Perellyacinthe, the great orator of Notre Dame, and the head
of the order of barefooted Carmelites in Paris, has received some rebuke from his superior, apparently for the somewhat patronizing tone in which he has recently treated a Church that does not usually brook being subordinated, as Father Hyacinthe has subordinated it, to great social and patriotic ideas ; and in offence at this rebuke, has resigned his office, and written a bitter criticism on the Ultra- montane tendencies of Rome,—intimating that if the Ecumenical Council acts in the same spirit in which those who have sum- moned it are acting, he shall not feel bound by its decisions, and shall appeal to some other Council more truly (Ecumenical. We have explained our difficulty in understanding Father Hyacinthe's exact position elsewhere. Has he given up the absolute authority of the Church, and become a Protestant? If so, why wait for the Council ? Does he still defer absolutely to that authority? Then surely he must abide by the decrees of the Council, however he may still hope to modify them. The effect of his letter—which reads to us, we confess, a little windy and excited—on the Catholic world, has been rather exaggerated in this country. The directors of the French liberal-Catholic journal, Le Francois, publish it with the remark that the public will comprehend "with what regret" they reproduce it, adding the expression of their "entire and unalterable confidence in the issues of the great event which is now in preparation for the Catholic Church."
