Council of Constance. It is true that an erroneous opinion lingered on from the time of the Council of Constance, in what De Marca calls the "Old Sorbonne," to distinguish it from the Sorbonne of his own day. But it is certain, then, that before the Council of Trent this opinion had not assumed the definite and elaborate form given to it by the Assembly of 1682, and by those who for two centuries have defended the Four Articles. This modern and dogmatic form of the denial of the Pope's infallibility, ex cathedrâ, was completed in the seventeenth century that is, since the last General Council and gave rise to a widespread and mischievous controversy.
V. It was therefore evident that if an Œcumenical Council should meet and separate without taking notice of this denial, one of two inferences would be drawn. It would be said either that Gallicanism had obtained its place among tolerated opinions; or, at least, that it might be held with impunity. It does not readily appear what answers could be made to this argument. It would be hardly enough to say that it was not thought opportune to meet so open a denial of a doctrine universally believed and taught everywhere out of France, or that it was inopportune to renew the acts of three Pontiffs who had authoritatively censured it. History would have said of the Vatican Council: "Qui tacet, consentire videtur."
VI. It could not be said that the denial of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff is an obscure and inert error. It is notorious and active. To find or invent a division among Catholics is the chief hope of antagonists. To foment the least divergence among Catholics into a conflict is their chief policy. There can be no doubt that this controversy afforded them their most advantageous attack. Catholics are visibly united on all doctrines of faith, but on the infallibility of the head, as distinct from the infallibility of the Church, a divergence existed which adversaries think or pretend to be a contradiction in faith. The combined action of a certain school within the Church, and of Protestants without it, has given to this erroneous opinion a great notoriety in the last two centuries, and this takes it out of the category of innocuous errors which may be left to evaporate
