Sixtieth Letter.

Sixtieth Letter.Rome, June 23, 1870.—On reading the last document emanating from the Council, composed by the most distinguished of the American Bishops, an inexpressible feeling of astonishment comes over me, as often before, at the new and unprecedented spectacle so boldly offered to the startled world, and I again recognise the necessity of accounting to myself for the condition of the Catholic Church which has made this possible, and remembering that the position of the Papacy in the modern Church for some time past has been hardly less novel and strange than this present infallibilist Council.The two great events of modern history, the Reformation and the Revolution, have made the Papacy what it is,—the Reformation by forcibly driving the Catholic half of Christendom into centralization, the Revolution by removing the last remaining independent powers[pg 697]within the Church, viz., the Gallican Church with the Sorbonne and Parliament. So it came to pass that with the Restoration the Church was surrendered to the discretion of the Papacy, just as at the same time the Roman States, by the withdrawal of all provincial and corporate independence, became a uniform and absolute monarchy. The very spirit of the nineteenth century, without much help from Rome, contributed to the consolidation and strengthening of this new system. The re-awakening and growth of distinct Church feeling in powerful classes of the educated nations, the legitimist ideas of the ruling classes of Europe, and later on the combined Catholic and Liberal interest of the struggle against hostile bureaucracies and the antipathy of parliamentary majorities—principles of reaction and principles of freedom all alike in turn subserved the cause of the Church,i.e., the Papacy. For although Papacy and Church were still not wholly identified in fact, to say nothing of right, the times did not suggest the need for distinguishing between them.There was opportunity given, one might suppose, for a great display of activity. A fresh creative spirit passed here and there through the new world of the nineteenth century, and not least through the Catholic[pg 698]portion of it, which produced in individuals many fair flowers of art and science, and also of practical piety. It was enough to catch the inspiration, in the sense of the age and of the eternal needs of mankind, and as the wilderness blossoms under the hand of a gardener, there grew out of the ruins of the Revolution a new era of rich Christian life. But the destiny of Catholicism was to be the reverse. There was indeed then, and is now, urgent need of an immense deal to be done in the Church; to carry on the daily ecclesiastical administration by no means satisfied the requirements of the age, but the Church herself needed and needs reform—reform everywhere from the outer rind to the marrow. But reform, whether in Church or State, generally results from the struggle of rival forces. And the only power surviving in the Church possessed neither the capacity nor the inclination for acts of world-wide import; it seemed to have no sense but for the maintenance and extension of its own dominion. Such Catholic works as the nineteenth century has produced did not emanate from Rome, and were little if at all helped on by her. On the contrary, Rome put a restraint on everything which did not serve directly as an instrument of her power. Every germ of relative independence[pg 699]seemed to be viewed with distrust. Here and there the intellectual labour of a lifetime of Catholic study was simply extinguished. The youth of talent turned from a path which led only to unfruitful conflicts. The once promising seed-plot of original Catholic production became dry, and even the noblest creation of the century, the female orders for nursing the sick, are said by those best informed to show symptoms of decay. There was stillness. From Rome one only heard a monologue. The Bishops' Pastorals were its echo, or were so long-winded and verbose that the simple and noble language of the pronunciamento issued by the newly elected Bishop of Rottenburg was quite a phenomenon. Men boasted of the Catholic unity, which had never been so palpable and so undisturbed as in these latter days, but it was a unity of sleep over the grave of intellectual and all higher ecclesiastical life.Who will bring us deliverance? asked every one who looked at things independently of the mere force of habit with a clear eye. The answer was that there was no longer any independent power anywhere but in the centre, and therefore deliverance could only come from thence; the lever could only be applied in[pg 700]Rome, and nobody but a future Pope was in a position to do this.How peculiarly are things disposed! In Rome they had all they could desire. There has never been a time when Catholic Christendom lay so submissively at the Pope's feet. In fact he possessed practically the prerogative of infallibility, for no one contradicted whatever he might say. The Bishops were disused to learning; there was hardly among them a theologian of note, and therefore they had no spirit for theological convictions of their own. It seemed to be the office of their lives to re-echo the Roman oracles. The daring project of defining the Immaculate Conception met with hardly any serious opposition, though many Bishops could not conceal from themselves that the faith of antiquity and the belief of their own dioceses knew nothing of the new dogma. And then in the Encyclical and Syllabus came a perfect flood of irrational and unchristian propositions. What did the Bishops of Christendom, the judges of faith, do? Some put a more rational interpretation on it, the others took it all for granted as it stood; everywhere the new articles of faith and morality were received as though all were in the most regular order. That was in fact a situation[pg 701]without any precedent, and there was nothing left to wish for but its continuance for ever. The talisman to secure this continuance was discovered in the tenet of papal infallibility, and to make this into a dogma and foundation-principle of the Church has been the grand object to which the thoughts and measures of the last ten years have been directed.Even this last point might perhaps have been attained by adhering to the practice which has prevailed hitherto of quietly collecting the votes of theEcclesia dispersa, and passing over the isolated opponents still left to the order of the day. Why was the perilous plan of a General Council adopted instead of this? Perhaps with the view of extruding and getting rid of for the future all the doubt still attaching to the assent of the Church dispersed; certainly in the full confidence, after all that had occurred previously, that there was absolutely no demand the Bishops would dare to refuse. The authorities felt in the position, ecclesiastically speaking, of being able to challenge the Holy Ghost Himself to say if He would refuse to set His seal to the deformation of the Church.All the world knows how the Vatican Council has been managed. It was as if they wished to keep the[pg 702]Holy Ghost a prisoner, with eyes and ears bandaged. But things did not go as they wished. On the contrary this extreme step of theCuriaroused a reaction, which seems likely to lead to a revolution that will take its place in history and introduce a complete change in the future. Certainly the deliverance is coming from the centre, but not as was thought and desired, not in peace but in storm, not as a gift of the highest human wisdom but as a nemesis. For it is an old law, equally prevalent throughout the Christian and Heathen world, that pride will always bring its punishment.We are already in the third stage of this movement. First came, quite unexpectedly, protests against infallibility from the lay world, instead of the accustomed clouds of incense, and then still more unexpectedly the military obedience of the clergy was broken through by the most decided intimations of conscientious sincerity and scientific conviction; and now even the princes of the Church are putting themselves at the head of the Opposition. There is still some difference between the Church dispersed and a great assembly, many as are the restrictions imposed here by fraud and violence on the free expression of opinion. The man of knowledge and character, who would there remain[pg 703]alone and isolated, gains tenfold power and energy here. Consciences are aroused. Many a Bishop who left home with his head wholly or half involved in the haze of Jesuit doctrine, receives the impulse here to unprejudiced study and is irresistibly driven to the side of right and truth. Besides, it is no small thing to have seen the state of things at Rome for six months with one's own eyes.We shall do well not to raise our expectations too high. The spirit of slavery, which has become ingrained in one generation after another, cannot be scared away in weeks and months from men's minds and the conduct of affairs. So much the more noteworthy is every increase of outward or inward strength in the struggling minority at the Council. And so I return to the work already mentioned, to remark that its contents justify us in reckoning the author, the venerable Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis, with Strossmayer, Hefele, Dupanloup, Darboy, Schwarzenberg, and Rauscher among the heads of the Opposition.It is only matter of course that much which has often been said before should be repeated here, which we may pass over, without however omitting to notice the impression which the plain and practical[pg 704]nature of the treatise is calculated to produce. What concerns us more nearly is the distinctness and firmness with which the present claims of theCuriaare repudiated, as,e.g., in pointing out the injury to episcopal rights involved in the desired definition.“The Bishops,”says the author,“have always been held judges of faith. But assuming that the Pope alone is infallible, the Bishops may indeed assent to his judgments, but cannot exercise any real judicial office, and thus lose a right inherent in the episcopal office. But this right they are in no position to resign, however much they might wish it, for its connection with the episcopal office rests on the institution of the Saviour.”In another passage he says,“Appeal is made to the number of theologians, who in the course of ages have defended infallibility. But that does not make it an article of faith. Divine Providence does not permit such opinions, when they have no true ground or do not agree with the records of revelation, to become articles of faith. It has been a view held for centuries that Christ gave Peter and his successors supreme authority in secular affairs also. But there is no one in our own day who does not reject and deplore it and seek for an excuse for it in the circumstances of the age, except the Roman clergy, in whoseProprium Officium S.[pg 705]Zachariæwe read the other day, that the Pope by his apostolic authority transferred the sovereignty over the Franks from Childeric to Pepin. And yet the Popes have ventured to make this usurped authority, so far as in them lay, into an article of faith.”Then follows a reference to the BullUnam Sanctam, and the similar statements of Bellarmine and Suarez.“On the other hand,”Kenrick proceeds,“we find at this Council some Bishops, of whom the present writer is one, who have published and solemnly sworn to a declaration that the Pope, at least in England, possesses no such power. This example might teach those who are pressing for the definition of papal infallibility, that even the most solemn papal decree, and though issued like that of Bonifaceviii.at a Synod, is null and void if it be not grounded on God's word in Scripture and Tradition.‘Commenta delet dies, judicia naturæ confirmat.’”We may recognise in the tone of these remarks, with all their moderation, an advance on the part of the Opposition to greater freedom and distinctness of speech. And this impression is still more confirmed by Kenrick's judgment on the well-known proceedings in and out of Council.“There is yet another argument used,”he says,“which I can only refer to with reluctance. It[pg 706]is urged that papal infallibility is so vehemently attacked by its opponents that, if it is not now declared to be an article of faith, it is virtually admitted to have no foundation, and surrendered to the daily increasing violence of its assailants without protection. Those who so argue forget that they are themselves responsible for having occasioned this deplorable controversy, by announcing to the astonished world that at the Vatican Council two new dogmas would be proposed to the faithful, papal infallibility and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and in a similar spirit publishing works in England and the United States on the Pope's authority, with a view of preparing men's minds for the acceptance of these dogmas. In view of this temerity, which has not only not been rebuked but has even been defended in Bishops' Pastorals, and with a clear perception of the unhappy consequences that must follow from it, men, who deserve eternal remembrance and will obtain praise of God, have lifted up their voice to remind the faithful that in matters of faith no innovation is allowed, that papal infallibility as distinct from the infallibility of the Church has no evidence of Scripture and Tradition, and that the office of Councils is to investigate and not to carry decrees by acclamation.[pg 707]And just because they speak the truth openly, these men are reproached with stirring up the people by the very persons who would eventually have interpreted their silence as assent and have used it as ground for carrying out their own designs. Then again it is urged upon good people that something must be done under the circumstances for maintaining the honour of the Papacy, forgetting that Bishops should have not circumstances but the truth before their eyes, and that it is as little competent to the successors of the Apostles as to the Apostles themselves to do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.”In another passage, after dwelling on the preponderance of the Italian prelates he proceeds,“If they wish to give the decrees of the Council the character of the testimony of the whole of Christendom, without altering the inequality of numbers of the representatives of different nations, there is the precedent of the plan adopted at the Council of Constance with the happiest results, viz., taking the votes by nations or languages and not by heads. And this method would secure the speedier and better settlement of the matters under discussion, for the Bishops of the same tongue or nation know the needs of their Churches better and would[pg 708]understand how to meet them; moreover they could express their views more readily in their mother tongue than is possible in the General Congregation where Latin is obliged to be spoken, which they have perhaps lost their familiarity with through the long course of an active life, so that they have either to keep silent or to speak under difficulties. And by this means a discussion and searching examination would become practicable, which must necessarily take place at a Council, but which is wanting at the Vatican Council. There is indeed abundant opportunity for making speeches, but the great number of Fathers and the order of business imposed on the Council cuts off all opportunity for submitting any point to a close examination by regular debate with one speaker answering another. Five months have already passed since the opening of the Council, with what result need not be said here. Meanwhile the question of the new definition has roused a great excitement throughout the Christian world, which is still on the increase; some desire the definition, others emphatically repudiate it. Bishops have entered the lists against Bishops, priests have written against their own and against other chief pastors, and won commendation from the supreme[pg 709]authority for doing so. The journals of both parties, with their not always true reports or at least crooked reasonings, keep the whole world in a state of agitated suspense as to what is coming. May one say to what all this will lead and what will be the end of this violent tempest which has so suddenly risen in a clear sky and seems likely to produce much mischief? They are certainly deceived who fancy that the promulgation of the new dogma will at once lay the waves; the contrary is far likelier. Those who would obey the decrees of the Council will find themselves in a most difficult position. The civil Governments will treat them, not without some plausible grounds, as less trustworthy subjects. The enemies of the Church will throw in their teeth the errors said to have been taught by the Popes or sanctioned by their conduct, and will laugh to scorn the only possible answer—that they did not promulgate these errors as Popes but as individual Bishops of Rome. And then the scandalous Church history records of certain Popes will be urged as so many proofs of the internal discrepancy of Catholic belief, for men do not distinguish between infallibility and impeccability, which appear to them inseparably connected.”[pg 710]What Kenrick thinks the Opposition ought to do is not expressly stated, but may be gathered from his language. He says indeed that“whoever does not submit to the decisions of an Œcumenical Council does not deserve the name of Catholic,”but he adds,“if the indispensable conditions have been observed in holding the Council.”And he makes moral unanimity one of these conditions. He does not allow the crude conception which seems to prevail among the majority, that a Council has simply to vote and then the world must reverence the result as the dictate of the Holy Ghost. The infallibility of Councils is to him no miraculous work of inspiration, but a simple result of the constitution the Church received from her Founder, whose assistance will never fail her, if she remains true to Scripture and Tradition and the agreement of the various particular Churches.Kenrick and all the Bishops who hold firmly with him may meet the impending decision in quietness and confidence, for the defeat of their opponents is certain, whether they persist and define and promulgate the new dogma, or retreat at the last moment. In the former case deliverance will come through a catastrophe whose consequences defy all calculation. And yet even[pg 711]in Rome there do not lack pious minds which, undisturbed by these terrible dangers, desire to see the insolent enterprise carried through, in the belief that the prevalent corruption can only be overcome by a life and death struggle.“Quod medicina non sanat, ferrum sanat.”[pg 712]Sixty-First Letter.Rome, June 24, 1870.—Rome is just now like an episcopal lazar-house, so great is the number of the prelates who are sick and suffering and confined to their bed or their chamber. And still greater is the number of those who feel worn out and impatiently long to be gone. But there are persons here who calculate thus—that the Italians, Spaniards and South Americans are accustomed to the heat, and bear it very well, and as to the Germans, French and North Americans—“vile damnum si interierint.”Guidi's speech still occupies men's minds, and forms the topic of conversation in conciliar circles. Men are astonished at the courage of a Cardinal in daring so directly to contradict the Pope. While Pius has word written to Paris that“for many centuries no one doubted the Pope's infallibility,”Guidi declares it to be an invention of the fifteenth century.[pg 713]The following account of the dialogue between the Pope and the Cardinal is current at Rome, and it seems to rest on the authority of Pius himself, who is notoriously fond of telling every one he meets how he has lectured this or that dignitary:—Guidi, on being summoned by the Pope directly after his speech, was greeted with the words,“You are my enemy, you are the coryphæus of my opponents, ungrateful towards my person; you have propounded heretical doctrine.”Guidi.—“My speech is in the hands of the Presidents, if your Holiness will read it, and detect what is supposed to be heretical in it. I gave it at once to the under-secretary (sottosecretario) that people might not be able to say anything had been interpolated into it.”The Pope.—“You have given great offence to the majority of the Council; all five Presidents are against you and are displeased.”Guidi.—“Some material error may have escaped me, but certainly not a formal one: I have simply stated the doctrine of tradition and of St. Thomas.”The Pope.—“La tradizione son' io—vi farò far nuovamente la professione di fede.”Guidi.—“I am and remain subject to the authority of the Holy See, but I ventured to discuss a question not yet made an article of faith; if[pg 714]your Holiness decides it to be such in a Constitution, I shall certainly not dare to oppose it.”The Pope.—“The value of your speech may be measured by those whom it has pleased. Who has been eager to testify to you his joy? That Bishop Strossmayer who is my personal enemy has embraced you; you are in collusion with him.”Guidi.—“I don't know him, and have never before spoken to him.”The Pope.