Mgr. Darboy's successor. To require of me a public declaration would seem like revising the acts of his glorious predecessor and martyr for the faith. It is for this last reason most of all that those among my friends who urged me most to publish some declaration surprised and saddened me. I have constantly answered them that I have nothing to say, and nothing to write upon this subject."
But, on reflecting that there was no necessity to cling tenaciously to strict rights, if an assurance would remove his brethren's anxiety, Gratry wrote to his new Archbishop a letter of submission. That, he says, was easy. What would not have been easy was to say:—
"I have been a member and a soldier of the Catholic Church for half a century, but now comes an Ecumenical Council which I do not acknowledge. I therefore separate from its Communion. To contradict, at a single stroke, all my life, and deny all my deepest convictions—do you blame me for not doing that?"
If they object that this was not an Ecumenical Council since it was not free, Gratry replies that he is unable to deny its validity, and therefore he must submit to its decisions. Then, Gratry asks himself, what the great historic luminaries of the Church of France, Fénelon and Bossuet, would have done under the circumstances. Had Montalembert survived, he would certainly have submitted, as his own words prove: resolved, come what may, and cost what it may, never to transgress the inviolable limits of unity. But what of Gratry's letters? Strongly worded remonstrances had reached him on this. How could he cancel his letters and their unanswerable demonstrations? how contradict himself? how overthrow truths which he has firmly established, and re-establish the falsehoods which he has overthrown? To this difficult enquiry Gratry's answer was:—
