utterance ex cathedrâ. Perhaps Dr. Schulte may here say, 'You may see plainly enough from the words of Pope Leo X. what his thoughts were, and how he hoped to teach Luther if he actually had gone to Rome.' To this I answer, 'It is quite beside the moot question what a Pope's thoughts were; nor does it at all belong to a Papal utterance ex cathedrâ to consider what a Pope thinks, or even what a Pope thinks it well to give as a piece of private advice or information to any one in this or that manner.'
After this first most unfortunate proof which Dr. Schulte has brought forward, he tries a second, which is not a bit better. Accordingly he says: 'Just so has it been declared in express words by Pius IX. on the occasion of the condemnation of a book: "Finally, not to mention other errors, he rises to such a pitch of audacity and impiety[1] as with indescribable perversion to assert 'that the Roman Pontiffs and Ecumenical Councils have overstepped the limits of their power, assumed for themselves the rights of princes, and have even erred in matters of faith and morals.'"'[2] Here I should like to ask, in sober earnest, whether any one ever before Dr. Schulte took it into his head to assert that dogmatic infallible definitions (utterances
- ↑ The German word 'Gottlosigkeit,' which is rendered above by 'impiety,' is an imperfect translation of the Latin 'impietas' (so also is our English word 'impiety.'—Tr.) The words 'pius,' 'impius,' 'pietas,' and 'impietas,' all designate a certain stale of mind towards God as well as a state of mind towards parents, and 'impietas' is here used in this latter sense, inasmuch as the Pope is regarded as the 'pastor omnium Christianorum' in the sentence quoted from the Brief in question.
- ↑ See Brief Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851.