—“It is clear you have spoken so as to please the world, the Liberals, the Revolution, and the Government of Florence.”Guidi.—“Holy Father, have the goodness to have my speech given you.”The same afternoon a Spanish Bishop belonging to the extremest Infallibilists said,“Absque dubio facies Concilii est immutata. Oportet huic sermoni serio studere.”When Guidi asked how the Cardinals had taken his speech, Mathieu replied,“Cum seriâ silentiosâ approbatione,”on which Guidi observed,“Sunt quidam qui idem mecum sentiunt, sed deest illis animi fortitudo.”“La tradizione son' io”—it would be impossible to give a briefer, more pregnant or more epigrammatic description of the whole system which is now to be made dominant than is contained in those few words. All[pg 715]the members of theCiviltà, the thick volumes of Schrader, Weninger and the Jesuits of Laach are outdone by this clear and simple utterance. Pius will take rank in history with the men who have known how by a happy inspiration to throw a great thought into the most adequate form of words, which impresses it for ever indelibly on the memory. The formula is worthy to be classed with the equally pregnant saying of Bonifaceviii.,“The Pope holds all rights locked up in his breast.”It is bruited about here from mouth to mouth, and the analogy of Louisxiv., which inevitably occurs to everybody, reaches even further. Every day since I have witnessed the drama being enacted here, has the saying suggested itself to me,“L'Église, c'est moi.”Any one who would form a judgment of the state of things here should be recommended above all to read a work like,e.g., Lemontey'sEssai sur l'établissement monarchique de Louisxiv., or the instructions of the King for the Dauphin. One sees there how absolute sovereignty, the intoxicating sense of irresponsible power—and spiritual absolutism is far more overpowering than political—leads almost of necessity to the notion of infallibility and divine enlightenment. Louisxiv.says seriously and drily to his son,“As God's representative[pg 716]we have part in the divine knowledge as well as the divine authority.”149And he warns him that all his own errors had arisen from his too great modesty in giving ear to extraneous advisers. For eight hundred years the question has been disputed, why the Popes are so short-lived, and the phenomenon has been ascribed to a special divine dispensation which removes them betimes, that they may not be morally poisoned by too long enjoyment of their dignity—“ne malitia mutaret intellectum.”The minority perceive, on a calmer consideration, that the two canons proposed by Guidi would not provide sufficient security for the episcopate taking part in the teaching office of the Church according to the integrity of her constitution. The second indeed, like a well-aimed arrow, hits the mark. It calls the thing by its right name, and anathematizes the purely personal infallibility of the Pope, independent of the consent of the Church and resting on direct divine inspiration, as a heresy, which it unquestionably is in the eyes of every theologian who knows anything of the Church and her tradition; but then, after the Pope has so[pg 717]openly and expressly committed himself to precisely this view of the Church, it is thought impossible here in Rome, and close to the Vatican, to throw an anathema in his face. And besides the expression in the first canon, that the consentient“consilium Ecclesiæ”is requisite for an infallible papal utterance, is open to the same charge of vagueness as the notorious and much-abusedex cathedrâ, and could as easily be explained away into the mere arbitrary caprice of the Pope. It would always rest with him in the last resort to maintain“ex certâ scientiâ”that the“consilium Ecclesiæ”agreed with his own judgment.A remodelling of the fourth canon has been undertaken, but the new formula is not known. It is however much talked of among the Bishops, and the general view is that it remains substantially unchanged, and still contains the personal infallibility of the Pope independently of the Church. Manning had said that the utmost regard that was possible should be paid to the views of the Opposition in the alteration of the chapter. And so those Bishops still hope for the accomplishment of their desires who, like Ketteler and Melchers, entreat that only one, however sterile, verbal concession may be made, so as to give them a bridge[pg 718]on which to pass over the gulf safely into the camp of the majority.I lately heard a Roman layman say that what most surprised him among the many wonderful things he had seen here was the contempt for the Catholic Church which prevails here. For that contempt could not be more emphatically expressed than by the Pope appropriating to himself what according to the ancient doctrine belongs to her, and declaring himself the sole and exclusive organ of the Holy Ghost. It is the same here universally; when one talks with a Roman, theCuria, the Pope, is everything, and the Church nothing but the“contribuens plebs.”My informant thought it was easy enough to understand the view of born Romans, but difficult to give any rational account of the attitude of the episcopal majority, for it must be clear to every one of them that the promulgation of the new dogma would destroy irrevocably all episcopal independence of Rome, and strip the nimbus from the brow of the Bishop who is a successor of the Apostles. I observed to him that in Romance countries this primitive idea of the episcopate had long since vanished, as he might easily convince himself by asking the next Italian peasant or shopkeeper he met what was his notion[pg 719]of a Bishop. And five-sixths of the majority belong to these countries,In the Congregation of June 20 the Deputation put up one of its members, Bishop d'Avanzo of Calvi and Teano, to speak. For there was urgent need of promptly meeting the great scandal given by Guidi, and deterring any Cardinal who might be so disposed from following his example. The speaker allowed that in dogmatic decrees the tradition of the Church must be consulted and the Holy Ghost invoked, but how this was to be done was left to the judgment of the Pope, By his second canon Guidi passed over“ad aliena non Catholica castra,”exceeded all Gallicans and wanted—he, an Italian, a Dominican and a Cardinal—to canonize Gallicanism. A shudder ran through the ranks of all the Italians who live between Ferrara and Malta, but they remembered for their comfort that the unworthy son of the peninsula had been for some years professor at Vienna, and it was obvious that the German malaria he had caught there was the cause of this matricidal heresy.Guidi had said that the admonition to Peter to confirm his brethren pre-supposed something to be confirmed,i.e., that the Pope only confirmed the doctrine already maintained by the Bishops. To this d'Avanzo[pg 720]answered that it was utterly uncatholic, and one must rather begin from above and not from below, and ascribe the authorship and initiation of doctrine to the Pope, who was immediately inspired by the Holy Ghost;“causa princeps infallibilitatis est assistentia Spiritûs Sancti.”And here followed a statement that must be given word for word:“Supervacaneum est omne additamentum, nulla emendatio in decreto et canone schematis acceptatur; nulla conditio, nulla limitatio admittetur per deputationem; inutilis est igitur omnis labor?‘Animalis homo non percipit quod de cœlo est.’”150To say the definition was inopportune was merely pandering to the corrupt portion of society, and especially to the tribe of Government officials. The speaker added emphatically:“Satis fit servis Satanæ, qui sunt gubernantes, negantes ordinem supernaturalem—ergo Decretum est opportunum. In Pontifice Spiritus Domini vivit et agit, Pontifex ergo hôc Spiritu agente errare non potest.”It became known at once in the Council that this declaration, which annihilated so many hopes, had been made in the name and by special command of the Pope, and that“the animal man”meant the Opposition.[pg 721]The two next speakers were the titular Patriarchs Ballerini and Valerga. The first said with notable frankness,“Were we to let personal infallibility drop, we should destroy the obedience due to the Pope and exalt ourselves against God Himself.”In other words, the Vice-God orders us to declare him infallible, and of course we obey implicitly.Valerga's appearance was the beginning of a comedy, which was repeated in subsequent sittings. He wanted to prove papal infallibility by inferences from the Florentine decree, which was received by all; but he was twice interrupted by the Presidents for not keeping to the question. He thereupon left the tribune, not without remarks being made by Opposition Bishops that they saw this treatment was not reserved for them only. The same thing happened on June 22 to Bishop Apuzzo of Sorrento and Archbishop Spaccapietra. On the 20th, towards the end of the debate, Archbishop MacHale of Tuam in Ireland spoke with great severity against the decree, the fatal consequences of which he seems to appreciate better than most of his Irish colleagues. Bishop Apuzzo reminded the Hungarians that they once had a primate (Szelepcsenyi, a pupil of the Jesuits) who had summoned a synod to condemn the[pg 722]Gallican Articles of 1682, and that quite recently a Provincial Synod at Colocza had used language of very infallibilist sound. Haynald took part in that Synod, and he, as well as Rauscher, to whom the same reproach was addressed, had already observed that it would not do to put a strictly logical interpretation on mere complimentary phrases. In the course of his speech Apuzzo became still more abusive.“Those are the sons of Satan,”he exclaimed at last,“who say the Bishops are judges in the Church. No! we are but poor sinners.”At the same time he proposed a supplement still more peremptory than the chapter. Spaccapietra came to grief in Church history, which is more grossly mishandled at Rome and in the Council Hall, when it is appealed to at all, than anywhere else. This time St. Polycarp's yielding to the Pope about the observance of Easter—he notoriously did just the reverse—was to serve as an example to the Opposition. When the speaker went on to utter fierce invectives against Cardinal Guidi, he was interrupted. He declared he had only something to say against the schismatics, but the President closed his mouth in theatrical fashion saying,“Cedat verbum tintinnabulo.”So he left the rostrum.[pg 723]Men breathed more freely when, after these hollow declamations, two British Bishops brought the clear practical sense of their race and country to bear on the question and the previous discussion of it. The first of them, Archbishop Errington, who was formerly Cardinal Wiseman's coadjutor but soon got out of favour at Rome, pointedly characterized the vicious nature of the whole transaction; there were speeches on both sides, one affirming, another denying, and no one could feel that he had refuted anything or advanced his cause the least by his words. The Deputation alone had the privilege of referring to the speeches and examining them, and it belonged to the majority, not to the Council;“how it was formed, we know.”As a tribunal the Council was bound to institute a calm and searching investigation of facts, tradition and testimonies, and for this only one means was available, which was employed at the former great Councils including the Tridentine, to form deputations from both parties for earnest conference, where scientific examination might take the place of rhetorical harangues—from both parties, for it was idle with Bilio to bid them ignore the existence of two parties.“Modo in hôc Concilio fit aliter et illud ineptissime,”he concluded,[pg 724]and he proposed the formula,“Magisterium universalis Ecclesiæ est infallibile.”The next speech, of Vitelleschi, who is Archbishop of Osimo but has never been in his diocese, though it is so near, left no impression; it was an exhortation to vote infallibility unanimously. And then followed Archbishop Conolly of Halifax with a speech such as has seldom been heard here.“Thrice,”he said,“have I asked for proof from Scripture according to its authentic interpretation, from Tradition and from Councils, that the Bishops of the Catholic Church ought to be excluded from the definition of dogmas; but my request has not been complied with, and now I adjure you, like the blind man on the way to Jericho, to give us sight that we may believe. Hitherto we have recognised the strongest motive for the credibility of Catholic doctrine in the general consent of the Church notified through the collective episcopate; this has been our shield against all external assailants, and by this powerful magnet we have drawn hundreds of thousands into the Church. Is this our invincible weapon of attack and defence now to be broken and trampled under foot, and the thousand-headed episcopate with the millions of faithful at its back to shrink into the[pg 725]voice and witness of a single man? Let the Deputation prove to us that it has really been always the belief of the Church that the Pope is everything and the Bishops nothing. The Council of Jerusalem did not adopt the formula of Peter but of John, who spoke before him, and in the Apostles' Creed we do not say‘Credo in Petrum et successores ejus,’but‘Credo in unam Ecclesiam Catholicam.’We Bishops have no right to renounce for ourselves and our successors the hereditary and original rights of the episcopate, to renounce the promise of Christ,‘I am with you to the end of the world.’But now they want to reduce us to nullities, to tear the noblest jewel from our pontifical breastplate, to deprive us of the highest prerogative of our office, and to transform the whole Church and the Bishops with it into a rabble of blind men, among whom is one alone who sees, so that they must shut their eyes and believe whatever he tells them.”Was it confidence of victory that moved the Legates to allow the bold and free-minded American, who spoke with the full weight of a deep and laboriously attained conviction, to bring these earnest words to a close without interruption, after they had recently reduced three of their own speakers in succession to[pg 726]silence? I know not. It was the unenviable lot of the Archbishop of Granada, Monzon y Martins Benvenuto, to follow Conolly. No one expects at this Council ideas or facts from a Spaniard, but merely bombast and abject protestations of homage. Since they no longer have Queen Isabella and the throne has been vacant, these prelates have transferred their undivided devotion to the Pope, and among the reptiles here they are the most cringing after the Neapolitans. Monzon said he thirsted for new dogmas, and the infallibility of the Pope did not satisfy him; he earnestly desired a second dogma, viz., the divine and inviolable nature of the States of the Church.It was reported two days ago that Cardinal Morichini, who formerly as nuncio breathed some German air, intends to speak in Guidi's sense, but since the scene between the Pope and Guidi has become known, it is generally thought that no Cardinal will be so foolhardy as to express any other opinion in Council than that of the inspired Pope. Meanwhile there are new speakers enrolled, among whom are Haynald, Strossmayer, the Bishops of Dijon, Constantine, Tarentaise, etc. The number considerably exceeds a hundred, but Errington has only too much reason for saying the debates are like[pg 727]a boy riding a rocking-horse—movement without advance.You may imagine what capital the Jesuits make out of the speech of the Dominican Guidi. They are the supreme and thoroughly devoted body-guard of the Roman See, and can alone be implicitly trusted. And in fact nobody thinks it possible that a Jesuit should speak in Council like Guidi, as neither does any one here credit a Jesuit with sincere conviction of what he says; it is always known beforehand what he will say on any question, viz., what the Order considers for its interest and imposes as a corporate doctrine on its individual members. The sons of Ignatius remember now that the Dominicans have never been trustworthy. As early as 1303 the French appeal from Pope Bonifaceviii.to a General Council was supported by 130 Dominicans at Paris, and at the Councils of Constance and Basle they took the most active part in the measures against papal omnipotence and in framing the mischievous canons of the fourth and fifth sessions of Constance; they joined Savonarola in opposing Alexandervi.and preferred being burned to submitting. And again they gave powerful aid in France to the establishment of the Gallican doctrine. And what, say the[pg 728]Jesuits, is the great Church history of the Dominican Natalis Alexander but an arsenal from which to this day the opponents of infallibility get their weapons?Preparations are already being made for the festivities which are to accompany the promulgation of the new dogma. The Romans—the native population—cannot understand why a part of the Bishops resist it so stoutly, and no less mysterious to them is the fiery zeal of foreigners, especially Frenchmen, in its favour. Their view is that infallibility, as being likely to bring large sums of money into Rome, is certainly a profitable and praiseworthy affair, and they are accordingly ready for noisy demonstrations of joy. Plenty of sky-rockets will go up, there will be illuminations, the pillars of the churches will be clothed in red damask according to the local usage, and numberless wax-candles will be burnt. Some enthusiasts think the fountain of Trevi will that day flow with wine instead of water, and it is hoped that at nightfall a transparency of the famous picture painted by the Pope's command to represent his infallibility will be shown to the faithful people. And next time the French Veuillotists choose to cry in the streets“Long live the infallible Pope!”some Romans will join the cry.[pg 729]The festivities will absorb large sums of money, and the financiers are not without anxiety; for however lucrative the new dogma may prove by and bye, for the moment it is an unproductive capital, and the annual deficit of thirty million franks cannot be covered by promises of future prosperity. It has now been determined, since the huge bankruptcy of Langrand-Dumonceaux, who had been named a Roman Count, has created some alarm, to take in the Rhenish and Westphalian nobility with the ecclesiastical unions there as sureties, and thus to negotiate a loan of twenty million franks“al pari.”The noble presidents of the unions are said to have already signified their willingness.The rewards of those for whom there are no Cardinal's hats are already under consideration. It is said that about a hundred Bishops will be named“assistants at the Pontifical Throne”in recognition of their services. Others will be made“protonotarii apostolici,”most of them only“protonotarii sopranumerarii non participanti.”Several priests especially zealous for the good cause will be made titular Bishops, and others“prelati domestici”and“monsignori,”or“camerieri segreti,”etc. Then there are the distinctions by means of colours, and soon we shall be able to measure a man's zeal for[pg 730]the new dogma at the first glance by seeing whether he wears the“abito paonazzo”or violet or scarlet. And there are exceptional decorations for use in church kept in reserve, like what the Archbishop of Algiers had given him.The attitude of Ketteler creates astonishment and is studied as a riddle to which no solution can be found. The Pope said to-day,“Io non capisco, cosa vuole quel Ketteler, che un giorno distribuisce delle brochure contro di me e contro della mia infallibilità, e che il giorno dopo scrive nei giornali che sia pieno di devozione per me, e che crede alla mia infallibilità, pare che sia proprio mezzo,”and thereupon he made a gesture indicating that the Bishop of Mayence was not quite right in his head.In fact Ketteler is the only man here who perplexes a reporter or historian. He has a work printed and distributed, in which infallibility is declared to be an unscriptural and unecclesiastical doctrine, and he says in his attack on me that according to his view Scripture and Tradition (i.e., the two only sources for the Church's faith) do not justify its dogmatic definition. Yet he affirms that he was always an infallibilist believer and will soon be more so than ever. It is[pg 731]difficult to report on the performances of a theological gymnast who seems rather to balance himself in mid air than to have firm ground under his feet. Here it is thought that he follows the counsel of his powerful patrons in the German College and the Gesù, who have made him understand that the new dogma will certainly be proclaimed, and that he would do well to change as speedily as he can from an inopportunist to a zealous advocate and executor of the decree. He has lately been reproached by an influential theologian (Gass) with making his own Church worse than it is by his doctrine that the Catholic Church knows of no duty of obedience against conscience. It will certainly never occur to me, now or at any future time, to have recourse to the conscience of Bishop Ketteler; that would indeed be the last refuge one would fly to![pg 732]

