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It was also dreaded lest their exclusion should give rise to questions as to the œcumenicity of the council. All bishops, undoubtedly, were entitled to be invited. It was decided, therefore, that bishops, vicars-apostolic, should be bidden to the council. The Bulls by which former councils had been convoked called together archbishops, bishops, etc.
The canon law could not be applied under vicars-apostolic, nor could provincial synods be held, however necessary their action might be, without a metropolitan and suffragan bishops. The vicars-apostolic petitioned only with a view to improve the internal organization of the church.
The Catholic designs of James II. were ill received in York. His proclamation for liberty of conscience was read in hardly any of the York churches, and an attempt to stock the Corporation with Roman Catholics was resisted. At last there came a crisis. The king appointed James Smith, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Callipolis, one of his four vicars-apostolic, and in August 1688 he appeared at York.
This last-named diocese, at the time of the appointment, was newly erected. Augustine and the disciples of St. Columba, was swept away, until the year 1850, the church was missionary, and governed, as missions usually are, by prefects, who may be arch-priests, or vicars-apostolic, with episcopal titles. Until the year 1625, the English mission was under the guidance of an arch-priest.
There were now eight districts under the spiritual jurisdiction of these vicars-apostolic, who governed and were governed by the wise constitutions given to their predecessors by Pope Benedict XIV. Meanwhile, the state of the Catholics of England was rapidly improving.
In that year Pope Gregory II. appointed a vicar-apostolic for all England. Circumstances appearing favorable to the church after the accession of King James II., Pope Innocent XI. placed the English mission under the spiritual charge of four vicars-apostolic, who were bishops, with titles taken from churches, in partibus infidelium.
No doubt the system of church government by vicars-apostolic could have been amended and made more suitable to the altered circumstances of the church. But it would have been necessarily complicated, and at best could only have been a temporary arrangement.
The law, therefore, making no distinction between bishops in ordinary and such as were vicars-apostolic, neither could the commission. Ubi lex non distinguit nec nos distingnere debemus. It was a far more serious matter to invite “the bishops of the Oriental rite who are not in communion with the Apostolic See.” An earnest and affectionate letter of invitation was addressed to them.
His successor, William II., to whom in 1840 he resigned the crown, treated them with still greater benevolence. He sought an understanding with the Holy See, and gave effect to the Concordat of 1827. Vicars-apostolic, invested with the episcopal character, were now the chief pastors of the church of Holland.
A question, however, arose as to the right of vicars-apostolic to be invited to the council. They were bishops, indeed, but without ordinary jurisdiction. Hence the doubt as to their right to be called. Neither their admissibility, if invited, nor of their decisive vote when admitted was at all questioned. The precedents and practice of the Holy See were in favor of their being called.
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