Dr. Diillinger has been excommunicated by the Archbishop of Munich,
and the Telegraph says,—we know not on what autho- rity, —that he has been visited with the "major excommunication." This is a serious step, as it of course involves the future excommu- nication of all Catholics who choose to take part with Dr. Doi- linger, and either to accept the sacraments from his hands or to give them to him. It is said that the King of Bavaria sides so heartily with Dr. Diillinger, that he has declared it his intention to hear him say mass in the Royal Chapel, whatever steps Rome may take against him. If this be true, there is, we should think, no trifling chance of a serious German Catholic schism. A pro- fessor, however learned and able, might be excommunicated with- out any great commotion ; but if a King chooses to share his fate and invite the same sentence, there will, of course, be a great stirring of the waters, and a real trial of power between Rome and the Anti-Infallibiliste, which might possibly end in a3mething like the rending away of Germany from the Church with a complete- ness approaching the result already long ago attained in England. Whether the separatists were subsequently to call themselves German Catholics, or Protestants (they would not be likely to assume the latter name), would matter little. The authority and infallibility of the Church once given up, everything is given up ; and it will be almost a joke for the new party to assert for the Church as against the Pope, an infallibility which has never for centuries succeeded in guarding the visible Church against con- spicuous blunders.
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