Sixtieth Letter.Rome, June 23, 1870.—On reading the last document emanating from the Council, composed by the most distinguished of the American Bishops, an inexpressible feeling of astonishment comes over me, as often before, at the new and unprecedented spectacle so boldly offered to the startled world, and I again recognise the necessity of accounting to myself for the condition of the Catholic Church which has made this possible, and remembering that the position of the Papacy in the modern Church for some time past has been hardly less novel and strange than this present infallibilist Council.The two great events of modern history, the Reformation and the Revolution, have made the Papacy what it is,—the Reformation by forcibly driving the Catholic half of Christendom into centralization, the Revolution by removing the last remaining independent powers[pg 697]within the Church, viz., the Gallican Church with the Sorbonne and Parliament. So it came to pass that with the Restoration the Church was surrendered to the discretion of the Papacy, just as at the same time the Roman States, by the withdrawal of all provincial and corporate independence, became a uniform and absolute monarchy. The very spirit of the nineteenth century, without much help from Rome, contributed to the consolidation and strengthening of this new system. The re-awakening and growth of distinct Church feeling in powerful classes of the educated nations, the legitimist ideas of the ruling classes of Europe, and later on the combined Catholic and Liberal interest of the struggle against hostile bureaucracies and the antipathy of parliamentary majorities—principles of reaction and principles of freedom all alike in turn subserved the cause of the Church,i.e., the Papacy. For although Papacy and Church were still not wholly identified in fact, to say nothing of right, the times did not suggest the need for distinguishing between them.There was opportunity given, one might suppose, for a great display of activity. A fresh creative spirit passed here and there through the new world of the nineteenth century, and not least through the Catholic[pg 698]portion of it, which produced in individuals many fair flowers of art and science, and also of practical piety. It was enough to catch the inspiration, in the sense of the age and of the eternal needs of mankind, and as the wilderness blossoms under the hand of a gardener, there grew out of the ruins of the Revolution a new era of rich Christian life. But the destiny of Catholicism was to be the reverse. There was indeed then, and is now, urgent need of an immense deal to be done in the Church; to carry on the daily ecclesiastical administration by no means satisfied the requirements of the age, but the Church herself needed and needs reform—reform everywhere from the outer rind to the marrow. But reform, whether in Church or State, generally results from the struggle of rival forces. And the only power surviving in the Church possessed neither the capacity nor the inclination for acts of world-wide import; it seemed to have no sense but for the maintenance and extension of its own dominion. Such Catholic works as the nineteenth century has produced did not emanate from Rome, and were little if at all helped on by her. On the contrary, Rome put a restraint on everything which did not serve directly as an instrument of her power. Every germ of relative independence[pg 699]seemed to be viewed with distrust. Here and there the intellectual labour of a lifetime of Catholic study was simply extinguished. The youth of talent turned from a path which led only to unfruitful conflicts. The once promising seed-plot of original Catholic production became dry, and even the noblest creation of the century, the female orders for nursing the sick, are said by those best informed to show symptoms of decay. There was stillness. From Rome one only heard a monologue. The Bishops' Pastorals were its echo, or were so long-winded and verbose that the simple and noble language of the pronunciamento issued by the newly elected Bishop of Rottenburg was quite a phenomenon. Men boasted of the Catholic unity, which had never been so palpable and so undisturbed as in these latter days, but it was a unity of sleep over the grave of intellectual and all higher ecclesiastical life.Who will bring us deliverance? asked every one who looked at things independently of the mere force of habit with a clear eye. The answer was that there was no longer any independent power anywhere but in the centre, and therefore deliverance could only come from thence; the lever could only be applied in[pg 700]Rome, and nobody but a future Pope was in a position to do this.How peculiarly are things disposed! In Rome they had all they could desire. There has never been a time when Catholic Christendom lay so submissively at the Pope's feet. In fact he possessed practically the prerogative of infallibility, for no one contradicted whatever he might say. The Bishops were disused to learning; there was hardly among them a theologian of note, and therefore they had no spirit for theological convictions of their own. It seemed to be the office of their lives to re-echo the Roman oracles. The daring project of defining the Immaculate Conception met with hardly any serious opposition, though many Bishops could not conceal from themselves that the faith of antiquity and the belief of their own dioceses knew nothing of the new dogma. And then in the Encyclical and Syllabus came a perfect flood of irrational and unchristian propositions. What did the Bishops of Christendom, the judges of faith, do? Some put a more rational interpretation on it, the others took it all for granted as it stood; everywhere the new articles of faith and morality were received as though all were in the most regular order. That was in fact a situation[pg 701]without any precedent, and there was nothing left to wish for but its continuance for ever. The talisman to secure this continuance was discovered in the tenet of papal infallibility, and to make this into a dogma and foundation-principle of the Church has been the grand object to which the thoughts and measures of the last ten years have been directed.Even this last point might perhaps have been attained by adhering to the practice which has prevailed hitherto of quietly collecting the votes of theEcclesia dispersa, and passing over the isolated opponents still left to the order of the day. Why was the perilous plan of a General Council adopted instead of this? Perhaps with the view of extruding and getting rid of for the future all the doubt still attaching to the assent of the Church dispersed; certainly in the full confidence, after all that had occurred previously, that there was absolutely no demand the Bishops would dare to refuse. The authorities felt in the position, ecclesiastically speaking, of being able to challenge the Holy Ghost Himself to say if He would refuse to set His seal to the deformation of the Church.All the world knows how the Vatican Council has been managed. It was as if they wished to keep the[pg 702]Holy Ghost a prisoner, with eyes and ears bandaged. But things did not go as they wished. On the contrary this extreme step of theCuriaroused a reaction, which seems likely to lead to a revolution that will take its place in history and introduce a complete change in the future. Certainly the deliverance is coming from the centre, but not as was thought and desired, not in peace but in storm, not as a gift of the highest human wisdom but as a nemesis. For it is an old law, equally prevalent throughout the Christian and Heathen world, that pride will always bring its punishment.We are already in the third stage of this movement. First came, quite unexpectedly, protests against infallibility from the lay world, instead of the accustomed clouds of incense, and then still more unexpectedly the military obedience of the clergy was broken through by the most decided intimations of conscientious sincerity and scientific conviction; and now even the princes of the Church are putting themselves at the head of the Opposition. There is still some difference between the Church dispersed and a great assembly, many as are the restrictions imposed here by fraud and violence on the free expression of opinion. The man of knowledge and character, who would there remain[pg 703]alone and isolated, gains tenfold power and energy here. Consciences are aroused. Many a Bishop who left home with his head wholly or half involved in the haze of Jesuit doctrine, receives the impulse here to unprejudiced study and is irresistibly driven to the side of right and truth. Besides, it is no small thing to have seen the state of things at Rome for six months with one's own eyes.We shall do well not to raise our expectations too high. The spirit of slavery, which has become ingrained in one generation after another, cannot be scared away in weeks and months from men's minds and the conduct of affairs. So much the more noteworthy is every increase of outward or inward strength in the struggling minority at the Council. And so I return to the work already mentioned, to remark that its contents justify us in reckoning the author, the venerable Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis, with Strossmayer, Hefele, Dupanloup, Darboy, Schwarzenberg, and Rauscher among the heads of the Opposition.It is only matter of course that much which has often been said before should be repeated here, which we may pass over, without however omitting to notice the impression which the plain and practical[pg 704]nature of the treatise is calculated to produce. What concerns us more nearly is the distinctness and firmness with which the present claims of theCuriaare repudiated, as,e.g., in pointing out the injury to episcopal rights involved in the desired definition.“The Bishops,”says the author,“have always been held judges of faith. But assuming that the Pope alone is infallible, the Bishops may indeed assent to his judgments, but cannot exercise any real judicial office, and thus lose a right inherent in the episcopal office. But this right they are in no position to resign, however much they might wish it, for its connection with the episcopal office rests on the institution of the Saviour.”In another passage he says,“Appeal is made to the number of theologians, who in the course of ages have defended infallibility. But that does not make it an article of faith. Divine Providence does not permit such opinions, when they have no true ground or do not agree with the records of revelation, to become articles of faith. It has been a view held for centuries that Christ gave Peter and his successors supreme authority in secular affairs also. But there is no one in our own day who does not reject and deplore it and seek for an excuse for it in the circumstances of the age, except the Roman clergy, in whoseProprium Officium S.[pg 705]Zachariæwe read the other day, that the Pope by his apostolic authority transferred the sovereignty over the Franks from Childeric to Pepin. And yet the Popes have ventured to make this usurped authority, so far as in them lay, into an article of faith.”Then follows a reference to the BullUnam Sanctam, and the similar statements of Bellarmine and Suarez.“On the other hand,”Kenrick proceeds,“we find at this Council some Bishops, of whom the present writer is one, who have published and solemnly sworn to a declaration that the Pope, at least in England, possesses no such power. This example might teach those who are pressing for the definition of papal infallibility, that even the most solemn papal decree, and though issued like that of Bonifaceviii.at a Synod, is null and void if it be not grounded on God's word in Scripture and Tradition.‘Commenta delet dies, judicia naturæ confirmat.’”We may recognise in the tone of these remarks, with all their moderation, an advance on the part of the Opposition to greater freedom and distinctness of speech. And this impression is still more confirmed by Kenrick's judgment on the well-known proceedings in and out of Council.“There is yet another argument used,”he says,“which I can only refer to with reluctance. It[pg 706]is urged that papal infallibility is so vehemently attacked by its opponents that, if it is not now declared to be an article of faith, it is virtually admitted to have no foundation, and surrendered to the daily increasing violence of its assailants without protection. Those who so argue forget that they are themselves responsible for having occasioned this deplorable controversy, by announcing to the astonished world that at the Vatican Council two new dogmas would be proposed to the faithful, papal infallibility and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and in a similar spirit publishing works in England and the United States on the Pope's authority, with a view of preparing men's minds for the acceptance of these dogmas. In view of this temerity, which has not only not been rebuked but has even been defended in Bishops' Pastorals, and with a clear perception of the unhappy consequences that must follow from it, men, who deserve eternal remembrance and will obtain praise of God, have lifted up their voice to remind the faithful that in matters of faith no innovation is allowed, that papal infallibility as distinct from the infallibility of the Church has no evidence of Scripture and Tradition, and that the office of Councils is to investigate and not to carry decrees by acclamation.[pg 707]And just because they speak the truth openly, these men are reproached with stirring up the people by the very persons who would eventually have interpreted their silence as assent and have used it as ground for carrying out their own designs. Then again it is urged upon good people that something must be done under the circumstances for maintaining the honour of the Papacy, forgetting that Bishops should have not circumstances but the truth before their eyes, and that it is as little competent to the successors of the Apostles as to the Apostles themselves to do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.”In another passage, after dwelling on the preponderance of the Italian prelates he proceeds,“If they wish to give the decrees of the Council the character of the testimony of the whole of Christendom, without altering the inequality of numbers of the representatives of different nations, there is the precedent of the plan adopted at the Council of Constance with the happiest results, viz., taking the votes by nations or languages and not by heads. And this method would secure the speedier and better settlement of the matters under discussion, for the Bishops of the same tongue or nation know the needs of their Churches better and would[pg 708]understand how to meet them; moreover they could express their views more readily in their mother tongue than is possible in the General Congregation where Latin is obliged to be spoken, which they have perhaps lost their familiarity with through the long course of an active life, so that they have either to keep silent or to speak under difficulties. And by this means a discussion and searching examination would become practicable, which must necessarily take place at a Council, but which is wanting at the Vatican Council. There is indeed abundant opportunity for making speeches, but the great number of Fathers and the order of business imposed on the Council cuts off all opportunity for submitting any point to a close examination by regular debate with one speaker answering another. Five months have already passed since the opening of the Council, with what result need not be said here. Meanwhile the question of the new definition has roused a great excitement throughout the Christian world, which is still on the increase; some desire the definition, others emphatically repudiate it. Bishops have entered the lists against Bishops, priests have written against their own and against other chief pastors, and won commendation from the supreme[pg 709]authority for doing so. The journals of both parties, with their not always true reports or at least crooked reasonings, keep the whole world in a state of agitated suspense as to what is coming. May one say to what all this will lead and what will be the end of this violent tempest which has so suddenly risen in a clear sky and seems likely to produce much mischief? They are certainly deceived who fancy that the promulgation of the new dogma will at once lay the waves; the contrary is far likelier. Those who would obey the decrees of the Council will find themselves in a most difficult position. The civil Governments will treat them, not without some plausible grounds, as less trustworthy subjects. The enemies of the Church will throw in their teeth the errors said to have been taught by the Popes or sanctioned by their conduct, and will laugh to scorn the only possible answer—that they did not promulgate these errors as Popes but as individual Bishops of Rome. And then the scandalous Church history records of certain Popes will be urged as so many proofs of the internal discrepancy of Catholic belief, for men do not distinguish between infallibility and impeccability, which appear to them inseparably connected.”[pg 710]What Kenrick thinks the Opposition ought to do is not expressly stated, but may be gathered from his language. He says indeed that“whoever does not submit to the decisions of an Œcumenical Council does not deserve the name of Catholic,”but he adds,“if the indispensable conditions have been observed in holding the Council.”And he makes moral unanimity one of these conditions. He does not allow the crude conception which seems to prevail among the majority, that a Council has simply to vote and then the world must reverence the result as the dictate of the Holy Ghost. The infallibility of Councils is to him no miraculous work of inspiration, but a simple result of the constitution the Church received from her Founder, whose assistance will never fail her, if she remains true to Scripture and Tradition and the agreement of the various particular Churches.Kenrick and all the Bishops who hold firmly with him may meet the impending decision in quietness and confidence, for the defeat of their opponents is certain, whether they persist and define and promulgate the new dogma, or retreat at the last moment. In the former case deliverance will come through a catastrophe whose consequences defy all calculation. And yet even[pg 711]in Rome there do not lack pious minds which, undisturbed by these terrible dangers, desire to see the insolent enterprise carried through, in the belief that the prevalent corruption can only be overcome by a life and death struggle.“Quod medicina non sanat, ferrum sanat.”[pg 712]Sixty-First Letter.Rome, June 24, 1870.—Rome is just now like an episcopal lazar-house, so great is the number of the prelates who are sick and suffering and confined to their bed or their chamber. And still greater is the number of those who feel worn out and impatiently long to be gone. But there are persons here who calculate thus—that the Italians, Spaniards and South Americans are accustomed to the heat, and bear it very well, and as to the Germans, French and North Americans—“vile damnum si interierint.”Guidi's speech still occupies men's minds, and forms the topic of conversation in conciliar circles. Men are astonished at the courage of a Cardinal in daring so directly to contradict the Pope. While Pius has word written to Paris that“for many centuries no one doubted the Pope's infallibility,”Guidi declares it to be an invention of the fifteenth century.[pg 713]The following account of the dialogue between the Pope and the Cardinal is current at Rome, and it seems to rest on the authority of Pius himself, who is notoriously fond of telling every one he meets how he has lectured this or that dignitary:—Guidi, on being summoned by the Pope directly after his speech, was greeted with the words,“You are my enemy, you are the coryphæus of my opponents, ungrateful towards my person; you have propounded heretical doctrine.”Guidi.—“My speech is in the hands of the Presidents, if your Holiness will read it, and detect what is supposed to be heretical in it. I gave it at once to the under-secretary (sottosecretario) that people might not be able to say anything had been interpolated into it.”The Pope.—“You have given great offence to the majority of the Council; all five Presidents are against you and are displeased.”Guidi.—“Some material error may have escaped me, but certainly not a formal one: I have simply stated the doctrine of tradition and of St. Thomas.”The Pope.—“La tradizione son' io—vi farò far nuovamente la professione di fede.”Guidi.—“I am and remain subject to the authority of the Holy See, but I ventured to discuss a question not yet made an article of faith; if[pg 714]your Holiness decides it to be such in a Constitution, I shall certainly not dare to oppose it.”The Pope.—“The value of your speech may be measured by those whom it has pleased. Who has been eager to testify to you his joy? That Bishop Strossmayer who is my personal enemy has embraced you; you are in collusion with him.”Guidi.—“I don't know him, and have never before spoken to him.”The Pope.—“It is clear you have spoken so as to please the world, the Liberals, the Revolution, and the Government of Florence.”Guidi.—“Holy Father, have the goodness to have my speech given you.”The same afternoon a Spanish Bishop belonging to the extremest Infallibilists said,“Absque dubio facies Concilii est immutata. Oportet huic sermoni serio studere.”When Guidi asked how the Cardinals had taken his speech, Mathieu replied,“Cum seriâ silentiosâ approbatione,”on which Guidi observed,“Sunt quidam qui idem mecum sentiunt, sed deest illis animi fortitudo.”“La tradizione son' io”—it would be impossible to give a briefer, more pregnant or more epigrammatic description of the whole system which is now to be made dominant than is contained in those few words. All[pg 715]the members of theCiviltà, the thick volumes of Schrader, Weninger and the Jesuits of Laach are outdone by this clear and simple utterance. Pius will take rank in history with the men who have known how by a happy inspiration to throw a great thought into the most adequate form of words, which impresses it for ever indelibly on the memory. The formula is worthy to be classed with the equally pregnant saying of Bonifaceviii.,“The Pope holds all rights locked up in his breast.”It is bruited about here from mouth to mouth, and the analogy of Louisxiv., which inevitably occurs to everybody, reaches even further. Every day since I have witnessed the drama being enacted here, has the saying suggested itself to me,“L'Église, c'est moi.”Any one who would form a judgment of the state of things here should be recommended above all to read a work like,e.g., Lemontey'sEssai sur l'établissement monarchique de Louisxiv., or the instructions of the King for the Dauphin. One sees there how absolute sovereignty, the intoxicating sense of irresponsible power—and spiritual absolutism is far more overpowering than political—leads almost of necessity to the notion of infallibility and divine enlightenment. Louisxiv.says seriously and drily to his son,“As God's representative[pg 716]we have part in the divine knowledge as well as the divine authority.”149And he warns him that all his own errors had arisen from his too great modesty in giving ear to extraneous advisers. For eight hundred years the question has been disputed, why the Popes are so short-lived, and the phenomenon has been ascribed to a special divine dispensation which removes them betimes, that they may not be morally poisoned by too long enjoyment of their dignity—“ne malitia mutaret intellectum.”The minority perceive, on a calmer consideration, that the two canons proposed by Guidi would not provide sufficient security for the episcopate taking part in the teaching office of the Church according to the integrity of her constitution. The second indeed, like a well-aimed arrow, hits the mark. It calls the thing by its right name, and anathematizes the purely personal infallibility of the Pope, independent of the consent of the Church and resting on direct divine inspiration, as a heresy, which it unquestionably is in the eyes of every theologian who knows anything of the Church and her tradition; but then, after the Pope has so[pg 717]openly and expressly committed himself to precisely this view of the Church, it is thought impossible here in Rome, and close to the Vatican, to throw an anathema in his face. And besides the expression in the first canon, that the consentient“consilium Ecclesiæ”is requisite for an infallible papal utterance, is open to the same charge of vagueness as the notorious and much-abusedex cathedrâ, and could as easily be explained away into the mere arbitrary caprice of the Pope. It would always rest with him in the last resort to maintain“ex certâ scientiâ”that the“consilium Ecclesiæ”agreed with his own judgment.A remodelling of the fourth canon has been undertaken, but the new formula is not known. It is however much talked of among the Bishops, and the general view is that it remains substantially unchanged, and still contains the personal infallibility of the Pope independently of the Church. Manning had said that the utmost regard that was possible should be paid to the views of the Opposition in the alteration of the chapter. And so those Bishops still hope for the accomplishment of their desires who, like Ketteler and Melchers, entreat that only one, however sterile, verbal concession may be made, so as to give them a bridge[pg 718]on which to pass over the gulf safely into the camp of the majority.I lately heard a Roman layman say that what most surprised him among the many wonderful things he had seen here was the contempt for the Catholic Church which prevails here. For that contempt could not be more emphatically expressed than by the Pope appropriating to himself what according to the ancient doctrine belongs to her, and declaring himself the sole and exclusive organ of the Holy Ghost. It is the same here universally; when one talks with a Roman, theCuria, the Pope, is everything, and the Church nothing but the“contribuens plebs.”My informant thought it was easy enough to understand the view of born Romans, but difficult to give any rational account of the attitude of the episcopal majority, for it must be clear to every one of them that the promulgation of the new dogma would destroy irrevocably all episcopal independence of Rome, and strip the nimbus from the brow of the Bishop who is a successor of the Apostles. I observed to him that in Romance countries this primitive idea of the episcopate had long since vanished, as he might easily convince himself by asking the next Italian peasant or shopkeeper he met what was his notion[pg 719]of a Bishop. And five-sixths of the majority belong to these countries,In the Congregation of June 20 the Deputation put up one of its members, Bishop d'Avanzo of Calvi and Teano, to speak. For there was urgent need of promptly meeting the great scandal given by Guidi, and deterring any Cardinal who might be so disposed from following his example. The speaker allowed that in dogmatic decrees the tradition of the Church must be consulted and the Holy Ghost invoked, but how this was to be done was left to the judgment of the Pope, By his second canon Guidi passed over“ad aliena non Catholica castra,”exceeded all Gallicans and wanted—he, an Italian, a Dominican and a Cardinal—to canonize Gallicanism. A shudder ran through the ranks of all the Italians who live between Ferrara and Malta, but they remembered for their comfort that the unworthy son of the peninsula had been for some years professor at Vienna, and it was obvious that the German malaria he had caught there was the cause of this matricidal heresy.Guidi had said that the admonition to Peter to confirm his brethren pre-supposed something to be confirmed,i.e., that the Pope only confirmed the doctrine already maintained by the Bishops. To this d'Avanzo[pg 720]answered that it was utterly uncatholic, and one must rather begin from above and not from below, and ascribe the authorship and initiation of doctrine to the Pope, who was immediately inspired by the Holy Ghost;“causa princeps infallibilitatis est assistentia Spiritûs Sancti.”And here followed a statement that must be given word for word:“Supervacaneum est omne additamentum, nulla emendatio in decreto et canone schematis acceptatur; nulla conditio, nulla limitatio admittetur per deputationem; inutilis est igitur omnis labor?‘Animalis homo non percipit quod de cœlo est.’”150To say the definition was inopportune was merely pandering to the corrupt portion of society, and especially to the tribe of Government officials. The speaker added emphatically:“Satis fit servis Satanæ, qui sunt gubernantes, negantes ordinem supernaturalem—ergo Decretum est opportunum. In Pontifice Spiritus Domini vivit et agit, Pontifex ergo hôc Spiritu agente errare non potest.”It became known at once in the Council that this declaration, which annihilated so many hopes, had been made in the name and by special command of the Pope, and that“the animal man”meant the Opposition.[pg 721]The two next speakers were the titular Patriarchs Ballerini and Valerga. The first said with notable frankness,“Were we to let personal infallibility drop, we should destroy the obedience due to the Pope and exalt ourselves against God Himself.”In other words, the Vice-God orders us to declare him infallible, and of course we obey implicitly.Valerga's appearance was the beginning of a comedy, which was repeated in subsequent sittings. He wanted to prove papal infallibility by inferences from the Florentine decree, which was received by all; but he was twice interrupted by the Presidents for not keeping to the question. He thereupon left the tribune, not without remarks being made by Opposition Bishops that they saw this treatment was not reserved for them only. The same thing happened on June 22 to Bishop Apuzzo of Sorrento and Archbishop Spaccapietra. On the 20th, towards the end of the debate, Archbishop MacHale of Tuam in Ireland spoke with great severity against the decree, the fatal consequences of which he seems to appreciate better than most of his Irish colleagues. Bishop Apuzzo reminded the Hungarians that they once had a primate (Szelepcsenyi, a pupil of the Jesuits) who had summoned a synod to condemn the[pg 722]Gallican Articles of 1682, and that quite recently a Provincial Synod at Colocza had used language of very infallibilist sound. Haynald took part in that Synod, and he, as well as Rauscher, to whom the same reproach was addressed, had already observed that it would not do to put a strictly logical interpretation on mere complimentary phrases. In the course of his speech Apuzzo became still more abusive.“Those are the sons of Satan,”he exclaimed at last,“who say the Bishops are judges in the Church. No! we are but poor sinners.”At the same time he proposed a supplement still more peremptory than the chapter. Spaccapietra came to grief in Church history, which is more grossly mishandled at Rome and in the Council Hall, when it is appealed to at all, than anywhere else. This time St. Polycarp's yielding to the Pope about the observance of Easter—he notoriously did just the reverse—was to serve as an example to the Opposition. When the speaker went on to utter fierce invectives against Cardinal Guidi, he was interrupted. He declared he had only something to say against the schismatics, but the President closed his mouth in theatrical fashion saying,“Cedat verbum tintinnabulo.”So he left the rostrum.[pg 723]Men breathed more freely when, after these hollow declamations, two British Bishops brought the clear practical sense of their race and country to bear on the question and the previous discussion of it. The first of them, Archbishop Errington, who was formerly Cardinal Wiseman's coadjutor but soon got out of favour at Rome, pointedly characterized the vicious nature of the whole transaction; there were speeches on both sides, one affirming, another denying, and no one could feel that he had refuted anything or advanced his cause the least by his words. The Deputation alone had the privilege of referring to the speeches and examining them, and it belonged to the majority, not to the Council;“how it was formed, we know.”As a tribunal the Council was bound to institute a calm and searching investigation of facts, tradition and testimonies, and for this only one means was available, which was employed at the former great Councils including the Tridentine, to form deputations from both parties for earnest conference, where scientific examination might take the place of rhetorical harangues—from both parties, for it was idle with Bilio to bid them ignore the existence of two parties.“Modo in hôc Concilio fit aliter et illud ineptissime,”he concluded,[pg 724]and he proposed the formula,“Magisterium universalis Ecclesiæ est infallibile.”The next speech, of Vitelleschi, who is Archbishop of Osimo but has never been in his diocese, though it is so near, left no impression; it was an exhortation to vote infallibility unanimously. And then followed Archbishop Conolly of Halifax with a speech such as has seldom been heard here.“Thrice,”he said,“have I asked for proof from Scripture according to its authentic interpretation, from Tradition and from Councils, that the Bishops of the Catholic Church ought to be excluded from the definition of dogmas; but my request has not been complied with, and now I adjure you, like the blind man on the way to Jericho, to give us sight that we may believe. Hitherto we have recognised the strongest motive for the credibility of Catholic doctrine in the general consent of the Church notified through the collective episcopate; this has been our shield against all external assailants, and by this powerful magnet we have drawn hundreds of thousands into the Church. Is this our invincible weapon of attack and defence now to be broken and trampled under foot, and the thousand-headed episcopate with the millions of faithful at its back to shrink into the[pg 725]voice and witness of a single man? Let the Deputation prove to us that it has really been always the belief of the Church that the Pope is everything and the Bishops nothing. The Council of Jerusalem did not adopt the formula of Peter but of John, who spoke before him, and in the Apostles' Creed we do not say‘Credo in Petrum et successores ejus,’but‘Credo in unam Ecclesiam Catholicam.’We Bishops have no right to renounce for ourselves and our successors the hereditary and original rights of the episcopate, to renounce the promise of Christ,‘I am with you to the end of the world.’But now they want to reduce us to nullities, to tear the noblest jewel from our pontifical breastplate, to deprive us of the highest prerogative of our office, and to transform the whole Church and the Bishops with it into a rabble of blind men, among whom is one alone who sees, so that they must shut their eyes and believe whatever he tells them.”Was it confidence of victory that moved the Legates to allow the bold and free-minded American, who spoke with the full weight of a deep and laboriously attained conviction, to bring these earnest words to a close without interruption, after they had recently reduced three of their own speakers in succession to[pg 726]silence? I know not. It was the unenviable lot of the Archbishop of Granada, Monzon y Martins Benvenuto, to follow Conolly. No one expects at this Council ideas or facts from a Spaniard, but merely bombast and abject protestations of homage. Since they no longer have Queen Isabella and the throne has been vacant, these prelates have transferred their undivided devotion to the Pope, and among the reptiles here they are the most cringing after the Neapolitans. Monzon said he thirsted for new dogmas, and the infallibility of the Pope did not satisfy him; he earnestly desired a second dogma, viz., the divine and inviolable nature of the States of the Church.It was reported two days ago that Cardinal Morichini, who formerly as nuncio breathed some German air, intends to speak in Guidi's sense, but since the scene between the Pope and Guidi has become known, it is generally thought that no Cardinal will be so foolhardy as to express any other opinion in Council than that of the inspired Pope. Meanwhile there are new speakers enrolled, among whom are Haynald, Strossmayer, the Bishops of Dijon, Constantine, Tarentaise, etc. The number considerably exceeds a hundred, but Errington has only too much reason for saying the debates are like[pg 727]a boy riding a rocking-horse—movement without advance.You may imagine what capital the Jesuits make out of the speech of the Dominican Guidi. They are the supreme and thoroughly devoted body-guard of the Roman See, and can alone be implicitly trusted. And in fact nobody thinks it possible that a Jesuit should speak in Council like Guidi, as neither does any one here credit a Jesuit with sincere conviction of what he says; it is always known beforehand what he will say on any question, viz., what the Order considers for its interest and imposes as a corporate doctrine on its individual members. The sons of Ignatius remember now that the Dominicans have never been trustworthy. As early as 1303 the French appeal from Pope Bonifaceviii.to a General Council was supported by 130 Dominicans at Paris, and at the Councils of Constance and Basle they took the most active part in the measures against papal omnipotence and in framing the mischievous canons of the fourth and fifth sessions of Constance; they joined Savonarola in opposing Alexandervi.and preferred being burned to submitting. And again they gave powerful aid in France to the establishment of the Gallican doctrine. And what, say the[pg 728]Jesuits, is the great Church history of the Dominican Natalis Alexander but an arsenal from which to this day the opponents of infallibility get their weapons?Preparations are already being made for the festivities which are to accompany the promulgation of the new dogma. The Romans—the native population—cannot understand why a part of the Bishops resist it so stoutly, and no less mysterious to them is the fiery zeal of foreigners, especially Frenchmen, in its favour. Their view is that infallibility, as being likely to bring large sums of money into Rome, is certainly a profitable and praiseworthy affair, and they are accordingly ready for noisy demonstrations of joy. Plenty of sky-rockets will go up, there will be illuminations, the pillars of the churches will be clothed in red damask according to the local usage, and numberless wax-candles will be burnt. Some enthusiasts think the fountain of Trevi will that day flow with wine instead of water, and it is hoped that at nightfall a transparency of the famous picture painted by the Pope's command to represent his infallibility will be shown to the faithful people. And next time the French Veuillotists choose to cry in the streets“Long live the infallible Pope!”some Romans will join the cry.[pg 729]The festivities will absorb large sums of money, and the financiers are not without anxiety; for however lucrative the new dogma may prove by and bye, for the moment it is an unproductive capital, and the annual deficit of thirty million franks cannot be covered by promises of future prosperity. It has now been determined, since the huge bankruptcy of Langrand-Dumonceaux, who had been named a Roman Count, has created some alarm, to take in the Rhenish and Westphalian nobility with the ecclesiastical unions there as sureties, and thus to negotiate a loan of twenty million franks“al pari.”The noble presidents of the unions are said to have already signified their willingness.The rewards of those for whom there are no Cardinal's hats are already under consideration. It is said that about a hundred Bishops will be named“assistants at the Pontifical Throne”in recognition of their services. Others will be made“protonotarii apostolici,”most of them only“protonotarii sopranumerarii non participanti.”Several priests especially zealous for the good cause will be made titular Bishops, and others“prelati domestici”and“monsignori,”or“camerieri segreti,”etc. Then there are the distinctions by means of colours, and soon we shall be able to measure a man's zeal for[pg 730]the new dogma at the first glance by seeing whether he wears the“abito paonazzo”or violet or scarlet. And there are exceptional decorations for use in church kept in reserve, like what the Archbishop of Algiers had given him.The attitude of Ketteler creates astonishment and is studied as a riddle to which no solution can be found. The Pope said to-day,“Io non capisco, cosa vuole quel Ketteler, che un giorno distribuisce delle brochure contro di me e contro della mia infallibilità, e che il giorno dopo scrive nei giornali che sia pieno di devozione per me, e che crede alla mia infallibilità, pare che sia proprio mezzo,”and thereupon he made a gesture indicating that the Bishop of Mayence was not quite right in his head.In fact Ketteler is the only man here who perplexes a reporter or historian. He has a work printed and distributed, in which infallibility is declared to be an unscriptural and unecclesiastical doctrine, and he says in his attack on me that according to his view Scripture and Tradition (i.e., the two only sources for the Church's faith) do not justify its dogmatic definition. Yet he affirms that he was always an infallibilist believer and will soon be more so than ever. It is[pg 731]difficult to report on the performances of a theological gymnast who seems rather to balance himself in mid air than to have firm ground under his feet. Here it is thought that he follows the counsel of his powerful patrons in the German College and the Gesù, who have made him understand that the new dogma will certainly be proclaimed, and that he would do well to change as speedily as he can from an inopportunist to a zealous advocate and executor of the decree. He has lately been reproached by an influential theologian (Gass) with making his own Church worse than it is by his doctrine that the Catholic Church knows of no duty of obedience against conscience. It will certainly never occur to me, now or at any future time, to have recourse to the conscience of Bishop Ketteler; that would indeed be the last refuge one would fly to![pg 732]

