The Invitation Heeded. Reasons for a Return to Catholic Unity. By James Kent Stone, late President of Kenyon College, Grambier, Ohio; and of Hobart College, Geneva, New York; and S. T. D. Fourth Edition. How the Rev. Dr. Stone Battered his Situation: An Examination of the Assurance of Salvation and Certainty of Belief to which we are affectionately invited by his Holiness the Pope. By Leonard Woolsey Bacon. Lecture on the Vatican Council. By Archbishop Purcell. [pp. 640-649]

1S70.] T1~~ Poj~e'~ Invi1~~~~on. (319
If tbis be so, a council bas po~ver to depose aii beretical
1?ope, ~vhcther indorsed by hin~ as ccuineiiical, or iiidorsed
by liiiii at all, or not. " Tlie cli~rch ~vonld iiot be ol~ligcd to
listeii to lii iii ~vhen lie begins to teaeli a doctrine ~~liicl~ the
church kno~~~s to be false." Indeed! And ho~v is tlie church
to kno~v it false, unless in tlie exercise of its own judgu~cnt iii
tlic light of reason, ~cripture, and tl~e Iloly Ghost? Is not
tlie Pope, then, like all others, to be judged by tests at~d standards outside of hiu~self, and to be followed only so far as lie
follows Christ in his ~Vord?
Ilis Grace says lie further objected to this dogma in the
Council in tlie following conclusive nianner, nor does it appear that any attenipt ~~as n~ade to solve liis diflicnlQ~, nor do
~ve think it is capable of solation.
"~~o}l, when I got to that part o~ my discourse I told fl~ cardinals in Coi~ncll
that there was anoH~er weightier objection wl~icli I wished to have removed
before I gave my assent to that dogma, and that was, how we are to understand
the cl:~ims of Poniface VIlI., who said:`Two swords are given me by God, a
spiritual and a temporal one?' I sought in the Dominican library of Mii~orva,
in Porno. to refl~esh my memory, and to see on what grounds il~ey claimed the
rig~t of controlling temporal affnirs, of doposing lIenry VIII., or Elizabeth, or
any otl~er temporal prince, or ahsolving their vassals from their oath of allegiance if their sovereigns did not respect tlie act of excommunication }~y the
church. I could not find any text of authority for that in the Bil~le; hence I
~~ai~tod tite Council to say whether tl~ey asserted a right of that kind, or assumed it us a right. The entire Council with one voice cried out:`Those ~opes
had no authority, no commission from God, to pretend to any such power.'"
Indeed, the dognia of ilie Vatican Council declariiig tlie
P~onian Pontiff infallible, and dcnouiicin~ tlie curse
u~~on all
~~ho deiiy it, revolts not only tlie Protestant, birt tlie best
part of the P~oniish Chnrch itself. Tidings conic froin various
quarters that this opposition to it, iuaintaincd by all i~ifluential nilnority of tlie Vatican Conucil itself, is now orgailiziug
and voicing itsclf among iniportaut portions of tlic 1~~oiiiish
laity and l~ierarchy. May God speed their effbrt and in alatain liis cause.