We quote from our contemporary the Vatican the following remarkable
statement about the Pope :—" The Holy Father, allud- ing to the extra-conciliar meetings which have excited so 'much interest during the last few days, is said to have made the f011og- ing remark All this will calm down and be productive of gad. That which is only human will expend itself in these discussions at which the Holy Ghost does not preside, but within the Aula whatever is done will be by His working and His inspiration, and therefore no exaggerated importance must be attached to debates among the Bishops which take place outside the sphere of the " And the Vatican repeats in another place that it is "the Council itself where alone the Holy Spirit" presides. We have always understood that, according to the Roman theory, the Holy Spirit overrules the deliberations and acts of general councils, but we always thought that this was only an intensification, as it were, of the general authority exerted by the Holy Spirit over all the hierarchy of the Church :—and therefore to be assured posi- tively that it does not exert a predominant influence in any extra-conciliar meetings of the same individuals who compose the Council, is a surprise to us. It is perfectly consistent, of course, with the theory that the Pope, speaking otherwise than ex cathedra., may err, even though when speaking ex cathedra he is infallible. But would the Ultramontanes venture to say that the Holy Spirit does not control the Pope's intellect except when he is pronouncing on doctrine ex cathedral Supposing he is considering his judgment, as the Bishops in this extra-conciliar meeting were ? Does the Holy Spirit jealously abstain from all interference till the last decisive moment? Surely it is a curious theory ?