Sixtieth Letter.Rome, June 23, 1870.—On reading the last document emanating from the Council, composed by the most distinguished of the American Bishops, an inexpressible feeling of astonishment comes over me, as often before, at the new and unprecedented spectacle so boldly offered to the startled world, and I again recognise the necessity of accounting to myself for the condition of the Catholic Church which has made this possible, and remembering that the position of the Papacy in the modern Church for some time past has been hardly less novel and strange than this present infallibilist Council.The two great events of modern history, the Reformation and the Revolution, have made the Papacy what it is,—the Reformation by forcibly driving the Catholic half of Christendom into centralization, the Revolution by removing the last remaining independent powers[pg 697]within the Church, viz., the Gallican Church with the Sorbonne and Parliament. So it came to pass that with the Restoration the Church was surrendered to the discretion of the Papacy, just as at the same time the Roman States, by the withdrawal of all provincial and corporate independence, became a uniform and absolute monarchy. The very spirit of the nineteenth century, without much help from Rome, contributed to the consolidation and strengthening of this new system. The re-awakening and growth of distinct Church feeling in powerful classes of the educated nations, the legitimist ideas of the ruling classes of Europe, and later on the combined Catholic and Liberal interest of the struggle against hostile bureaucracies and the antipathy of parliamentary majorities—principles of reaction and principles of freedom all alike in turn subserved the cause of the Church,i.e., the Papacy. For although Papacy and Church were still not wholly identified in fact, to say nothing of right, the times did not suggest the need for distinguishing between them.There was opportunity given, one might suppose, for a great display of activity. A fresh creative spirit passed here and there through the new world of the nineteenth century, and not least through the Catholic[pg 698]portion of it, which produced in individuals many fair flowers of art and science, and also of practical piety. It was enough to catch the inspiration, in the sense of the age and of the eternal needs of mankind, and as the wilderness blossoms under the hand of a gardener, there grew out of the ruins of the Revolution a new era of rich Christian life. But the destiny of Catholicism was to be the reverse. There was indeed then, and is now, urgent need of an immense deal to be done in the Church; to carry on the daily ecclesiastical administration by no means satisfied the requirements of the age, but the Church herself needed and needs reform—reform everywhere from the outer rind to the marrow. But reform, whether in Church or State, generally results from the struggle of rival forces. And the only power surviving in the Church possessed neither the capacity nor the inclination for acts of world-wide import; it seemed to have no sense but for the maintenance and extension of its own dominion. Such Catholic works as the nineteenth century has produced did not emanate from Rome, and were little if at all helped on by her. On the contrary, Rome put a restraint on everything which did not serve directly as an instrument of her power. Every germ of relative independence[pg 699]seemed to be viewed with distrust. Here and there the intellectual labour of a lifetime of Catholic study was simply extinguished. The youth of talent turned from a path which led only to unfruitful conflicts. The once promising seed-plot of original Catholic production became dry, and even the noblest creation of the century, the female orders for nursing the sick, are said by those best informed to show symptoms of decay. There was stillness. From Rome one only heard a monologue. The Bishops' Pastorals were its echo, or were so long-winded and verbose that the simple and noble language of the pronunciamento issued by the newly elected Bishop of Rottenburg was quite a phenomenon. Men boasted of the Catholic unity, which had never been so palpable and so undisturbed as in these latter days, but it was a unity of sleep over the grave of intellectual and all higher ecclesiastical life.Who will bring us deliverance? asked every one who looked at things independently of the mere force of habit with a clear eye. The answer was that there was no longer any independent power anywhere but in the centre, and therefore deliverance could only come from thence; the lever could only be applied in[pg 700]Rome, and nobody but a future Pope was in a position to do this.How peculiarly are things disposed! In Rome they had all they could desire. There has never been a time when Catholic Christendom lay so submissively at the Pope's feet. In fact he possessed practically the prerogative of infallibility, for no one contradicted whatever he might say. The Bishops were disused to learning; there was hardly among them a theologian of note, and therefore they had no spirit for theological convictions of their own. It seemed to be the office of their lives to re-echo the Roman oracles. The daring project of defining the Immaculate Conception met with hardly any serious opposition, though many Bishops could not conceal from themselves that the faith of antiquity and the belief of their own dioceses knew nothing of the new dogma. And then in the Encyclical and Syllabus came a perfect flood of irrational and unchristian propositions. What did the Bishops of Christendom, the judges of faith, do? Some put a more rational interpretation on it, the others took it all for granted as it stood; everywhere the new articles of faith and morality were received as though all were in the most regular order. That was in fact a situation[pg 701]without any precedent, and there was nothing left to wish for but its continuance for ever. The talisman to secure this continuance was discovered in the tenet of papal infallibility, and to make this into a dogma and foundation-principle of the Church has been the grand object to which the thoughts and measures of the last ten years have been directed.Even this last point might perhaps have been attained by adhering to the practice which has prevailed hitherto of quietly collecting the votes of theEcclesia dispersa, and passing over the isolated opponents still left to the order of the day. Why was the perilous plan of a General Council adopted instead of this? Perhaps with the view of extruding and getting rid of for the future all the doubt still attaching to the assent of the Church dispersed; certainly in the full confidence, after all that had occurred previously, that there was absolutely no demand the Bishops would dare to refuse. The authorities felt in the position, ecclesiastically speaking, of being able to challenge the Holy Ghost Himself to say if He would refuse to set His seal to the deformation of the Church.All the world knows how the Vatican Council has been managed. It was as if they wished to keep the[pg 702]Holy Ghost a prisoner, with eyes and ears bandaged. But things did not go as they wished. On the contrary this extreme step of theCuriaroused a reaction, which seems likely to lead to a revolution that will take its place in history and introduce a complete change in the future. Certainly the deliverance is coming from the centre, but not as was thought and desired, not in peace but in storm, not as a gift of the highest human wisdom but as a nemesis. For it is an old law, equally prevalent throughout the Christian and Heathen world, that pride will always bring its punishment.We are already in the third stage of this movement. First came, quite unexpectedly, protests against infallibility from the lay world, instead of the accustomed clouds of incense, and then still more unexpectedly the military obedience of the clergy was broken through by the most decided intimations of conscientious sincerity and scientific conviction; and now even the princes of the Church are putting themselves at the head of the Opposition. There is still some difference between the Church dispersed and a great assembly, many as are the restrictions imposed here by fraud and violence on the free expression of opinion. The man of knowledge and character, who would there remain[pg 703]alone and isolated, gains tenfold power and energy here. Consciences are aroused. Many a Bishop who left home with his head wholly or half involved in the haze of Jesuit doctrine, receives the impulse here to unprejudiced study and is irresistibly driven to the side of right and truth. Besides, it is no small thing to have seen the state of things at Rome for six months with one's own eyes.We shall do well not to raise our expectations too high. The spirit of slavery, which has become ingrained in one generation after another, cannot be scared away in weeks and months from men's minds and the conduct of affairs. So much the more noteworthy is every increase of outward or inward strength in the struggling minority at the Council. And so I return to the work already mentioned, to remark that its contents justify us in reckoning the author, the venerable Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis, with Strossmayer, Hefele, Dupanloup, Darboy, Schwarzenberg, and Rauscher among the heads of the Opposition.It is only matter of course that much which has often been said before should be repeated here, which we may pass over, without however omitting to notice the impression which the plain and practical[pg 704]nature of the treatise is calculated to produce. What concerns us more nearly is the distinctness and firmness with which the present claims of theCuriaare repudiated, as,e.g., in pointing out the injury to episcopal rights involved in the desired definition.“The Bishops,”says the author,“have always been held judges of faith. But assuming that the Pope alone is infallible, the Bishops may indeed assent to his judgments, but cannot exercise any real judicial office, and thus lose a right inherent in the episcopal office. But this right they are in no position to resign, however much they might wish it, for its connection with the episcopal office rests on the institution of the Saviour.”In another passage he says,“Appeal is made to the number of theologians, who in the course of ages have defended infallibility. But that does not make it an article of faith. Divine Providence does not permit such opinions, when they have no true ground or do not agree with the records of revelation, to become articles of faith. It has been a view held for centuries that Christ gave Peter and his successors supreme authority in secular affairs also. But there is no one in our own day who does not reject and deplore it and seek for an excuse for it in the circumstances of the age, except the Roman clergy, in whoseProprium Officium S.[pg 705]Zachariæwe read the other day, that the Pope by his apostolic authority transferred the sovereignty over the Franks from Childeric to Pepin. And yet the Popes have ventured to make this usurped authority, so far as in them lay, into an article of faith.”Then follows a reference to the BullUnam Sanctam, and the similar statements of Bellarmine and Suarez.“On the other hand,”Kenrick proceeds,“we find at this Council some Bishops, of whom the present writer is one, who have published and solemnly sworn to a declaration that the Pope, at least in England, possesses no such power. This example might teach those who are pressing for the definition of papal infallibility, that even the most solemn papal decree, and though issued like that of Bonifaceviii.at a Synod, is null and void if it be not grounded on God's word in Scripture and Tradition.‘Commenta delet dies, judicia naturæ confirmat.’”We may recognise in the tone of these remarks, with all their moderation, an advance on the part of the Opposition to greater freedom and distinctness of speech. And this impression is still more confirmed by Kenrick's judgment on the well-known proceedings in and out of Council.“There is yet another argument used,”he says,“which I can only refer to with reluctance. It[pg 706]is urged that papal infallibility is so vehemently attacked by its opponents that, if it is not now declared to be an article of faith, it is virtually admitted to have no foundation, and surrendered to the daily increasing violence of its assailants without protection. Those who so argue forget that they are themselves responsible for having occasioned this deplorable controversy, by announcing to the astonished world that at the Vatican Council two new dogmas would be proposed to the faithful, papal infallibility and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and in a similar spirit publishing works in England and the United States on the Pope's authority, with a view of preparing men's minds for the acceptance of these dogmas. In view of this temerity, which has not only not been rebuked but has even been defended in Bishops' Pastorals, and with a clear perception of the unhappy consequences that must follow from it, men, who deserve eternal remembrance and will obtain praise of God, have lifted up their voice to remind the faithful that in matters of faith no innovation is allowed, that papal infallibility as distinct from the infallibility of the Church has no evidence of Scripture and Tradition, and that the office of Councils is to investigate and not to carry decrees by acclamation.[pg 707]And just because they speak the truth openly, these men are reproached with stirring up the people by the very persons who would eventually have interpreted their silence as assent and have used it as ground for carrying out their own designs. Then again it is urged upon good people that something must be done under the circumstances for maintaining the honour of the Papacy, forgetting that Bishops should have not circumstances but the truth before their eyes, and that it is as little competent to the successors of the Apostles as to the Apostles themselves to do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.”In another passage, after dwelling on the preponderance of the Italian prelates he proceeds,“If they wish to give the decrees of the Council the character of the testimony of the whole of Christendom, without altering the inequality of numbers of the representatives of different nations, there is the precedent of the plan adopted at the Council of Constance with the happiest results, viz., taking the votes by nations or languages and not by heads. And this method would secure the speedier and better settlement of the matters under discussion, for the Bishops of the same tongue or nation know the needs of their Churches better and would[pg 708]understand how to meet them; moreover they could express their views more readily in their mother tongue than is possible in the General Congregation where Latin is obliged to be spoken, which they have perhaps lost their familiarity with through the long course of an active life, so that they have either to keep silent or to speak under difficulties. And by this means a discussion and searching examination would become practicable, which must necessarily take place at a Council, but which is wanting at the Vatican Council. There is indeed abundant opportunity for making speeches, but the great number of Fathers and the order of business imposed on the Council cuts off all opportunity for submitting any point to a close examination by regular debate with one speaker answering another. Five months have already passed since the opening of the Council, with what result need not be said here. Meanwhile the question of the new definition has roused a great excitement throughout the Christian world, which is still on the increase; some desire the definition, others emphatically repudiate it. Bishops have entered the lists against Bishops, priests have written against their own and against other chief pastors, and won commendation from the supreme[pg 709]authority for doing so. The journals of both parties, with their not always true reports or at least crooked reasonings, keep the whole world in a state of agitated suspense as to what is coming. May one say to what all this will lead and what will be the end of this violent tempest which has so suddenly risen in a clear sky and seems likely to produce much mischief? They are certainly deceived who fancy that the promulgation of the new dogma will at once lay the waves; the contrary is far likelier. Those who would obey the decrees of the Council will find themselves in a most difficult position. The civil Governments will treat them, not without some plausible grounds, as less trustworthy subjects. The enemies of the Church will throw in their teeth the errors said to have been taught by the Popes or sanctioned by their conduct, and will laugh to scorn the only possible answer—that they did not promulgate these errors as Popes but as individual Bishops of Rome. And then the scandalous Church history records of certain Popes will be urged as so many proofs of the internal discrepancy of Catholic belief, for men do not distinguish between infallibility and impeccability, which appear to them inseparably connected.”[pg 710]What Kenrick thinks the Opposition ought to do is not expressly stated, but may be gathered from his language. He says indeed that“whoever does not submit to the decisions of an Œcumenical Council does not deserve the name of Catholic,”but he adds,“if the indispensable conditions have been observed in holding the Council.”And he makes moral unanimity one of these conditions. He does not allow the crude conception which seems to prevail among the majority, that a Council has simply to vote and then the world must reverence the result as the dictate of the Holy Ghost. The infallibility of Councils is to him no miraculous work of inspiration, but a simple result of the constitution the Church received from her Founder, whose assistance will never fail her, if she remains true to Scripture and Tradition and the agreement of the various particular Churches.Kenrick and all the Bishops who hold firmly with him may meet the impending decision in quietness and confidence, for the defeat of their opponents is certain, whether they persist and define and promulgate the new dogma, or retreat at the last moment. In the former case deliverance will come through a catastrophe whose consequences defy all calculation. And yet even[pg 711]in Rome there do not lack pious minds which, undisturbed by these terrible dangers, desire to see the insolent enterprise carried through, in the belief that the prevalent corruption can only be overcome by a life and death struggle.“Quod medicina non sanat, ferrum sanat.”

