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TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION.


This important work of the lamented Dr. Fessler, Bishop of St. Polten, or more properly St. Hippolytus, in Austria, who was Secretary-General to the Vatican Council in the year 1870, and who, worn out with the fatigues of the Council, died two years afterwards, is now for the first time brought before the notice of English Catholics.

Entitled by the good Bishop himself The True and False Infallibility of the Pope, it presents to the reader a perfect 'repertorium' of all the stock objections and erroneous representations, both as regards the doctrine itself, and as regards the history of previous Papal rescripts and acts, that the fertile mind and extensive reading of Dr. Schulte, Professor of Canon and German Law in the University of Prague, could ingeniously pile together and misconstrue, in order to bring odium upon all Papal Bulls and Papal acts from, as he says, the time of Pope Gregory VII.

These misstatements and misconstructions Bishop Fessler, with extraordinary labour and patience, has met and refuted one by one. The refutations remained unanswered during the Bishop's lifetime, nor have we heard of Dr. Schulte having attempted any answer since his death, although he has gone on reiterating his former statements. It is the old story