Note 38 — Front matter (continued 2)

This is briefly and well put in the Acta Sanctæ Sedis (V. 146), where an article of the Times on the bull of convocation of the Vatican Council is belaboured through twelve pages of double-column Latin. That journal had the audacity to set up conscience against Pope, and to name Luther. "What do you understand by conscience? for it is solemnly held by Catholics that we may not and cannot act contrary to conscience. Indeed, we confess that, in point of fact, we may be bound to act even against the sentence pronounced by an ecclesiastical authority, seeing that the external tribunal, as we say, does not always concur with the internal tribunal, and whenever the internal tribunal is in opposition to the external tribunal, we are bound to follow the internal. On this point consult our Catholic authors when they treat of moral theology. Immo fatemur, posse in re facti contingere, ut agere teneamur contra ipsam latam auctoritatis ecclesiasticæ sententiam; quandoquidem forum externum, ut loqui solemus, non semper cohæret cum foro interno: et quoties forum internum in oppositione sit cum foro externo, primum sequi tenemur. De qua re consulendi sunt auctores nostri Catholici de morali theologia agentes."