THE VATICAN COUNCIL
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parties than on the process by which the stronger spirit within the minority leavened the mass. The opposition was as averse to the actual dogmatic discussion among themselves as in the Council. They feared an inquiry which would divide them. At first the bishops who understood and resolutely contemplated their real mission in the Council \vere exceedingly few. Their influence was strengthened by the force of events, by the incessant pressure of the majority, and by the action of literary opinion. Early in December the Archbishop of Mechlin brought out a reply to the letter of the Bishop of Orleans, who immediately prepared a rejoinder, but could not obtain permission to print it in Rome. I t appeared t\VO months later at Naples. Whilst the minority were under the shock of this prohibition, Gratry published at Paris the first of four letters to the Archbishop of ech1in, in \vhich the case of Honorius was discussed with so much perspicuity and effect that the profane public was interested, and the pamphlets were read with avidity in Rome. They contained no new research, but they went deep into the causes which divided Catholics. Gratry showed that the Roman theory is still propped by fables which were innocent once, but have become deliberate untruths since the excuse of mediæval ignorance was dispelled; and he declared that this school of lies was the cause of the weakness of the Church, and called on Catholics to look the scandal in the face, and cast out the religious forgers. His letters did much to clear the ground and to correct the confusion of ideas among the French. The bishop of St. Brieuc wrote that the exposure was an excellent service to religion, for the evil had gone so far that silence \vould be complicity.! Gratry was no sooner
1 Gratry had written: II Cette apologétique sans franchise est l'une des causes de notre décadence religieuse depuis des siècles. . . . Sommes - nous les prédicateurs du mensonge ou les apôtres de la vérité? Le temps n'est-il pas venu de rejeter avec dégoíìt les fraudes, les interpolations, et les mutilations que les menteurs et les faussaires, nos plus cruels ennemis, ont pu introduire parmi nons? .. The bishop wrote: · I J amais parole plus puis san te, inspirée par la conscience et Ie savoir, n'est arrivée plus à propos que la vôtre, , . , Le mal est tel et Ie danger si effrayant que Ie silence devienc1rait de la complicité, ..
