Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

246 Corporate Re-union*
do, that necessity is not still stronger for thewhole
Church, consisting as she does of so many
yarioiis and conflicting nations? Whether (1
say) it is not needful for the unity and welfare
of the Catholic Church at
large,
that as each
Diocese possesses a Vicar of JESUS CHRIST
specially ordained to represent the Divine Master
in that local portion of
Church should look to
his Flock, so the whole
that Bishop, whom all
antiquity concurs in calling the successor of
Peter, as the general and supreme Vicar of Its
Divine Founder ? Suppose for a moment that
the Papacy were abolished, what would be itseffect
upon Christendom ? Does any sane man
pretend
that such an abolition would tend to
? unity But would it not tend to still furtherdivision
? Would it weaken or strengthen the
religious principle among mankind? Who would
rejoice at it ? Would it be the Infidel, or the
Believer 1 The Sectary or the Catholic ? We
t, 1
are not of that school, which delights in extreme
assertions of the power, or the infallibility
of
we shut not our eyes to the facts of
the Papacy ;
Ecclesiastical History. We acknowledge the
legitimate force of whatever argument can fairly
be deduced from any such facts, but it is
pre
cisely on this very ground that we contend for
the absolute necessity of the Primacy of S.
Peter s successors in order to maintain the unity
and vitality of the whole Church. We believe-