iscredit and then into
oblivion. A new spirit animates the new clergy, and, after 1808,
Napoleon remarks of it, "It does not complain of the old one, and is
even satisfied with it; but, he says, they are bringing up new priests
in a sombre fanatical doctrine: there is nothing Gallican in the
youthful clergy,"[5214] no sympathy for the civil power. After Napoleon,
and on getting out of his terrible hands, the Catholics have good
reasons for their repugnance to his theology; it has put too many
Catholics in jail, the most eminent in rank, in holiness, bishops and
cardinals, including the Pope. Gallican maxims are dishonored by the use
Napoleon has made of them. Canon law, in public instruction and in
the seminaries (of the Catholics), ends insensibly in unlooked-for
conclusions; texts and arguments opposed to the Pope's authority seem
weaker and weaker; texts and arguments favorable to the Pope's authority
seem stronger and stronger;[5215] the doctors most deferred to are
no longer Gerson and Bossuet, but Bellarmin and Suarez; flaws are
discovered in the decrees of the council of Constance; the Declaration
of the clergy of France in 1682 is found to contain errors condemned
and open to condemnation.[5216] After 1819, M. de Maistre, a powerful
logician, matchless herald and superb champion, in his book on "The
Pope," justifies, prepares and announces the coming constitution of
the Church.--Step by step, the assent of Catholic community is won or
mastered;[5217] on approaching 1870, it is nearly universal; after 1870,
it is wholly so and could not be otherwise; whoever refuses to submit is
excluded from the community and excludes himself from it, for he denies
a dogma which it professes, a revealed dogma, an article of faith which
the Pope and the council have just decreed. Thenceforward, the Pope,
in his magisterial pulpit, in the eyes of every man who is and wants to
remain Catholic, is infallible; when he gives his decision on faith or
on morals, Jesus Christ himself speaks by his mouth, and his definitions
of doctrine are "irrefutable," "they are so of themselves, they
alone, through their own virtue, and not by virtue of the Church's
consent."[5218] For the same reason, his authority is absolute, not only
in matters which concern faith and morals, but again in matters which
concern the discipline and government of the Church."[5219] His judgment
may be resorted to in every ecclesiastical case; nobody is allowed
to quest