"Not Undone, but Completed": John Henry Newman and the Reception of Vatican I

Abstract

Abstract:Looking at early history, it would seem as if the Church moved on to the perfect truth by various successive declarations, alternately in contrary directions, and thus perfecting, completing, supplying each other. Let us have a little faith in her, I say. Pius is not the last of the Popes—the fourth Council modified the third, the fifth the fourth … The late definition does not so much need to be undone, as to be completed … Let us be patient, let us have faith, and a new Pope, and a re-assembled Council may trim the boat.