modolibet latas, et promulgatas Apostolicâ auctoritate approbamus et innovamus,' &c.[1]
The words of the contents of the Bull in question which I have here printed form also the title of this Bull, as I quoted in p. 88 of my pamphlet; this any one may easily convince himself of by comparing the words in both places. And yet it is in this very case that my opponent ventures openly to assert that I have made use of a 'miserable subterfuge' in drawing my proofs not from the contents of the bull, but from the title alone; the fact being that I did expressly refer to the contents, and only for the sake of brevity quoted the words of the title, which were identical with the contents, instead of the contents of the Bull, which I have just given to my readers. These are the sort of opponents with whom one has to deal. When this same opponent of the Vatican definition further says, 'Bishop Fessler himself does not venture to deny that the Bull concerns doctrine de moribus,' I answer, 'The contents of this Bull concern morals certainly, if you reckon all penal enactments as doctrine de moribus.' Whether my opponent does so or not, I do not know. But this I do know, that mere penal enactments do not belong to the infallible doctrinal definitions de fide et moribus, of which the definition of the Vatican Council on the Infallible office of the Pope treats, and that this Bull of Paul IV. is a penal enactment and not a doctrinal definition. If he will take the trouble to read through the old Roman and later imperial penal
- ↑ Bullar. Rom. edit. Coquelines, Romæ, apud Mainardi, 1745, t. iv. p. i. p. 355.
