“Who shall say that human reason is in such wise independent, that faith cannot be demanded of it by God.

“Who shall say that divine revelation cannot be rendered credible by external evidences.

“Who shall say that no miracles can be wrought, or that they can never be known with certainty, and that the divine origin of Christianity cannot be proved by them.

“Who shall say that divine revelation includes no mysteries, but that all the dogmas of faith may be understood and demonstrated by reason duly cultivated.

“Who shall say that human sciences ought to be pursued in such a spirit of freedom that one may be allowed to hold as true their assertions, even when opposed to revealed doctrine.

“Who shall say that it may at any time come to pass, in the progress of science, that the doctrines set forth by the Church must be taken in another sense than that in which the Church has ever received and yet receives them.”

The evangelical alliance.  The extraordinary and, indeed, it may be said, arrogant assumptions contained in these decisions were far from being received with satisfaction by educated Catholics.  On the part of the German universities there was resistance; and, when, at the close of the year, the decrees of the Vatican Council were generally acquiesced in, it was not through conviction of their truth, but through a disciplinary sense of obedience.

By many of the most pious Catholics the entire movement and the results to which it had led were looked upon with the sincerest sorrow.  Pere Hyacinthe, in a letter to the superior of his order, says :  “I protest against the divorce, as impious as it is insensate, sought to be effected between the Church, which is our eternal mother, and the society of the nineteenth century, of which we are the temporal children, and toward which we have also duties and regards.  It is my most profound conviction that, if France in particular, and the Latin race in general, are given up to social, moral, and religious anarchy, the principal cause undoubtedly is not Catholicism itself, but the manner in which Catholicism has for a long time been understood and practised.”

Notwithstanding his infallibility, which implies omniscience, his Holiness did not foresee the issue of the Franco-Prussian War.  Had the prophetical talent been vouchsafed to him, he would have detected the inopportuneness of the acts of his Council.  His request to the King of Prussia for military aid to support his temporal power was denied.  The excommunicated King of Italy, as we have seen, took possession of Rome.  A bitter papal encyclical, strangely contrasting with the courteous politeness of modern state-papers, was issued, November 1, 1870, denouncing the acts of the Piedmontese court, “which had followed the counsel of the sects of perdition.”  In this his Holiness declares that he is in captivity, and that he will have no agreement with Belial.  He pronounces the greater excommunication, with censures and penalties, against his antagonists, and prays for “the intercession of the immaculate Virgin Mary, mother of God, and that of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul.”