eighty condemned propositions are eighty heresies in the eyes of Rome, and the eighty contradictories so many articles of faith. This is a misconception. Opinions may be censured as heretical, or as approaching to heresy, or as dangerous, or as offensive to pious ears, or as erroneous, etc.[1] Hence I must say a word or two on the several kinds of definitions and of censures. Of course my non-Catholic friends will not allow that we are right; but I trust they will give us credit for consistency and common sense.
IV.
Papal Infallibility and the Syllabus.
The Catholic Church has ever taught that the deposit of revealed truths received its completion on the day of Pentecost, and that from that hour it can receive neither increase nor diminution. It may be gradually unfolded, as Vincentius of Lerins hath it; the bloom of youth may grow into the vigour of manhood, but the body is one and the same. It may be clothed with the venerable garb of antiquity, may strike deeper and wider roots into the consciousness of mankind, but can lose naught of its fulness, can admit no stain on its youthful purity. The pearls of the heavenly doctrine may receive lustre and grace, borrowed from on high, and may be set in gold or silver. Above all, they may acquire distinctness. The several parts of a fertile and complex principle may, one after another, be brought before the eyes of the faithful.
- ↑ All these censures, except the first, are called minor censures.