Rome, June 23, 1870.—On reading the last document emanating from the Council, composed by the most distinguished of the American Bishops, an inexpressible feeling of astonishment comes over me, as often before, at the new and unprecedented spectacle so boldly offered to the startled world, and I again recognise the necessity of accounting to myself for the condition of the Catholic Church which has made this possible, and remembering that the position of the Papacy in the modern Church for some time past has been hardly less novel and strange than this present infallibilist Council.

The two great events of modern history, the Reformation and the Revolution, have made the Papacy what it is,—the Reformation by forcibly driving the Catholic half of Christendom into centralization, the Revolution by removing the last remaining independent powers[pg 697]within the Church, viz., the Gallican Church with the Sorbonne and Parliament. So it came to pass that with the Restoration the Church was surrendered to the discretion of the Papacy, just as at the same time the Roman States, by the withdrawal of all provincial and corporate independence, became a uniform and absolute monarchy. The very spirit of the nineteenth century, without much help from Rome, contributed to the consolidation and strengthening of this new system. The re-awakening and growth of distinct Church feeling in powerful classes of the educated nations, the legitimist ideas of the ruling classes of Europe, and later on the combined Catholic and Liberal interest of the struggle against hostile bureaucracies and the antipathy of parliamentary majorities—principles of reaction and principles of freedom all alike in turn subserved the cause of the Church,i.e., the Papacy. For although Papacy and Church were still not wholly identified in fact, to say nothing of right, the times did not suggest the need for distinguishing between them.

There was opportunity given, one might suppose, for a great display of activity. A fresh creative spirit passed here and there through the new world of the nineteenth century, and not least through the Catholic[pg 698]portion of it, which produced in individuals many fair flowers of art and science, and also of practical piety. It was enough to catch the inspiration, in the sense of the age and of the eternal needs of mankind, and as the wilderness blossoms under the hand of a gardener, there grew out of the ruins of the Revolution a new era of rich Christian life. But the destiny of Catholicism was to be the reverse. There was indeed then, and is now, urgent need of an immense deal to be done in the Church; to carry on the daily ecclesiastical administration by no means satisfied the requirements of the age, but the Church herself needed and needs reform—reform everywhere from the outer rind to the marrow. But reform, whether in Church or State, generally results from the struggle of rival forces. And the only power surviving in the Church possessed neither the capacity nor the inclination for acts of world-wide import; it seemed to have no sense but for the maintenance and extension of its own dominion. Such Catholic works as the nineteenth century has produced did not emanate from Rome, and were little if at all helped on by her. On the contrary, Rome put a restraint on everything which did not serve directly as an instrument of her power. Every germ of relative independence[pg 699]seemed to be viewed with distrust. Here and there the intellectual labour of a lifetime of Catholic study was simply extinguished. The youth of talent turned from a path which led only to unfruitful conflicts. The once promising seed-plot of original Catholic production became dry, and even the noblest creation of the century, the female orders for nursing the sick, are said by those best informed to show symptoms of decay. There was stillness. From Rome one only heard a monologue. The Bishops' Pastorals were its echo, or were so long-winded and verbose that the simple and noble language of the pronunciamento issued by the newly elected Bishop of Rottenburg was quite a phenomenon. Men boasted of the Catholic unity, which had never been so palpable and so undisturbed as in these latter days, but it was a unity of sleep over the grave of intellectual and all higher ecclesiastical life.

