Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/343

"The tendency of events since 1870 was shown," said Döllinger, "in the solemn proclamation of Liguori as Doctor of the Church:—

"A man whose false morals, perverse worship of the Virgin, constant use of the grossest fables and forgeries, make his writings a storehouse of errors and falsehoods. In the whole range of Church history I do not know a single example of such a terrible and pernicious confusion."

 

The public papers repeatedly announced Dr Döllinger's reconciliation with the Roman Communion. On one occasion he replied:—

 

"This is now the fourteenth time that my submission has been announced by Ultramontane papers; and it will often occur again. Rest assured that I shall not dishonour my old age with a lie before God and man."

 

Ten years after the Vatican Decision, Döllinger received a pathetic, imploring appeal from a lady of high social position, entreating him to rescue himself from the everlasting destruction which his exclusion would entail, and to have mercy on his own unhappy soul.

Döllinger's answer is memorable:—

 

"I am now in my eighty-first year, and was a public teacher of theology for forty-seven years, during which long period no censure, nor even a challenge that I should defend myself, or make a better explanation, has ever reached me from ecclesiastical dignitaries, either at home or abroad. I had never taught the new Articles of Faith advanced by Pius IX. and his Council. … Then came the fatal year, 1870. … It was in vain that I begged them to let me remain by the faith and confession to which I had hitherto been faithful without blame and without contradiction. Yesterday still orthodox, I was to-day a heretic worthy of excommunication; not because I had changed my