"I mean to overthrow none of the truths which I may have established in these letters. I mean to restore no falsehood therein denounced. But I admit that these letters may contain mistakes; and that it is those mistakes which I mean to efface."
A distinguished Bishop, strongly opposed to the contents of the letters, had been advising him that he could maintain a considerable portion of his letters. All that was necessary was to cancel what contradicted the Decree.
Is it too much to say that this explanation is shorn of all the reasoning force and historic cogency of the famous letters? If words have any meaning, Gratry's entire conception of Honorius, and the attitude of the Councils towards him, left no room for the Vatican Dogma. The explanation reveals nothing so plainly as profound intellectual perplexity.
Gratry also wrote an explanatory letter to M. Legouve, a colleague in the French Academy.
"I opposed inspired Infallibility; the Council's decree has rejected inspired Infallibility. I opposed personal Infallibility; the Decree affirms official Infallibility. Some writers of the School which I consider exaggerated did not wish for Infallibility ex cathedra, which seemed to them too narrow a restriction: the Decree affirms Infallibility ex cathedra. I almost feared a scientific Infallibility, a political and governmental Infallibility: but the Decree only affirms doctrinal Infallibility, in matters of faith and morals.
"All this does not mean that I made no mistakes in my opposition. Doubtless I have made mistakes, both on this subject and on others; but as soon as I recognise my error I cancel it, without feeling thereby humiliated."
This letter was not printed until 1907. And it appears that Gratry wrote still further explanations
