this principle the condemnation of Galileo.
"Yes, undoubtedly," said the Bishop, "Galileo was right, and his judges knew perhaps that he was right; that he had discovered the true laws of astronomy: but at that time this too dangerous truth would have scandalised the faithful. This is the reason they condemned him, and they did right."
Gratry's strenuous protest is worth recording:—
"Had then the Catholic religion—had the Word of God—need of this monstrous imposture in a solemn judgment? O ye men of little faith, of low minds, of miserable hearts, have not your cunning devices become the scandal of souls? The very day that the grand science of Nature dawned upon the world, you condemned it. Be not astonished if men, before pardoning you, expect of you a confession, penitence, profound contrition, and reparation for your fault."
The omission from the Roman Prayer Book of historic facts acknowledged until the sixteenth century was, to Gratry's mind, an equally miserable illustration of indefensible principles. "Never was there in history a more audacious forgery, a more insolent suppression of the weightiest facts." The systematic suppression of facts antagonistic to the Pope's absolute sovereignty and separate Infallibility ought, urged Gratry, to prevent us from proclaiming before God and man theories supported by such a method.
