the Liturgy, to allow a larger share to the laity in the management of
ecclesiastical affairs, to encourage the education of the clergy at
universities, and to renounce the claims of mediaeval theocracy, which
are fruitful of suspicion between Church and State.

Many Catholics in many countries concurred in great part of this
programme; but it was not the symbol of a connected party. Few agreed
with the author in all parts of his ideal church, or did not think that
he had omitted essential points. Among the inveterate abuses which the
Council of Trent failed to extirpate was the very one which gave the
first impulse to Lutheranism. The belief is still retained in the
superficial Catholicism of Southern Europe that the Pope can release the
dead from Purgatory; and money is obtained at Rome on the assurance that
every mass said at a particular altar opens heaven to the soul for which
it is offered up. On the other hand, the Index of prohibited books is an
institution of Tridentine origin, which has become so unwieldy and
opprobrious that even men of strong Roman sympathies, like the bishops
of Wuerzburg and St. Poelten, recommended its reform. In France it was
thought that the Government would surrender the organic articles, if the
rights of the bishops and the clergy were made secure under the canon
law, if national and diocesan synods were introduced, and if a
proportionate share was given to Catholic countries in the Sacred
College and the Roman congregations. The aspiration in which all the
advocates of reform seemed to unite was that those customs should be
changed which are connected with arbitrary power in the Church. And all
the interests threatened by this movement combined in the endeavour to
maintain intact the papal prerogative. To proclaim the Pope infallible
was their compendious security against hostile States and Churches,
against human liberty and authority, against disintegrating tolerance
and rationalising science, against error and sin. It became the common
refuge of those who shunned what was called the liberal influence in
Catholicism.

Pius IX. constantly asserted that the desire of obtaining the
recognition of papal infallibility was not originally his motive in
convoking the Council. He did not require that a privilege which was
practically undisputed should be further defined. The bishops,
especially those of the minority, were never tired of saying that the
Catholic world honoured and obeyed th