As a consequence of the Protestant heresy, which threatened the utter destruction of the principle of authority, the Church had been forced to concentrate on that side of her fortress all her means of defence.  In order to protect herself from the excesses of the principle of individuality and free inquiry, she had been obliged to resort to a multitude of restrictive measures, which were conceived in a very different spirit from that which animated her in previous centuries.  In the sixteenth century the Church placed before everything else the idea of authority.  She sacrificed the development of personality to fostering the association of men whose wills were absolutely merged by discipline in one powerful body.  It can be seen at a glance how intimately and profoundly the spirit of the dominant religious orders of the later era differs from that of the great orders of the Middle Ages, in respect to the expansion of nature and the development of individuality.  The needs of the sixteenth century were altogether different from those of the ages preceding it, and to meet those needs God inspired St. Ignatius with the idea of a different type of Christian character.  The result was the triumphant repulse of Protestantism from all the southern nations.  But the victory was gained at the price of real sacrifices; the Catholics of the recent centuries have not displayed the puissant individuality of those of the Middle Ages, the types of which are St. Bernard, St. Gregory VII., Innocent III., St. Thomas Aquinas.  The Divine Spirit often exacts the sacrifice of certain human qualities for the preservation of the faith; and it is in this sense that we should interpret the mysterious words of Jesus Christ, that it is better to lose an eye and an arm and not fall into hell, than to save an eye and an arm and be lost eternally.

The Council of the Vatican, Father Hecker maintained, by giving to the principle of authority its dogmatic completion, has placed it above all attacks, and consequently has brought to a close the historical period in which it was necessary to devote all efforts to its defence.  A new period now opens to the Church.  She has been engaged during three centuries in perfecting her external organism, and securing to authority the place it should have in working out her divine life; she will now undertake quite another part of her providential mission.  It is now to be the individuality, the personality of souls, their free and vigorous initiative under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, which shall become the distinctive Catholic form of acting in these times.  And this will all be done under the control of her divine supreme authority in the external order preventing error, eccentricity, and rashness.