# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

32 Proceedings of the fifteenth convention

of God, accept the pope as source, interpreter and judge of Scripture, indeed also as sole translator of Scripture, in that the pope has declared the Latin translation of the Bible, called the Vulgate, to be the sole valid editio of the Church. Whoever wants to go beyond it to the original text shall be accursed. Also all prelates of the Roman Church, from the priest to the cardinal, are always impudent and stupid until light and wisdom is brought into all members of the hierarchy through a pronouncement of the sole wise pope.

The gross enthusiast principles of the papacy laid before us by Luther have really been pronounced by the Antichrist. That the pope is the lord of the Church, the Council of Trent says, Session XXII, Canon 6: "If anyone shall say that in the Catholic Church the hierarchy was not instituted by divine ordinance, consisting of bishops, presbyters and ministers, let him be accursed." Now, however, the pope is the highest bishop. As Peter is the head of all apostles, so the pope is the head of all apostles [sic]. Hear on this only the Roman interpreters. The author of a book which contains the grounds for the rejection of the Tridentine decrees cites from the canonists a whole number of passages on the supreme power of the pope, such as: His power is the highest, he has in it not his equal, he has the same teaching authority (consistorium) with God and the same judicial authority (tribunal) with Christ. Bellarmine, in the preface to his book De summo episcopo (Vol. III, 279), applies to Peter, that is, to the pope, the saying of Isa. 28:16: "Behold, I lay in Zion a foundation stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, well founded." Then he cites from Book II, Chap. 12: "The pope is in the ecclesiastical monarchy or hierarchy divino jure (by divine right) the successor. He is § 1 the successor in the primacy of the whole Church." § 26 says, very tamely, of the apostolic power, according to which the apostles were taught by God himself and could write holy books, that it does not fit the Roman pope, since new revelations are not needed daily. But the supreme power over the whole Church the pope has. Chap. XIX, § 1 he ascribes to the pope the authority to give laws, to dispense and to punish even the greatest and noblest sons of the Church. All popes had also given laws. He cites Hilarius, who as president in the Roman council said: No one has the right from God, without danger to his standing, to dispute the divine constitutions or the decrees of the apostolic see. Anastasius declares the fulfillment of the papal edicts necessary to salvation. "Whoever does not have the pope for a father does not have the Church for a mother." Chap. XXVI, § 1: "The Roman pontiff can be judged by no one on earth." § 3: "It is an error of Nilus that the pope can be judged in a council." § 4: "The reason is that he is the supreme head of the Church." Chap. XXXI, § 1