Note A to No. 9 (6), chap. ii. p. 60.
M. Emmanuel Cosquin, the Editor of the French translation of Bishop Fessler's Pamphlet, has appended the following note to page 60, for the accuracy of which he makes himself responsible. He says:
'In order to complete what Mgr. Fessler here says, we borrow a passage from the Pastoral Instruction of the Swiss Bishops in June, 1871, which has been approved by a Brief of Pius IX. "The Definition of the Council," say the Swiss Bishops, "has not in any respect brought about a separation between the head and the members of the teaching body in the Church. After the Council, as before, the Popes will exercise their office as Doctors and Chief Pastors in the Church, without forgetting that the Bishops are appointed with them by the Holy Spirit, and, according to the constitution of the Church, as successors of the Apostles, in order that, in conceit with the Pope, and in subordination to the successor of the Prince of the Apostles, they may govern the Church of God. As the Popes did before the Council, so now after it will they continue to strengthen their brethren the Bishops in the Faith; so also, in the government of the Church, never will they undertake anything which concerns the Universal Church without taking the Council and advice of the Bishops. As they did before the Council, so now also afterwards, will the Popes summon Councils; ask the advice of the Bishops scattered over the world; use every means in their power to obtain a full understanding respecting that deposit of the Faith which has been confided to the Church. It will be according to this only and immutable rule of the Faith that they will decide, as if in court of supreme and last instance, and infallibly, for the Universal Church, all questions which can possibly arise on matters of Faith or Morals.
"Nevertheless," add the Swiss Bishops, "even when the Popes use all possible means to obtain a profound knowledge of the question of the Faith which is under consideration, as the duties of their office require, yet is it not this purely human knowledge, however complete it may be, but it is the assistance of the Holy Spirit—that is to say, it is a special grace of his state peculiar to himself—which gives the Pope the indubitable assurance of Infallibility, and which guarantees to all the faithful, with an absolute certainty, that the definitions of faith of the supreme teaching authority of the Pope are exempt from error."
