Ce qui se passe au Concile, the other, La dernière heure du Concile: in both, the liberty of the Vatican Council was denied, with a view to denying its authority. The General Congregation by an immense majority adopted the following protest, and condemned these two slanderous pamphlets, thereby placing on record a spontaneous declaration of the absolute freedom of the Council.
'Most Reverend Fathers,
'From the time that the Holy Vatican Synod opened by the help of God, a most bitter warfare instantly broke out against it; and in order to diminish its venerable authority with the faithful, and, if it could be, to destroy it altogether, many writers vied with each other in attacking it by contumelious detraction, and by the foulest calumnies; and that, not only among the heterodox and open enemies of the Cross of Christ, but also among those who give themselves out as sons of the Catholic Church; and what is most to be deplored, among even its sacred ministers.
'The infamous falsehoods which have been heaped together in this matter in public newspapers of every tongue, and in pamphlets without the author's name, published in all places and stealthily distributed, all men well know; so that we have no need to recount them one by one. But among anonymous pamphlets of this kind there are two especially, written in French, and entitled, Ce qui se passe au Concile, and La dernière heure du Concile, which for the arts of calumny and the license of detraction bear away
D
