FATHER NEWMAN AND THE OLD CATHOLICS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'SPECTATOR."] SIR,—As I was reading over again the other day Father Newman's well-known "Development of Christian Doctrine," I stumbled upon the following passage, which seems to anticipate so exactly the state of the controversy between Rome and the Old Catholics, that I have thought that others may be glad to have it placed before them :— , "However we explain it, so much is clear, that the Fathers are only so far of use in the eyes of Romanists as they prove the Roman doc- trines, and in no sense are allowed to interfere with the conclusions which their Church has adopted ; that they are of authority when they seem to agree with Rome, of none if they differ 71
"A Romanist cannot really argue in defence of the Roman doctrines ; he has too firm a confidence in their truth to enable him critically to adjust the true weight to be given to this or that evidence. He assumes his Church's conclusions as true, and the facts or witnesses he adduces are rather brought to receive an interpretation than to furnish a proof. His highest aim is to show the mere consis- tency of his theory, its possible adjustment with the records of antiquity.'
Bellarmine argues that the Fathers "really held as modern Rome does ; for if they did not, they must have dissented from the Church of their own day, for the Church then held as modern Rome holds because Rome is the Church, and the Church ever holds the same. .
Ours is antiquity, theirs is the existing Church. It is quite clear that the combined testimonials of all the Fathers, supposing such a case, would not have a feather's weight against a decision of the Pope or Council, nor would it matter at all, except for the Fathers' sake, who had by anticipation opposed it. They consider that the Fathers ought to mean what Rome has since decreed, and that Rome knows their mean- ing better than they did themselves.
"Let us, then, understand the position of the Romanist towards us. They do not really argue from the Fathers, though they seem to do so. They may affect to do so in our behalf, happy if, by an innocent stratagem, they are able to convert us ; but all the while in their own feelings they are taking a far higher position. They are teaching, not disputing or proving. They claim and use all [ancient] documents as ministers and organs of that one infallible Church, which once, forsooth! kept silence, but since has spoken ; which by a divine gift must ever be consistent with herself, and which bears with her her own evidence of divinity."—(Prophetic Office, pp. 84-87; quoted in Develppment, p. 186-188.
These striking words sketch exactly the Ultramontane and Old- Catholic parties as they exist at present. On the one aide, we have a body of men of learning and honesty, who sincerely believe that it is their duty to follow in the steps of the, ancient Church, as they disclose themselves to earnest investigators of the truth ; on the other, we have a much larger body, who appeal to the authority of the actual Roman Church, pure and simple, taking no account of conscience, reason, or antiquity. On the one side, we have those who attempt to stand on the ancient ways ; on the other, those who accept the most modern developments, so if they be but set forth with the authority of the living Church, the voice of which is the Pope of Rome. The fact that reason and learning are on one side and authority on the other, is recognised by the Papalists when they stigmatise their learned opponents in Germany as a mere " Profes- eordom ;" and it certainly is a curious testimony to the vigour and rigidity of Roman discipline that the leading Old Catholics are of the professional class, and not bishops, or men under the immediate influence of bishops ; even Hefele, once one of the ablest of pro- fessors, succumbs as a bishop to the tremendous pressure brought to bear on the hierarchy.
Of course the position of the Old Catholics is logically as weak :as possible ; there is no more reason for their stopping short in their acceptance of Roman doctrine immediately before the pro- mulgation of the infallibility dogma, than there is for a cannon- ball's stopping short in mid-air ; on that point the advocates of the authority of the living Church have an easy victory. But it was evident in the Cologne conference that the real significance of the movement consists in its vindication of the right of free and independent investigation ; and this vindication of the rights -of truth and honesty is probably destined to bear much fruit. —I
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