[Footnote 285: The following is a list of these eighteen ecumenical councils:
1. Nice, in 325, against Arius, who denied the divinity of the Word.
2. Constantinople, in 381, against Macedonius, who attacked the divinity of the Holy Ghost.
3. Ephesus, in 431, against Nestorius, who erred concerning the Incarnation, and refused to give the Blessed Virgin the title Mother of God.
4. Chalcedon, in 451, against Eutyches, who originated an error, the opposite of that of Nestorius.
5. Constantinople, in 553, against the three celebrated chapters which fostered the error of Nestorius on the Incarnation.
6. Constantinople in 680, against the Monothelites, who continued the error of Eutyches, in denying that Jesus Christ had a human will.
7. Nice, in 787, against the Iconoclasts, or breakers of images.
8. Constantinople, in 869, against Photius, the author of the Greek schism.
9. Lateran, in 1123, or the promulgation of peace between the ecclesiastical power and the empire, after the long quarrels of the Investitures, and also for the Crusades.
10. Lateran, in 1139, for the reunion of the Greeks and against the errors of the Albigenses.
11. Lateran, in 1179, for different questions of discipline, and against the heresies of the day.
12. Lateran, in 1215, against the Vaudois.
13. Lyons, in 1245, for the Crusade and the troubles with the Emperor Frederic.
14. Lyons, in 1274, for the Crusade, and for reunion with the Greeks.
15. Vienne, in 1311, for the Crusade, and different questions of discipline, and for the affair of the Templars.
16. Florence, in 1439, for reunion with the Greeks.
17. Lateran, in 1511, against the conventicle of Pisa.
18. Trent, in 1545, against Protestantism.
Several sessions of the Council of Constance have also been considered ecumenical.]

It would be difficult to determine the almost infinite number of particular councils. Nothing can show more clearly than do these assemblies the wonderful vitality of the church, and the power she bears within herself to protect her own existence both against the errors which the human mind is ever producing, and also against corruption and abuses within the church, abuses which are unavoidable because of the infirmity of human nature. She is the only society upon the earth where revolutions are not necessary, and where reform is always possible. There is not one of these many councils but which has a regulation upon discipline at the same time that it has a definition of faith; and the great Council of Trent itself, without fearing that word, reform, which had revolutionized Europe, accepted it, because it belonged to the church, and accompanied its dogmatic decrees concerning the Catholic faith with decrees concerning reformation—De Reformatione. Assembled in ecumenical council the Pope and bishops thoroughly investigate the situation of affairs in the Christian republic, and use fearlessly the remedy for its wounds and its sufferings. Thus the immortal youth of the church is renewed, a more active and vigorous breath of life animates this immense body, and even society feels its happy influence. It is, then, one of these ecumenical assemblies which the Pope has just convoked. After long meditation upon the needs of the time, and earnest prayer for God's guidance, the head of the Catholic Church has spoken a single word. He has made a solemn sign, and it is sufficient. From the west and east, from the north and south, from every part of the habitable globe, from every race, from every tongue, from every nation, the chiefs of this great spiritual society, the dispersed members of this government of souls, leave their sees to meet at the place appointed by the Sovereign Pontiff. They meet, not as in human congresses, to debate concerning peace and war, conquests and frontiers, but to treat of souls and their sacred interests, of things spiritual and eternal. They obey the divine words of Him who founded the church, "Go, therefore, and teach all nations." They meet to accomplish the most august duty of their sovereign mission—to proclaim, in a general council of the church, and, as it were, in the very face of human errors, those truths whose guardianship has been confided to them by Him who is the Truth itself. Such is the work of an ecumenical council. Can there in this world be a greater one?

It is now three hundred years since the world has seen one of these assemblies; even at the beginning of this century they were considered impossible. "In modern times," wrote J. de Maistre, less than fifty years ago, "since the civilized world is, so to speak, cut up into some sovereignties, and the world has been so much enlarged by the boldness of our sailors, an ecumenical council has become a chimera."

The political difficulties which so provokingly impeded the Council of Trent were remembered, and it seemed that the present time was yet more unfavorable. It was thought that the modern powers were more defiant and more hostile, and consequently that the liberty of the church was in greater danger, her action more circumscribed than ever. But we wronged our century, and instead of coming before God with complaints, we shall do better to adore his powerful hand, which, as an ancient proverb goes, "can write straightly on crooked lines," and force events to bend themselves, in spite of man's efforts, to his eternal designs. A missionary and a traveller, the church longs to see the road diminish. A preacher and a liberator, she profits and rejoices over the destruction of fetters. Then our age has accomplished these two works, the suppression of distance, the breaking down of barriers. I understand the words distance and barriers in the social and political sense, as well as in a material point of view. It was thought that they would serve only the world's interests, but they are really allies of the faith; all this marvellous movement, which seemed to be contrary to catholic ideas and opposed to the Catholic Church, will turn to her advantage. The spirit of the age obliges political governments, whether they be willing or not, to act more fairly toward the church, and it has destroyed the old prejudices which even recently have hindered her actions. The holding of an ecumenical council is easier to-day than it would have been in the times of Philip II., Louis XIV., or of Joseph II.

"For the convocations of the bishops alone," says again J. de. Maistre, "and to establish legally this convocation, five or six years would not be sufficient." To-day it has been enough for Pius IX. to post his bull upon the walls of the Lateran; modern publicity, in spite of many wishes to the contrary, carries it to the extremities of the earth. Soon, thanks to the marvellous progress of the sciences and mechanics, the bishops will hasten to obey the Pontiff's summons on the wings which steam has given to our vessels and our cars. These have, as it were, consumed space. The bishops will come from every free country, and, as we hope, even from those which are not free. And thus—for I like to repeat it—this double current of the ideas and of the industry of our time is going, in the future, not to serve the material life of man alone, but also to aid us in the government of souls, in the highest manifestation of the spiritual life of man, in the greatest work of God's Holy Spirit upon the earth. It is just, as divine Providence has so willed, that we should see in this the secret harmony hidden in the depths of things and in the unity of divine works. Matter is placed once more at the service of the spiritual, and the thoughts of man follow the order of God's counsels.

Three times already, as you are aware, the bishops have gathered about the vicar of Jesus Christ within a few years; but none of these three great reunions had the character of a council. The glory of resuming the ancient traditions of the church, so long interrupted, by the convention of a true ecumenical assembly, has been reserved to this magnanimous Pontiff, so powerful in his mildness, so calm amid his trials, and so confident in that God who has sustained him and who has manifestly inspired him to undertake the work of summoning the ecumenical council.

II.
The Programme Of The Council.

And why, with what thoughts, has the head of the church called to this great tribunal of catholicity those whom he names as being "his venerable brothers, the bishops of the catholic world, whose sacred character has called them to partake in his solicitudes? "Omnes venerabiles fratres totius catholici orbis sacrorum antistites, qui in solicitudinis nostrae partem vocati sunt." The apostolical letters inform us clearly. It is necessary to read them and to judge the church with equity by her own statement, not by rancorous or frivolous commentaries. The programme of the future council is thus traced in the bull of the Sovereign Pontiff:

"This ecumenical council will have to examine with the greatest care, and determine what is best to do in times so difficult and so perverse as these, for the greater glory of God, for the integrity of the faith, for the honor of divine worship, for the eternal salvation of men, for the discipline of the regular and secular clergy, for their useful and solid instruction, for the observance of ecclesiastical laws, for the reformation of customs, for the Christian education of youth, for general peace and universal concord."