Archbishop Scherr was thus driven forward from Rome, and reluctantly forced to take the final step. A protest signed by forty-three Catholic professors against episcopal tyranny was naturally without effect. So also was an appeal with many thousands of signatures. Theological students in Munich diocese were now forbidden to attend his lectures; and he was informed that although the Archbishop could not prevent his lecturing, yet he could only continue to do so in open opposition to his Bishop. This was followed a fortnight later by his formal excommunication, in which his biographer, Friedrich, was included.[1]
The exasperation at Munich is shown in a strongly worded protest[2] issued at Whitsuntide 1871, in which the signatories declare themselves confirmed in refusing the Vatican Decree by the duty, which neither Popes nor Bishops can dispute, of abiding in loyalty to the ancient faith even though an angel should teach them otherwise. It has been hitherto no doctrine of the Church, no part of Catholic faith, that every Christian possesses in the Pope an absolute overlord and master, to whom he is directly and immediately subjected, and whose decisions in faith and morals he is bound under penalty of eternal damnation to obey. It is notoriously no part of the teaching of the Church hitherto that the gift of Infallibility is entrusted to one individual. Peter speaks unmistakably to us in Scriptures through his deeds and his words and his letters; but all these breathe a totally different spirit from that of papal absolutism. The German minority Bishops show their bewilderment in their Pastoral letters. For none of them can induce themselves to follow Manning and the Jesuits in interpreting the Decrees in their natural obvious
