Village books

{325}
But there are other points in the course of these important proceedings
to which I would solicit your especial attention, with the view of
comparing the sentiments of the Bishop of Rome at that day, and also the
expressions employed by other Chief Pastors of Christ's flock, with the
language of the appointed authorized services of the Roman Church now,
and the sentiments of her reigning Pontiff, and of his accredited
ministers.
The circumstances of the Church Catholic, as represented in Leo's letter
in the fifth century, and the circumstances of the Church of Rome, as
lamented by the present Pope in 1832[124], are in many respects very
similar. The end desired by Leo and Flavianus, his brother pastor and
contemporary, Bishop of Constantinople, and by Gregory, now Bishop of
Rome, is one and the same, namely, the suppression of heresy, the
prevalence of the truth, and the unity of the Christian Church. But how
widely and how strikingly different are the foundations on which they
respectively build their hopes for the attainment of that end!
[Footnote 124: "The encyclical letter of our most holy Father,
Pope Gregory, by divine providence, the sixteenth of that name,
to all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops."]
The present Roman Pontiff's hopes, and desires, and exhortations are
thus expressed[125]:--
[Footnote 125: This is the translation circulated in the Roman
Catholic Annual, p.


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