Excerpt from The Doctrine of Papal Infallibility: Stated and Vindicated; With an Appendix on Civil Allegiance, and Certain Historical Difficulties The object of the following pages is to state and vindicate the doctrine of Papal Infallibility as defined by the Sacred Council of the Vatican. Since the time of its definition, this doctrine has engaged the attention of the religious world, and, we may add, of the secular and irreligious world also. On the platform and in the pulpit, in public speeches and private conversations, it has been discussed, or rather denounced, by Non-Catholics with a zeal commensurate with their ignorance of the subject; whilst the quarterly review, the monthly magazine, the weekly and the daily press have showered article upon article against it on the public. Falsehood and misrepresentation, the result (let us charitably hope) of ignorance rather than malevolence, have been unsparingly employed to obscure this doctrine, to cover it with ridicule and contempt, and through it to assail the Catholic Church for endeavoring to foist upon the world, in this nineteenth century, a religious novelty until now unheard of, and against which the reason and common sense of mankind rebel. These gentlemen of the press have not, of course, the slightest doubt of their own infallibility when condemning the infallibility of the Pope, and would put down as a bigoted and benighted ultramontane any person who would have the audacity to question their inerrancy. Protestant statesmen have even used this doctrine as a pretext for inaugurating against their Catholic fellow-countrymen a lawless and wicked persecution, which seeks to fetter the Christian conscience and to bind the immortal soul in chains of slavery. Under these circumstances it becomes the duty of a loyal Catholic to dissipate, by the light of truth, the clouds and mists that have been raised to obscure the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, a doctrine which has its place amid the constellation of divine verities that glitter in the firmament of the Church, and to point out the irrefragable and cumulative proofs that vindicate it as a revealed truth. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.