Letters From Rome on the Council

by Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger

“The concluding words of the volume, coming as they evidently do from a great leader of thought among German Catholics, are so startling and suggestive that we give the passage as it stands, while exhorting our readers to lose no time in procuring and carefully perusing the whole volume for themselves.”—Church Herald, October 20.

“It is our intention to deal with this book hereafter as it deserves, for we have reason to believe, we will not say to know, lest we should imitate the vicious example of Janus, that the work is a fabrication of English and German hands. Its name has been well chosen; Janus had two faces, which nationally may mean English and German, but in morals signifies a character not highly estimable for truth.”—Tablet, October 16.

“This extraordinary work should be read by the millions of Protestant England, as the ablest and most authentic exposure of the ecclesiastical and political despotism of Popery which exists in any language or any country.”—Rock, October 20.

“We feel, as we have already said, that it is hardly possible in a review to give an adequate idea of the volume before us, considered merely as a storehouse of facts on the Roman controversy, a value enhanced by the circumstance that it is written by earnest but sorrowing members of that Church, who desire, by its publication, to avert the progress of corruption and to save the Church from the blundering threatened by the action of the Council. We had marked many passages for extract in the course of our own examination. Space, however, forbids our indulging ourselves. We regret this the less because we feel assured that the book which we have so imperfectly noticed will soon be in the hands of most persons interested in the question which is debated.”—John Bull, October 23.

“It is of great importance at such a crisis that the public mind should be thoroughly informed as to the points on which the judgment of the Council is to be asked, or, to speak more correctly, as to the monstrous claims of the Papacy to which it is expected to give its formal submission. Especially is it desirable to understand clearly the exact position occupied by the ‘Liberal Catholics,’ men who are not prepared to forsake their Church nor to declare war against all progress, and who, despite many discouragements, still cling to the belief that it is possible to find some mode of reconciliation between ‘Catholic’ principles and modern ideas, and who resent such fanatical outbursts as that of Archbishop Manning even more bitterly than Protestants themselves. We attach, therefore, great value to a little volume just issued on the ‘Pope and the Council,’ by Janus, which contains a more complete statement of the whole case than we have anywhere met with.”—Nonconformist, October 27.

“Beginning with a sketch of the errors and contradictions of the Popes, and of the position which, as a matter of history, they held in the early Church, the book proceeds to describe the three great forgeries by which the Papal claims were upheld—the Isidorian decretals, the donation of Constantine, and the decretum of Gratian. The last subject ought to be carefully studied by all who wish to understand the frightful tyranny of a complicated system of laws, devised not for the protection of a people, but as instruments for grinding them to subjection. Then, after an historical outline of the general growth of the Papal power in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the writers enter upon the peculiarly episcopal and clerical question, pointing out how marvellously every little change worked in one direction, invariably tending to throw [pg 859] the rule of the Church into the power of Rome; and how the growth of new institutions, like the monastic orders and the Inquisition, gradually withdrew the conduct of affairs from the Bishops of the Church in general, and consolidated the Papal influence. For all this, however, unless we could satisfy ourselves with a mere magnified table of contents, the reader must be referred to the book itself, in which he will find the interest sustained without flagging to the end.”—Pall Mall Gazette, October 29.

“It is very able, learned, compact, and conclusive. The subject of Papal Infallibility is admirably treated, with a thorough mastery of Church history. We commend it to the perusal of all who take an interest in the progress of ecclesiastical questions, and wish to become more nearly acquainted with the Romish Church, its doings, pretensions, decrees—especially with the conduct of its successive heads. It is a perfect storehouse of facts brought together with telling effect. Let the voice of these German Catholics be listened to by enlightened Englishmen of all creeds, and they will be in no danger of ensnarement from the plausible rhetoric of Ultramontanism, whose principles are opposed to our free institutions—to the glory and strength of England.”—Athenæum, October 30.

“In France, in Holland, and in Germany, there has already appeared a multitude of disquisitions on this subject. Among these several are the acknowledged compositions of men of high standing in the Roman Catholic world,—men admittedly entitled to speak with the authority that must attach to established reputation: but not one of them has hitherto produced a work more likely to create a deep impression than the anonymous German publications at the head of this notice. It is not a piece of merely polemical writing, it is a treatise dealing with a large subject in an impressive though partisan manner—a treatise grave in tone, solid in matter, and bristling with forcible and novel illustrations.”—Spectator, November 6.

“It is, as all our readers know, a history of how the Papal claims have grown from their modest germs in the fifth, down to their full development in the sixteenth century. This history, too, is accompanied by a corresponding exhibition of the inconsistency of these claims with actual facts. But the work is done with such elaborate care, and with such a well-marshalled and complete view of the historical facts of the case, that it may well be bought and read irrespective of the circumstances which have called it forth. It is a full, able, and learned bill of indictment against Popery proper.”—Literary Churchman, November 13.

“This book, characterized by great ability, singular grasp, and scholarship, demonstrates, with proof infallible, that the Ultramontane doctrine of the Pope's infallibility is the centre of an arch based upon error, raised by cunning craft, settled and cemented by shameless treachery. And this most damaging exposure of Popery proceeds from divines calling themselves ‘faithful Catholics.’ No Ultramontane is able to sneer at the scholarship of the book; nor can they take off the edge of its blows by ascribing it to the malice of Protestants.”—Record, November 17.