Who will bring us deliverance? asked every one who looked at things independently of the mere force of habit with a clear eye. The answer was that there was no longer any independent power anywhere but in the centre, and therefore deliverance could only come from thence; the lever could only be applied in[pg 700]Rome, and nobody but a future Pope was in a position to do this.

How peculiarly are things disposed! In Rome they had all they could desire. There has never been a time when Catholic Christendom lay so submissively at the Pope's feet. In fact he possessed practically the prerogative of infallibility, for no one contradicted whatever he might say. The Bishops were disused to learning; there was hardly among them a theologian of note, and therefore they had no spirit for theological convictions of their own. It seemed to be the office of their lives to re-echo the Roman oracles. The daring project of defining the Immaculate Conception met with hardly any serious opposition, though many Bishops could not conceal from themselves that the faith of antiquity and the belief of their own dioceses knew nothing of the new dogma. And then in the Encyclical and Syllabus came a perfect flood of irrational and unchristian propositions. What did the Bishops of Christendom, the judges of faith, do? Some put a more rational interpretation on it, the others took it all for granted as it stood; everywhere the new articles of faith and morality were received as though all were in the most regular order. That was in fact a situation[pg 701]without any precedent, and there was nothing left to wish for but its continuance for ever. The talisman to secure this continuance was discovered in the tenet of papal infallibility, and to make this into a dogma and foundation-principle of the Church has been the grand object to which the thoughts and measures of the last ten years have been directed.

Even this last point might perhaps have been attained by adhering to the practice which has prevailed hitherto of quietly collecting the votes of theEcclesia dispersa, and passing over the isolated opponents still left to the order of the day. Why was the perilous plan of a General Council adopted instead of this? Perhaps with the view of extruding and getting rid of for the future all the doubt still attaching to the assent of the Church dispersed; certainly in the full confidence, after all that had occurred previously, that there was absolutely no demand the Bishops would dare to refuse. The authorities felt in the position, ecclesiastically speaking, of being able to challenge the Holy Ghost Himself to say if He would refuse to set His seal to the deformation of the Church.

All the world knows how the Vatican Council has been managed. It was as if they wished to keep the[pg 702]Holy Ghost a prisoner, with eyes and ears bandaged. But things did not go as they wished. On the contrary this extreme step of theCuriaroused a reaction, which seems likely to lead to a revolution that will take its place in history and introduce a complete change in the future. Certainly the deliverance is coming from the centre, but not as was thought and desired, not in peace but in storm, not as a gift of the highest human wisdom but as a nemesis. For it is an old law, equally prevalent throughout the Christian and Heathen world, that pride will always bring its punishment.

We are already in the third stage of this movement. First came, quite unexpectedly, protests against infallibility from the lay world, instead of the accustomed clouds of incense, and then still more unexpectedly the military obedience of the clergy was broken through by the most decided intimations of conscientious sincerity and scientific conviction; and now even the princes of the Church are putting themselves at the head of the Opposition. There is still some difference between the Church dispersed and a great assembly, many as are the restrictions imposed here by fraud and violence on the free expression of opinion. The man of knowledge and character, who would there remain[pg 703]alone and isolated, gains tenfold power and energy here. Consciences are aroused. Many a Bishop who left home with his head wholly or half involved in the haze of Jesuit doctrine, receives the impulse here to unprejudiced study and is irresistibly driven to the side of right and truth. Besides, it is no small thing to have seen the state of things at Rome for six months with one's own eyes.

We shall do well not to raise our expectations too high. The spirit of slavery, which has become ingrained in one generation after another, cannot be scared away in weeks and months from men's minds and the conduct of affairs. So much the more noteworthy is every increase of outward or inward strength in the struggling minority at the Council. And so I return to the work already mentioned, to remark that its contents justify us in reckoning the author, the venerable Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis, with Strossmayer, Hefele, Dupanloup, Darboy, Schwarzenberg, and Rauscher among the heads of the Opposition.

It is only matter of course that much which has often been said before should be repeated here, which we may pass over, without however omitting to notice the impression which the plain and practical[pg 704]nature of the treatise is calculated to produce. What concerns us more nearly is the distinctness and firmness with which the present claims of theCuriaare repudiated, as,e.g., in pointing out the injury to episcopal rights involved in the desired definition.“The Bishops,”says the author,“have always been held judges of faith. But assuming that the Pope alone is infallible, the Bishops may indeed assent to his judgments, but cannot exercise any real judicial office, and thus lose a right inherent in the episcopal office. But this right they are in no position to resign, however much they might wish it, for its connection with the episcopal office rests on the institution of the Saviour.”In another passage he says,“Appeal is made to the number of theologians, who in the course of ages have defended infallibility. But that does not make it an article of faith. Divine Providence does not permit such opinions, when they have no true ground or do not agree with the records of revelation, to become articles of faith. It has been a view held for centuries that Christ gave Peter and his successors supreme authority in secular affairs also. But there is no one in our own day who does not reject and deplore it and seek for an excuse for it in the circumstances of the age, except the Roman clergy, in whoseProprium Officium S.[pg 705]Zachariæwe read the other day, that the Pope by his apostolic authority transferred the sovereignty over the Franks from Childeric to Pepin. And yet the Popes have ventured to make this usurped authority, so far as in them lay, into an article of faith.”Then follows a reference to the BullUnam Sanctam, and the similar statements of Bellarmine and Suarez.“On the other hand,”Kenrick proceeds,“we find at this Council some Bishops, of whom the present writer is one, who have published and solemnly sworn to a declaration that the Pope, at least in England, possesses no such power. This example might teach those who are pressing for the definition of papal infallibility, that even the most solemn papal decree, and though issued like that of Bonifaceviii.at a Synod, is null and void if it be not grounded on God's word in Scripture and Tradition.‘Commenta delet dies, judicia naturæ confirmat.’”

We may recognise in the tone of these remarks, with all their moderation, an advance on the part of the Opposition to greater freedom and distinctness of speech. And this impression is still more confirmed by Kenrick's judgment on the well-known proceedings in and out of Council.“There is yet another argument used,”he says,“which I can only refer to with reluctance. It[pg 706]is urged that papal infallibility is so vehemently attacked by its opponents that, if it is not now declared to be an article of faith, it is virtually admitted to have no foundation, and surrendered to the daily increasing violence of its assailants without protection. Those who so argue forget that they are themselves responsible for having occasioned this deplorable controversy, by announcing to the astonished world that at the Vatican Council two new dogmas would be proposed to the faithful, papal infallibility and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and in a similar spirit publishing works in England and the United States on the Pope's authority, with a view of preparing men's minds for the acceptance of these dogmas. In view of this temerity, which has not only not been rebuked but has even been defended in Bishops' Pastorals, and with a clear perception of the unhappy consequences that must follow from it, men, who deserve eternal remembrance and will obtain praise of God, have lifted up their voice to remind the faithful that in matters of faith no innovation is allowed, that papal infallibility as distinct from the infallibility of the Church has no evidence of Scripture and Tradition, and that the office of Councils is to investigate and not to carry decrees by acclamation.[pg 707]And just because they speak the truth openly, these men are reproached with stirring up the people by the very persons who would eventually have interpreted their silence as assent and have used it as ground for carrying out their own designs. Then again it is urged upon good people that something must be done under the circumstances for maintaining the honour of the Papacy, forgetting that Bishops should have not circumstances but the truth before their eyes, and that it is as little competent to the successors of the Apostles as to the Apostles themselves to do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.”

In another passage, after dwelling on the preponderance of the Italian prelates he proceeds,“If they wish to give the decrees of the Council the character of the testimony of the whole of Christendom, without altering the inequality of numbers of the representatives of different nations, there is the precedent of the plan adopted at the Council of Constance with the happiest results, viz., taking the votes by nations or languages and not by heads. And this method would secure the speedier and better settlement of the matters under discussion, for the Bishops of the same tongue or nation know the needs of their Churches better and would[pg 708]understand how to meet them; moreover they could express their views more readily in their mother tongue than is possible in the General Congregation where Latin is obliged to be spoken, which they have perhaps lost their familiarity with through the long course of an active life, so that they have either to keep silent or to speak under difficulties. And by this means a discussion and searching examination would become practicable, which must necessarily take place at a Council, but which is wanting at the Vatican Council. There is indeed abundant opportunity for making speeches, but the great number of Fathers and the order of business imposed on the Council cuts off all opportunity for submitting any point to a close examination by regular debate with one speaker answering another. Five months have already passed since the opening of the Council, with what result need not be said here. Meanwhile the question of the new definition has roused a great excitement throughout the Christian world, which is still on the increase; some desire the definition, others emphatically repudiate it. Bishops have entered the lists against Bishops, priests have written against their own and against other chief pastors, and won commendation from the supreme[pg 709]authority for doing so. The journals of both parties, with their not always true reports or at least crooked reasonings, keep the whole world in a state of agitated suspense as to what is coming. May one say to what all this will lead and what will be the end of this violent tempest which has so suddenly risen in a clear sky and seems likely to produce much mischief? They are certainly deceived who fancy that the promulgation of the new dogma will at once lay the waves; the contrary is far likelier. Those who would obey the decrees of the Council will find themselves in a most difficult position. The civil Governments will treat them, not without some plausible grounds, as less trustworthy subjects. The enemies of the Church will throw in their teeth the errors said to have been taught by the Popes or sanctioned by their conduct, and will laugh to scorn the only possible answer—that they did not promulgate these errors as Popes but as individual Bishops of Rome. And then the scandalous Church history records of certain Popes will be urged as so many proofs of the internal discrepancy of Catholic belief, for men do not distinguish between infallibility and impeccability, which appear to them inseparably connected.”

What Kenrick thinks the Opposition ought to do is not expressly stated, but may be gathered from his language. He says indeed that“whoever does not submit to the decisions of an Œcumenical Council does not deserve the name of Catholic,”but he adds,“if the indispensable conditions have been observed in holding the Council.”And he makes moral unanimity one of these conditions. He does not allow the crude conception which seems to prevail among the majority, that a Council has simply to vote and then the world must reverence the result as the dictate of the Holy Ghost. The infallibility of Councils is to him no miraculous work of inspiration, but a simple result of the constitution the Church received from her Founder, whose assistance will never fail her, if she remains true to Scripture and Tradition and the agreement of the various particular Churches.

Kenrick and all the Bishops who hold firmly with him may meet the impending decision in quietness and confidence, for the defeat of their opponents is certain, whether they persist and define and promulgate the new dogma, or retreat at the last moment. In the former case deliverance will come through a catastrophe whose consequences defy all calculation. And yet even[pg 711]in Rome there do not lack pious minds which, undisturbed by these terrible dangers, desire to see the insolent enterprise carried through, in the belief that the prevalent corruption can only be overcome by a life and death struggle.“Quod medicina non sanat, ferrum sanat.”

