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by Leonard Wolsey Bacon (Editor), Brother Hermenegild Tosf (Editor), Archbishop Kenrick (Author)
INCLUDING: THE SYLLABUS OF HIS HOLINESS PIUS IS THE PROTEST 0F FATHER HYACINTHE. THE PROTEST AND SPEECHES OF BISHOP STROSSMAYER. THE APOCRYPHAL .. SPEECH OF A BISHOP. THE ACTS OF THE COUNCIL. THE APPEAL OF FATHER HYACINTHE. THE DECLARATION OF DR. DOLLINGER AND HIS ABSOCIATES. THE PROGRAMME OF THE ANTI-INFALLIBILITY LEAGUE. THE Vatican Council of the year 1870, an event of interest to all, and especially to those of every Christian communion, who love the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ on the earth, is nevertheless the one event of recent times, the history of which is most disputed and most studiously concealed from the knowledge of the public. The Council was organized as a "secret society." At the opening of it an awful obligation was imposed, under severe penalty, sub prena gravi, on all its members, binding them to absolute secrecy in everything pertaining to the Council. The members were not allowed to communicate even with each other in print. Meetings for consultation of members speaking the same language, were interdicted. Owing to the extraordinary acoustical properties of the hall of the Council, it was rare that the transactions were heard, except by a small part of the members. The stenographic reports of daily proceedings, transacted in an unfamiliar language, were not printed, nor otherwise submitted to the members of the Council, whether for their information or for the correction of the record. In view of these facts, the bitter complaints of the bishops belonging to the majority, and in particular of Archbishop Manning, of Westminster, of the incorrectness of the published accounts of the assembly, seem actually childish. To stimulate public curiosity and interest by every device of advertising-by announcements and manifestoes, by parades, processions, costumes, tableaux, and fireworks, attracting a crowd from every part of the world to the doors of the Council, and then complain that the event was reported in the newspapers; to lock the doors in the face of the public and shut off access to information by oaths of secrecy, and then complain that the reports are not exact-is like children crying in the market-place. If they wanted no reports, why all this advertising of a free show of parades, pantomimes, and pyrotechny to gather the loungers of two hemispheres in the piazza of St. Peter's? Why not go quietly about their business, and have done with it? If they wanted to be correctly reported, why not admit witnesses, or remove the seal of secrecy? The conclusion is inevitable: what the managers of the Council wanted was to be incorrectly reported. The thing which they had taken pains to secure was the wide circulation of partial information about their proceedings. The thing whioh they had studied to prevent was the statement of the whole truth.