Sixty-First Letter.Rome, June 24, 1870.—Rome is just now like an episcopal lazar-house, so great is the number of the prelates who are sick and suffering and confined to their bed or their chamber. And still greater is the number of those who feel worn out and impatiently long to be gone. But there are persons here who calculate thus—that the Italians, Spaniards and South Americans are accustomed to the heat, and bear it very well, and as to the Germans, French and North Americans—“vile damnum si interierint.”Guidi's speech still occupies men's minds, and forms the topic of conversation in conciliar circles. Men are astonished at the courage of a Cardinal in daring so directly to contradict the Pope. While Pius has word written to Paris that“for many centuries no one doubted the Pope's infallibility,”Guidi declares it to be an invention of the fifteenth century.[pg 713]The following account of the dialogue between the Pope and the Cardinal is current at Rome, and it seems to rest on the authority of Pius himself, who is notoriously fond of telling every one he meets how he has lectured this or that dignitary:—Guidi, on being summoned by the Pope directly after his speech, was greeted with the words,“You are my enemy, you are the coryphæus of my opponents, ungrateful towards my person; you have propounded heretical doctrine.”Guidi.—“My speech is in the hands of the Presidents, if your Holiness will read it, and detect what is supposed to be heretical in it. I gave it at once to the under-secretary (sottosecretario) that people might not be able to say anything had been interpolated into it.”The Pope.—“You have given great offence to the majority of the Council; all five Presidents are against you and are displeased.”Guidi.—“Some material error may have escaped me, but certainly not a formal one: I have simply stated the doctrine of tradition and of St. Thomas.”The Pope.—“La tradizione son' io—vi farò far nuovamente la professione di fede.”Guidi.—“I am and remain subject to the authority of the Holy See, but I ventured to discuss a question not yet made an article of faith; if[pg 714]your Holiness decides it to be such in a Constitution, I shall certainly not dare to oppose it.”The Pope.—“The value of your speech may be measured by those whom it has pleased. Who has been eager to testify to you his joy? That Bishop Strossmayer who is my personal enemy has embraced you; you are in collusion with him.”Guidi.—“I don't know him, and have never before spoken to him.”The Pope.—“It is clear you have spoken so as to please the world, the Liberals, the Revolution, and the Government of Florence.”Guidi.—“Holy Father, have the goodness to have my speech given you.”The same afternoon a Spanish Bishop belonging to the extremest Infallibilists said,“Absque dubio facies Concilii est immutata. Oportet huic sermoni serio studere.”When Guidi asked how the Cardinals had taken his speech, Mathieu replied,“Cum seriâ silentiosâ approbatione,”on which Guidi observed,“Sunt quidam qui idem mecum sentiunt, sed deest illis animi fortitudo.”“La tradizione son' io”—it would be impossible to give a briefer, more pregnant or more epigrammatic description of the whole system which is now to be made dominant than is contained in those few words. All[pg 715]the members of theCiviltà, the thick volumes of Schrader, Weninger and the Jesuits of Laach are outdone by this clear and simple utterance. Pius will take rank in history with the men who have known how by a happy inspiration to throw a great thought into the most adequate form of words, which impresses it for ever indelibly on the memory. The formula is worthy to be classed with the equally pregnant saying of Bonifaceviii.,“The Pope holds all rights locked up in his breast.”It is bruited about here from mouth to mouth, and the analogy of Louisxiv., which inevitably occurs to everybody, reaches even further. Every day since I have witnessed the drama being enacted here, has the saying suggested itself to me,“L'Église, c'est moi.”Any one who would form a judgment of the state of things here should be recommended above all to read a work like,e.g., Lemontey'sEssai sur l'établissement monarchique de Louisxiv., or the instructions of the King for the Dauphin. One sees there how absolute sovereignty, the intoxicating sense of irresponsible power—and spiritual absolutism is far more overpowering than political—leads almost of necessity to the notion of infallibility and divine enlightenment. Louisxiv.says seriously and drily to his son,“As God's representative[pg 716]we have part in the divine knowledge as well as the divine authority.”149And he warns him that all his own errors had arisen from his too great modesty in giving ear to extraneous advisers. For eight hundred years the question has been disputed, why the Popes are so short-lived, and the phenomenon has been ascribed to a special divine dispensation which removes them betimes, that they may not be morally poisoned by too long enjoyment of their dignity—“ne malitia mutaret intellectum.”The minority perceive, on a calmer consideration, that the two canons proposed by Guidi would not provide sufficient security for the episcopate taking part in the teaching office of the Church according to the integrity of her constitution. The second indeed, like a well-aimed arrow, hits the mark. It calls the thing by its right name, and anathematizes the purely personal infallibility of the Pope, independent of the consent of the Church and resting on direct divine inspiration, as a heresy, which it unquestionably is in the eyes of every theologian who knows anything of the Church and her tradition; but then, after the Pope has so[pg 717]openly and expressly committed himself to precisely this view of the Church, it is thought impossible here in Rome, and close to the Vatican, to throw an anathema in his face. And besides the expression in the first canon, that the consentient“consilium Ecclesiæ”is requisite for an infallible papal utterance, is open to the same charge of vagueness as the notorious and much-abusedex cathedrâ, and could as easily be explained away into the mere arbitrary caprice of the Pope. It would always rest with him in the last resort to maintain“ex certâ scientiâ”that the“consilium Ecclesiæ”agreed with his own judgment.A remodelling of the fourth canon has been undertaken, but the new formula is not known. It is however much talked of among the Bishops, and the general view is that it remains substantially unchanged, and still contains the personal infallibility of the Pope independently of the Church. Manning had said that the utmost regard that was possible should be paid to the views of the Opposition in the alteration of the chapter. And so those Bishops still hope for the accomplishment of their desires who, like Ketteler and Melchers, entreat that only one, however sterile, verbal concession may be made, so as to give them a bridge[pg 718]on which to pass over the gulf safely into the camp of the majority.I lately heard a Roman layman say that what most surprised him among the many wonderful things he had seen here was the contempt for the Catholic Church which prevails here. For that contempt could not be more emphatically expressed than by the Pope appropriating to himself what according to the ancient doctrine belongs to her, and declaring himself the sole and exclusive organ of the Holy Ghost. It is the same here universally; when one talks with a Roman, theCuria, the Pope, is everything, and the Church nothing but the“contribuens plebs.”My informant thought it was easy enough to understand the view of born Romans, but difficult to give any rational account of the attitude of the episcopal majority, for it must be clear to every one of them that the promulgation of the new dogma would destroy irrevocably all episcopal independence of Rome, and strip the nimbus from the brow of the Bishop who is a successor of the Apostles. I observed to him that in Romance countries this primitive idea of the episcopate had long since vanished, as he might easily convince himself by asking the next Italian peasant or shopkeeper he met what was his notion[pg 719]of a Bishop. And five-sixths of the majority belong to these countries,In the Congregation of June 20 the Deputation put up one of its members, Bishop d'Avanzo of Calvi and Teano, to speak. For there was urgent need of promptly meeting the great scandal given by Guidi, and deterring any Cardinal who might be so disposed from following his example. The speaker allowed that in dogmatic decrees the tradition of the Church must be consulted and the Holy Ghost invoked, but how this was to be done was left to the judgment of the Pope, By his second canon Guidi passed over“ad aliena non Catholica castra,”exceeded all Gallicans and wanted—he, an Italian, a Dominican and a Cardinal—to canonize Gallicanism. A shudder ran through the ranks of all the Italians who live between Ferrara and Malta, but they remembered for their comfort that the unworthy son of the peninsula had been for some years professor at Vienna, and it was obvious that the German malaria he had caught there was the cause of this matricidal heresy.Guidi had said that the admonition to Peter to confirm his brethren pre-supposed something to be confirmed,i.e., that the Pope only confirmed the doctrine already maintained by the Bishops. To this d'Avanzo[pg 720]answered that it was utterly uncatholic, and one must rather begin from above and not from below, and ascribe the authorship and initiation of doctrine to the Pope, who was immediately inspired by the Holy Ghost;“causa princeps infallibilitatis est assistentia Spiritûs Sancti.”And here followed a statement that must be given word for word:“Supervacaneum est omne additamentum, nulla emendatio in decreto et canone schematis acceptatur; nulla conditio, nulla limitatio admittetur per deputationem; inutilis est igitur omnis labor?‘Animalis homo non percipit quod de cœlo est.’”150To say the definition was inopportune was merely pandering to the corrupt portion of society, and especially to the tribe of Government officials. The speaker added emphatically:“Satis fit servis Satanæ, qui sunt gubernantes, negantes ordinem supernaturalem—ergo Decretum est opportunum. In Pontifice Spiritus Domini vivit et agit, Pontifex ergo hôc Spiritu agente errare non potest.”It became known at once in the Council that this declaration, which annihilated so many hopes, had been made in the name and by special command of the Pope, and that“the animal man”meant the Opposition.[pg 721]The two next speakers were the titular Patriarchs Ballerini and Valerga. The first said with notable frankness,“Were we to let personal infallibility drop, we should destroy the obedience due to the Pope and exalt ourselves against God Himself.”In other words, the Vice-God orders us to declare him infallible, and of course we obey implicitly.Valerga's appearance was the beginning of a comedy, which was repeated in subsequent sittings. He wanted to prove papal infallibility by inferences from the Florentine decree, which was received by all; but he was twice interrupted by the Presidents for not keeping to the question. He thereupon left the tribune, not without remarks being made by Opposition Bishops that they saw this treatment was not reserved for them only. The same thing happened on June 22 to Bishop Apuzzo of Sorrento and Archbishop Spaccapietra. On the 20th, towards the end of the debate, Archbishop MacHale of Tuam in Ireland spoke with great severity against the decree, the fatal consequences of which he seems to appreciate better than most of his Irish colleagues. Bishop Apuzzo reminded the Hungarians that they once had a primate (Szelepcsenyi, a pupil of the Jesuits) who had summoned a synod to condemn the[pg 722]Gallican Articles of 1682, and that quite recently a Provincial Synod at Colocza had used language of very infallibilist sound. Haynald took part in that Synod, and he, as well as Rauscher, to whom the same reproach was addressed, had already observed that it would not do to put a strictly logical interpretation on mere complimentary phrases. In the course of his speech Apuzzo became still more abusive.“Those are the sons of Satan,”he exclaimed at last,“who say the Bishops are judges in the Church. No! we are but poor sinners.”At the same time he proposed a supplement still more peremptory than the chapter. Spaccapietra came to grief in Church history, which is more grossly mishandled at Rome and in the Council Hall, when it is appealed to at all, than anywhere else. This time St. Polycarp's yielding to the Pope about the observance of Easter—he notoriously did just the reverse—was to serve as an example to the Opposition. When the speaker went on to utter fierce invectives against Cardinal Guidi, he was interrupted. He declared he had only something to say against the schismatics, but the President closed his mouth in theatrical fashion saying,“Cedat verbum tintinnabulo.”So he left the rostrum.[pg 723]Men breathed more freely when, after these hollow declamations, two British Bishops brought the clear practical sense of their race and country to bear on the question and the previous discussion of it. The first of them, Archbishop Errington, who was formerly Cardinal Wiseman's coadjutor but soon got out of favour at Rome, pointedly characterized the vicious nature of the whole transaction; there were speeches on both sides, one affirming, another denying, and no one could feel that he had refuted anything or advanced his cause the least by his words. The Deputation alone had the privilege of referring to the speeches and examining them, and it belonged to the majority, not to the Council;“how it was formed, we know.”As a tribunal the Council was bound to institute a calm and searching investigation of facts, tradition and testimonies, and for this only one means was available, which was employed at the former great Councils including the Tridentine, to form deputations from both parties for earnest conference, where scientific examination might take the place of rhetorical harangues—from both parties, for it was idle with Bilio to bid them ignore the existence of two parties.“Modo in hôc Concilio fit aliter et illud ineptissime,”he concluded,[pg 724]and he proposed the formula,“Magisterium universalis Ecclesiæ est infallibile.”The next speech, of Vitelleschi, who is Archbishop of Osimo but has never been in his diocese, though it is so near, left no impression; it was an exhortation to vote infallibility unanimously. And then followed Archbishop Conolly of Halifax with a speech such as has seldom been heard here.“Thrice,”he said,“have I asked for proof from Scripture according to its authentic interpretation, from Tradition and from Councils, that the Bishops of the Catholic Church ought to be excluded from the definition of dogmas; but my request has not been complied with, and now I adjure you, like the blind man on the way to Jericho, to give us sight that we may believe. Hitherto we have recognised the strongest motive for the credibility of Catholic doctrine in the general consent of the Church notified through the collective episcopate; this has been our shield against all external assailants, and by this powerful magnet we have drawn hundreds of thousands into the Church. Is this our invincible weapon of attack and defence now to be broken and trampled under foot, and the thousand-headed episcopate with the millions of faithful at its back to shrink into the[pg 725]voice and witness of a single man? Let the Deputation prove to us that it has really been always the belief of the Church that the Pope is everything and the Bishops nothing. The Council of Jerusalem did not adopt the formula of Peter but of John, who spoke before him, and in the Apostles' Creed we do not say‘Credo in Petrum et successores ejus,’but‘Credo in unam Ecclesiam Catholicam.’We Bishops have no right to renounce for ourselves and our successors the hereditary and original rights of the episcopate, to renounce the promise of Christ,‘I am with you to the end of the world.’But now they want to reduce us to nullities, to tear the noblest jewel from our pontifical breastplate, to deprive us of the highest prerogative of our office, and to transform the whole Church and the Bishops with it into a rabble of blind men, among whom is one alone who sees, so that they must shut their eyes and believe whatever he tells them.”Was it confidence of victory that moved the Legates to allow the bold and free-minded American, who spoke with the full weight of a deep and laboriously attained conviction, to bring these earnest words to a close without interruption, after they had recently reduced three of their own speakers in succession to[pg 726]silence? I know not. It was the unenviable lot of the Archbishop of Granada, Monzon y Martins Benvenuto, to follow Conolly. No one expects at this Council ideas or facts from a Spaniard, but merely bombast and abject protestations of homage. Since they no longer have Queen Isabella and the throne has been vacant, these prelates have transferred their undivided devotion to the Pope, and among the reptiles here they are the most cringing after the Neapolitans. Monzon said he thirsted for new dogmas, and the infallibility of the Pope did not satisfy him; he earnestly desired a second dogma, viz., the divine and inviolable nature of the States of the Church.It was reported two days ago that Cardinal Morichini, who formerly as nuncio breathed some German air, intends to speak in Guidi's sense, but since the scene between the Pope and Guidi has become known, it is generally thought that no Cardinal will be so foolhardy as to express any other opinion in Council than that of the inspired Pope. Meanwhile there are new speakers enrolled, among whom are Haynald, Strossmayer, the Bishops of Dijon, Constantine, Tarentaise, etc. The number considerably exceeds a hundred, but Errington has only too much reason for saying the debates are like[pg 727]a boy riding a rocking-horse—movement without advance.You may imagine what capital the Jesuits make out of the speech of the Dominican Guidi. They are the supreme and thoroughly devoted body-guard of the Roman See, and can alone be implicitly trusted. And in fact nobody thinks it possible that a Jesuit should speak in Council like Guidi, as neither does any one here credit a Jesuit with sincere conviction of what he says; it is always known beforehand what he will say on any question, viz., what the Order considers for its interest and imposes as a corporate doctrine on its individual members. The sons of Ignatius remember now that the Dominicans have never been trustworthy. As early as 1303 the French appeal from Pope Bonifaceviii.to a General Council was supported by 130 Dominicans at Paris, and at the Councils of Constance and Basle they took the most active part in the measures against papal omnipotence and in framing the mischievous canons of the fourth and fifth sessions of Constance; they joined Savonarola in opposing Alexandervi.and preferred being burned to submitting. And again they gave powerful aid in France to the establishment of the Gallican doctrine. And what, say the[pg 728]Jesuits, is the great Church history of the Dominican Natalis Alexander but an arsenal from which to this day the opponents of infallibility get their weapons?Preparations are already being made for the festivities which are to accompany the promulgation of the new dogma. The Romans—the native population—cannot understand why a part of the Bishops resist it so stoutly, and no less mysterious to them is the fiery zeal of foreigners, especially Frenchmen, in its favour. Their view is that infallibility, as being likely to bring large sums of money into Rome, is certainly a profitable and praiseworthy affair, and they are accordingly ready for noisy demonstrations of joy. Plenty of sky-rockets will go up, there will be illuminations, the pillars of the churches will be clothed in red damask according to the local usage, and numberless wax-candles will be burnt. Some enthusiasts think the fountain of Trevi will that day flow with wine instead of water, and it is hoped that at nightfall a transparency of the famous picture painted by the Pope's command to represent his infallibility will be shown to the faithful people. And next time the French Veuillotists choose to cry in the streets“Long live the infallible Pope!”some Romans will join the cry.[pg 729]The festivities will absorb large sums of money, and the financiers are not without anxiety; for however lucrative the new dogma may prove by and bye, for the moment it is an unproductive capital, and the annual deficit of thirty million franks cannot be covered by promises of future prosperity. It has now been determined, since the huge bankruptcy of Langrand-Dumonceaux, who had been named a Roman Count, has created some alarm, to take in the Rhenish and Westphalian nobility with the ecclesiastical unions there as sureties, and thus to negotiate a loan of twenty million franks“al pari.”The noble presidents of the unions are said to have already signified their willingness.The rewards of those for whom there are no Cardinal's hats are already under consideration. It is said that about a hundred Bishops will be named“assistants at the Pontifical Throne”in recognition of their services. Others will be made“protonotarii apostolici,”most of them only“protonotarii sopranumerarii non participanti.”Several priests especially zealous for the good cause will be made titular Bishops, and others“prelati domestici”and“monsignori,”or“camerieri segreti,”etc. Then there are the distinctions by means of colours, and soon we shall be able to measure a man's zeal for[pg 730]the new dogma at the first glance by seeing whether he wears the“abito paonazzo”or violet or scarlet. And there are exceptional decorations for use in church kept in reserve, like what the Archbishop of Algiers had given him.The attitude of Ketteler creates astonishment and is studied as a riddle to which no solution can be found. The Pope said to-day,“Io non capisco, cosa vuole quel Ketteler, che un giorno distribuisce delle brochure contro di me e contro della mia infallibilità, e che il giorno dopo scrive nei giornali che sia pieno di devozione per me, e che crede alla mia infallibilità, pare che sia proprio mezzo,”and thereupon he made a gesture indicating that the Bishop of Mayence was not quite right in his head.In fact Ketteler is the only man here who perplexes a reporter or historian. He has a work printed and distributed, in which infallibility is declared to be an unscriptural and unecclesiastical doctrine, and he says in his attack on me that according to his view Scripture and Tradition (i.e., the two only sources for the Church's faith) do not justify its dogmatic definition. Yet he affirms that he was always an infallibilist believer and will soon be more so than ever. It is[pg 731]difficult to report on the performances of a theological gymnast who seems rather to balance himself in mid air than to have firm ground under his feet. Here it is thought that he follows the counsel of his powerful patrons in the German College and the Gesù, who have made him understand that the new dogma will certainly be proclaimed, and that he would do well to change as speedily as he can from an inopportunist to a zealous advocate and executor of the decree. He has lately been reproached by an influential theologian (Gass) with making his own Church worse than it is by his doctrine that the Catholic Church knows of no duty of obedience against conscience. It will certainly never occur to me, now or at any future time, to have recourse to the conscience of Bishop Ketteler; that would indeed be the last refuge one would fly to!

Rome, June 24, 1870.—Rome is just now like an episcopal lazar-house, so great is the number of the prelates who are sick and suffering and confined to their bed or their chamber. And still greater is the number of those who feel worn out and impatiently long to be gone. But there are persons here who calculate thus—that the Italians, Spaniards and South Americans are accustomed to the heat, and bear it very well, and as to the Germans, French and North Americans—“vile damnum si interierint.”

Guidi's speech still occupies men's minds, and forms the topic of conversation in conciliar circles. Men are astonished at the courage of a Cardinal in daring so directly to contradict the Pope. While Pius has word written to Paris that“for many centuries no one doubted the Pope's infallibility,”Guidi declares it to be an invention of the fifteenth century.

The following account of the dialogue between the Pope and the Cardinal is current at Rome, and it seems to rest on the authority of Pius himself, who is notoriously fond of telling every one he meets how he has lectured this or that dignitary:—

Guidi, on being summoned by the Pope directly after his speech, was greeted with the words,“You are my enemy, you are the coryphæus of my opponents, ungrateful towards my person; you have propounded heretical doctrine.”Guidi.—“My speech is in the hands of the Presidents, if your Holiness will read it, and detect what is supposed to be heretical in it. I gave it at once to the under-secretary (sottosecretario) that people might not be able to say anything had been interpolated into it.”The Pope.—“You have given great offence to the majority of the Council; all five Presidents are against you and are displeased.”Guidi.—“Some material error may have escaped me, but certainly not a formal one: I have simply stated the doctrine of tradition and of St. Thomas.”The Pope.—“La tradizione son' io—vi farò far nuovamente la professione di fede.”Guidi.—“I am and remain subject to the authority of the Holy See, but I ventured to discuss a question not yet made an article of faith; if[pg 714]your Holiness decides it to be such in a Constitution, I shall certainly not dare to oppose it.”The Pope.—“The value of your speech may be measured by those whom it has pleased. Who has been eager to testify to you his joy? That Bishop Strossmayer who is my personal enemy has embraced you; you are in collusion with him.”Guidi.—“I don't know him, and have never before spoken to him.”The Pope.—“It is clear you have spoken so as to please the world, the Liberals, the Revolution, and the Government of Florence.”Guidi.—“Holy Father, have the goodness to have my speech given you.”

The same afternoon a Spanish Bishop belonging to the extremest Infallibilists said,“Absque dubio facies Concilii est immutata. Oportet huic sermoni serio studere.”When Guidi asked how the Cardinals had taken his speech, Mathieu replied,“Cum seriâ silentiosâ approbatione,”on which Guidi observed,“Sunt quidam qui idem mecum sentiunt, sed deest illis animi fortitudo.”

“La tradizione son' io”—it would be impossible to give a briefer, more pregnant or more epigrammatic description of the whole system which is now to be made dominant than is contained in those few words. All[pg 715]the members of theCiviltà, the thick volumes of Schrader, Weninger and the Jesuits of Laach are outdone by this clear and simple utterance. Pius will take rank in history with the men who have known how by a happy inspiration to throw a great thought into the most adequate form of words, which impresses it for ever indelibly on the memory. The formula is worthy to be classed with the equally pregnant saying of Bonifaceviii.,“The Pope holds all rights locked up in his breast.”It is bruited about here from mouth to mouth, and the analogy of Louisxiv., which inevitably occurs to everybody, reaches even further. Every day since I have witnessed the drama being enacted here, has the saying suggested itself to me,“L'Église, c'est moi.”Any one who would form a judgment of the state of things here should be recommended above all to read a work like,e.g., Lemontey'sEssai sur l'établissement monarchique de Louisxiv., or the instructions of the King for the Dauphin. One sees there how absolute sovereignty, the intoxicating sense of irresponsible power—and spiritual absolutism is far more overpowering than political—leads almost of necessity to the notion of infallibility and divine enlightenment. Louisxiv.says seriously and drily to his son,“As God's representative[pg 716]we have part in the divine knowledge as well as the divine authority.”149And he warns him that all his own errors had arisen from his too great modesty in giving ear to extraneous advisers. For eight hundred years the question has been disputed, why the Popes are so short-lived, and the phenomenon has been ascribed to a special divine dispensation which removes them betimes, that they may not be morally poisoned by too long enjoyment of their dignity—“ne malitia mutaret intellectum.”

The minority perceive, on a calmer consideration, that the two canons proposed by Guidi would not provide sufficient security for the episcopate taking part in the teaching office of the Church according to the integrity of her constitution. The second indeed, like a well-aimed arrow, hits the mark. It calls the thing by its right name, and anathematizes the purely personal infallibility of the Pope, independent of the consent of the Church and resting on direct divine inspiration, as a heresy, which it unquestionably is in the eyes of every theologian who knows anything of the Church and her tradition; but then, after the Pope has so[pg 717]openly and expressly committed himself to precisely this view of the Church, it is thought impossible here in Rome, and close to the Vatican, to throw an anathema in his face. And besides the expression in the first canon, that the consentient“consilium Ecclesiæ”is requisite for an infallible papal utterance, is open to the same charge of vagueness as the notorious and much-abusedex cathedrâ, and could as easily be explained away into the mere arbitrary caprice of the Pope. It would always rest with him in the last resort to maintain“ex certâ scientiâ”that the“consilium Ecclesiæ”agreed with his own judgment.

A remodelling of the fourth canon has been undertaken, but the new formula is not known. It is however much talked of among the Bishops, and the general view is that it remains substantially unchanged, and still contains the personal infallibility of the Pope independently of the Church. Manning had said that the utmost regard that was possible should be paid to the views of the Opposition in the alteration of the chapter. And so those Bishops still hope for the accomplishment of their desires who, like Ketteler and Melchers, entreat that only one, however sterile, verbal concession may be made, so as to give them a bridge[pg 718]on which to pass over the gulf safely into the camp of the majority.

I lately heard a Roman layman say that what most surprised him among the many wonderful things he had seen here was the contempt for the Catholic Church which prevails here. For that contempt could not be more emphatically expressed than by the Pope appropriating to himself what according to the ancient doctrine belongs to her, and declaring himself the sole and exclusive organ of the Holy Ghost. It is the same here universally; when one talks with a Roman, theCuria, the Pope, is everything, and the Church nothing but the“contribuens plebs.”My informant thought it was easy enough to understand the view of born Romans, but difficult to give any rational account of the attitude of the episcopal majority, for it must be clear to every one of them that the promulgation of the new dogma would destroy irrevocably all episcopal independence of Rome, and strip the nimbus from the brow of the Bishop who is a successor of the Apostles. I observed to him that in Romance countries this primitive idea of the episcopate had long since vanished, as he might easily convince himself by asking the next Italian peasant or shopkeeper he met what was his notion[pg 719]of a Bishop. And five-sixths of the majority belong to these countries,

In the Congregation of June 20 the Deputation put up one of its members, Bishop d'Avanzo of Calvi and Teano, to speak. For there was urgent need of promptly meeting the great scandal given by Guidi, and deterring any Cardinal who might be so disposed from following his example. The speaker allowed that in dogmatic decrees the tradition of the Church must be consulted and the Holy Ghost invoked, but how this was to be done was left to the judgment of the Pope, By his second canon Guidi passed over“ad aliena non Catholica castra,”exceeded all Gallicans and wanted—he, an Italian, a Dominican and a Cardinal—to canonize Gallicanism. A shudder ran through the ranks of all the Italians who live between Ferrara and Malta, but they remembered for their comfort that the unworthy son of the peninsula had been for some years professor at Vienna, and it was obvious that the German malaria he had caught there was the cause of this matricidal heresy.

Guidi had said that the admonition to Peter to confirm his brethren pre-supposed something to be confirmed,i.e., that the Pope only confirmed the doctrine already maintained by the Bishops. To this d'Avanzo[pg 720]answered that it was utterly uncatholic, and one must rather begin from above and not from below, and ascribe the authorship and initiation of doctrine to the Pope, who was immediately inspired by the Holy Ghost;“causa princeps infallibilitatis est assistentia Spiritûs Sancti.”And here followed a statement that must be given word for word:“Supervacaneum est omne additamentum, nulla emendatio in decreto et canone schematis acceptatur; nulla conditio, nulla limitatio admittetur per deputationem; inutilis est igitur omnis labor?‘Animalis homo non percipit quod de cœlo est.’”150To say the definition was inopportune was merely pandering to the corrupt portion of society, and especially to the tribe of Government officials. The speaker added emphatically:“Satis fit servis Satanæ, qui sunt gubernantes, negantes ordinem supernaturalem—ergo Decretum est opportunum. In Pontifice Spiritus Domini vivit et agit, Pontifex ergo hôc Spiritu agente errare non potest.”It became known at once in the Council that this declaration, which annihilated so many hopes, had been made in the name and by special command of the Pope, and that“the animal man”meant the Opposition.

The two next speakers were the titular Patriarchs Ballerini and Valerga. The first said with notable frankness,“Were we to let personal infallibility drop, we should destroy the obedience due to the Pope and exalt ourselves against God Himself.”In other words, the Vice-God orders us to declare him infallible, and of course we obey implicitly.

Valerga's appearance was the beginning of a comedy, which was repeated in subsequent sittings. He wanted to prove papal infallibility by inferences from the Florentine decree, which was received by all; but he was twice interrupted by the Presidents for not keeping to the question. He thereupon left the tribune, not without remarks being made by Opposition Bishops that they saw this treatment was not reserved for them only. The same thing happened on June 22 to Bishop Apuzzo of Sorrento and Archbishop Spaccapietra. On the 20th, towards the end of the debate, Archbishop MacHale of Tuam in Ireland spoke with great severity against the decree, the fatal consequences of which he seems to appreciate better than most of his Irish colleagues. Bishop Apuzzo reminded the Hungarians that they once had a primate (Szelepcsenyi, a pupil of the Jesuits) who had summoned a synod to condemn the[pg 722]Gallican Articles of 1682, and that quite recently a Provincial Synod at Colocza had used language of very infallibilist sound. Haynald took part in that Synod, and he, as well as Rauscher, to whom the same reproach was addressed, had already observed that it would not do to put a strictly logical interpretation on mere complimentary phrases. In the course of his speech Apuzzo became still more abusive.“Those are the sons of Satan,”he exclaimed at last,“who say the Bishops are judges in the Church. No! we are but poor sinners.”At the same time he proposed a supplement still more peremptory than the chapter. Spaccapietra came to grief in Church history, which is more grossly mishandled at Rome and in the Council Hall, when it is appealed to at all, than anywhere else. This time St. Polycarp's yielding to the Pope about the observance of Easter—he notoriously did just the reverse—was to serve as an example to the Opposition. When the speaker went on to utter fierce invectives against Cardinal Guidi, he was interrupted. He declared he had only something to say against the schismatics, but the President closed his mouth in theatrical fashion saying,“Cedat verbum tintinnabulo.”So he left the rostrum.

Men breathed more freely when, after these hollow declamations, two British Bishops brought the clear practical sense of their race and country to bear on the question and the previous discussion of it. The first of them, Archbishop Errington, who was formerly Cardinal Wiseman's coadjutor but soon got out of favour at Rome, pointedly characterized the vicious nature of the whole transaction; there were speeches on both sides, one affirming, another denying, and no one could feel that he had refuted anything or advanced his cause the least by his words. The Deputation alone had the privilege of referring to the speeches and examining them, and it belonged to the majority, not to the Council;“how it was formed, we know.”As a tribunal the Council was bound to institute a calm and searching investigation of facts, tradition and testimonies, and for this only one means was available, which was employed at the former great Councils including the Tridentine, to form deputations from both parties for earnest conference, where scientific examination might take the place of rhetorical harangues—from both parties, for it was idle with Bilio to bid them ignore the existence of two parties.“Modo in hôc Concilio fit aliter et illud ineptissime,”he concluded,[pg 724]and he proposed the formula,“Magisterium universalis Ecclesiæ est infallibile.”

The next speech, of Vitelleschi, who is Archbishop of Osimo but has never been in his diocese, though it is so near, left no impression; it was an exhortation to vote infallibility unanimously. And then followed Archbishop Conolly of Halifax with a speech such as has seldom been heard here.“Thrice,”he said,“have I asked for proof from Scripture according to its authentic interpretation, from Tradition and from Councils, that the Bishops of the Catholic Church ought to be excluded from the definition of dogmas; but my request has not been complied with, and now I adjure you, like the blind man on the way to Jericho, to give us sight that we may believe. Hitherto we have recognised the strongest motive for the credibility of Catholic doctrine in the general consent of the Church notified through the collective episcopate; this has been our shield against all external assailants, and by this powerful magnet we have drawn hundreds of thousands into the Church. Is this our invincible weapon of attack and defence now to be broken and trampled under foot, and the thousand-headed episcopate with the millions of faithful at its back to shrink into the[pg 725]voice and witness of a single man? Let the Deputation prove to us that it has really been always the belief of the Church that the Pope is everything and the Bishops nothing. The Council of Jerusalem did not adopt the formula of Peter but of John, who spoke before him, and in the Apostles' Creed we do not say‘Credo in Petrum et successores ejus,’but‘Credo in unam Ecclesiam Catholicam.’We Bishops have no right to renounce for ourselves and our successors the hereditary and original rights of the episcopate, to renounce the promise of Christ,‘I am with you to the end of the world.’But now they want to reduce us to nullities, to tear the noblest jewel from our pontifical breastplate, to deprive us of the highest prerogative of our office, and to transform the whole Church and the Bishops with it into a rabble of blind men, among whom is one alone who sees, so that they must shut their eyes and believe whatever he tells them.”

Was it confidence of victory that moved the Legates to allow the bold and free-minded American, who spoke with the full weight of a deep and laboriously attained conviction, to bring these earnest words to a close without interruption, after they had recently reduced three of their own speakers in succession to[pg 726]silence? I know not. It was the unenviable lot of the Archbishop of Granada, Monzon y Martins Benvenuto, to follow Conolly. No one expects at this Council ideas or facts from a Spaniard, but merely bombast and abject protestations of homage. Since they no longer have Queen Isabella and the throne has been vacant, these prelates have transferred their undivided devotion to the Pope, and among the reptiles here they are the most cringing after the Neapolitans. Monzon said he thirsted for new dogmas, and the infallibility of the Pope did not satisfy him; he earnestly desired a second dogma, viz., the divine and inviolable nature of the States of the Church.

It was reported two days ago that Cardinal Morichini, who formerly as nuncio breathed some German air, intends to speak in Guidi's sense, but since the scene between the Pope and Guidi has become known, it is generally thought that no Cardinal will be so foolhardy as to express any other opinion in Council than that of the inspired Pope. Meanwhile there are new speakers enrolled, among whom are Haynald, Strossmayer, the Bishops of Dijon, Constantine, Tarentaise, etc. The number considerably exceeds a hundred, but Errington has only too much reason for saying the debates are like[pg 727]a boy riding a rocking-horse—movement without advance.

You may imagine what capital the Jesuits make out of the speech of the Dominican Guidi. They are the supreme and thoroughly devoted body-guard of the Roman See, and can alone be implicitly trusted. And in fact nobody thinks it possible that a Jesuit should speak in Council like Guidi, as neither does any one here credit a Jesuit with sincere conviction of what he says; it is always known beforehand what he will say on any question, viz., what the Order considers for its interest and imposes as a corporate doctrine on its individual members. The sons of Ignatius remember now that the Dominicans have never been trustworthy. As early as 1303 the French appeal from Pope Bonifaceviii.to a General Council was supported by 130 Dominicans at Paris, and at the Councils of Constance and Basle they took the most active part in the measures against papal omnipotence and in framing the mischievous canons of the fourth and fifth sessions of Constance; they joined Savonarola in opposing Alexandervi.and preferred being burned to submitting. And again they gave powerful aid in France to the establishment of the Gallican doctrine. And what, say the[pg 728]Jesuits, is the great Church history of the Dominican Natalis Alexander but an arsenal from which to this day the opponents of infallibility get their weapons?

Preparations are already being made for the festivities which are to accompany the promulgation of the new dogma. The Romans—the native population—cannot understand why a part of the Bishops resist it so stoutly, and no less mysterious to them is the fiery zeal of foreigners, especially Frenchmen, in its favour. Their view is that infallibility, as being likely to bring large sums of money into Rome, is certainly a profitable and praiseworthy affair, and they are accordingly ready for noisy demonstrations of joy. Plenty of sky-rockets will go up, there will be illuminations, the pillars of the churches will be clothed in red damask according to the local usage, and numberless wax-candles will be burnt. Some enthusiasts think the fountain of Trevi will that day flow with wine instead of water, and it is hoped that at nightfall a transparency of the famous picture painted by the Pope's command to represent his infallibility will be shown to the faithful people. And next time the French Veuillotists choose to cry in the streets“Long live the infallible Pope!”some Romans will join the cry.

The festivities will absorb large sums of money, and the financiers are not without anxiety; for however lucrative the new dogma may prove by and bye, for the moment it is an unproductive capital, and the annual deficit of thirty million franks cannot be covered by promises of future prosperity. It has now been determined, since the huge bankruptcy of Langrand-Dumonceaux, who had been named a Roman Count, has created some alarm, to take in the Rhenish and Westphalian nobility with the ecclesiastical unions there as sureties, and thus to negotiate a loan of twenty million franks“al pari.”The noble presidents of the unions are said to have already signified their willingness.

The rewards of those for whom there are no Cardinal's hats are already under consideration. It is said that about a hundred Bishops will be named“assistants at the Pontifical Throne”in recognition of their services. Others will be made“protonotarii apostolici,”most of them only“protonotarii sopranumerarii non participanti.”Several priests especially zealous for the good cause will be made titular Bishops, and others“prelati domestici”and“monsignori,”or“camerieri segreti,”etc. Then there are the distinctions by means of colours, and soon we shall be able to measure a man's zeal for[pg 730]the new dogma at the first glance by seeing whether he wears the“abito paonazzo”or violet or scarlet. And there are exceptional decorations for use in church kept in reserve, like what the Archbishop of Algiers had given him.

The attitude of Ketteler creates astonishment and is studied as a riddle to which no solution can be found. The Pope said to-day,“Io non capisco, cosa vuole quel Ketteler, che un giorno distribuisce delle brochure contro di me e contro della mia infallibilità, e che il giorno dopo scrive nei giornali che sia pieno di devozione per me, e che crede alla mia infallibilità, pare che sia proprio mezzo,”and thereupon he made a gesture indicating that the Bishop of Mayence was not quite right in his head.

In fact Ketteler is the only man here who perplexes a reporter or historian. He has a work printed and distributed, in which infallibility is declared to be an unscriptural and unecclesiastical doctrine, and he says in his attack on me that according to his view Scripture and Tradition (i.e., the two only sources for the Church's faith) do not justify its dogmatic definition. Yet he affirms that he was always an infallibilist believer and will soon be more so than ever. It is[pg 731]difficult to report on the performances of a theological gymnast who seems rather to balance himself in mid air than to have firm ground under his feet. Here it is thought that he follows the counsel of his powerful patrons in the German College and the Gesù, who have made him understand that the new dogma will certainly be proclaimed, and that he would do well to change as speedily as he can from an inopportunist to a zealous advocate and executor of the decree. He has lately been reproached by an influential theologian (Gass) with making his own Church worse than it is by his doctrine that the Catholic Church knows of no duty of obedience against conscience. It will certainly never occur to me, now or at any future time, to have recourse to the conscience of Bishop Ketteler; that would indeed be the last refuge one would fly to!

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