Thirty-First Letter.

Thirty-First Letter.Rome, March 21, 1870.—A feeling of weariness, lethargy and disgust has been forced on many Bishops by the treatment they have received and the whole course of affairs in the Council up to this time. The news of its dissolution would be welcome tidings to their ears. And not only strangers, but many residents here, would joyfully hail their deliverance from the existing situation; even one of the Legates said lately that, if the Council were to be suddenly dissolved by a death, the Church would be freed from a great distress. The Assembly Hall alone would suffice to disgust a prelate with the idea of taking part in a Council for the rest of his life. Yet they are obliged to sit hours in this comfortless chamber, without understanding what is said. A sense of time unprofitably wasted is the only result of many a sitting for men, to whom at home every hour is precious for the care of a large diocese. They say that, for the first[pg 365]time since Councils came into being, the Bishops have been robbed of their essential and inalienable right of free speech on questions of faith; that they are compelled to vote, but not allowed to give reasons for their vote and bear witness to the doctrine of their Churches. They complain that, though they can hand in written observations, no one but the Commission of twenty-four knows anything about them, and that for the Council itself and their fellow Bishops they can do nothing. The Commission will perhaps present a summary report of a hundred of these memorials and counter representations, according to the new order of business. This means that the work carefully matured by a Bishop through weeks or months of severe study will be summed up in two or three words, and in the shape it is thrown into by a hostile Committee. If the Bishops regard it as an intolerable oppression at home to have to submit their Pastorals for previous inspection to their Governments, here they can have nothing printed, even after it has undergone the censorship.It is no mere phrase, when the Bishops say in their Protest against the new order of business that their consciences are intolerably burdened, and that the Œcumenical character of the Council is likely to be assailed[pg 366]and its authority fundamentally shaken (labefacteretur). They consider the arrangement for deciding doctrines by simply counting heads intolerable, and they recognise as of immeasurable importance, and the very turning-point of the whole Council (totius Concilii cardo vertitur), the question as to the necessary conditions of a definition of faith binding the consciences of all the faithful. The Pope wants to have a new article of faith made by the Council, on the acceptance or rejection of which every man's salvation or condemnation is henceforth to depend. And now this same Pope has overthrown the principle always hitherto acknowledged in the Church, that such decrees could only be passed unanimously, and has made the opposite principle into a law.The Opposition Bishops are well aware that any regular examination and discussion of the infallibility question is rendered impossible by the nature of the Council Hall and the plan of voting by majorities. They have therefore proposed to the Legates that a deputation of several Bishops chosen from among themselves should be associated with the Commission on Faith, or with certain Bishops of the majority, to discuss the form of the decree, and that, when they have come to a common understanding, the formula as finally[pg 367]agreed upon should be submitted to the vote of the Council in full assembly. The authorities will not readily yield to this demand on many accounts, and chiefly because what Tacitus said of the Roman people 1800 years ago is well understood at Rome now,“Juvit credulitatem nox et promptior inter tenebras affirmatio.”It was a prudent foresight which led the Pope so strictly to prohibit the Bishops from printing anything here during the sitting of the Council; the Jesuits of theCiviltàmust retain their exclusive monopoly of free speech. But such conferences as the minority wished for were no less dangerous than printing, and would naturally lead to the grounds of their decision being made public. They have been summoned to affirm, not to deny, and“promptior inter tenebras affirmatio.”Meanwhile the Germans say that a thorough sifting of the question is the first thing necessary to be insisted upon, and that for two reasons: first to satisfy their own consciences, and secondly for the sake of their flocks. For they would not think it enough to enforce the new dogmas on the faithful of their dioceses by mere official acts and by referring them to the authority of the Council, which is ultimately reduced to the authority of the Pope, but would feel bound to give them sufficient[pg 368]reasons for its acceptance; and they have not been able to discover the cogency of these reasons themselves. Piusix.considers this superfluous. He feels his infallibility, as he says, and therefore thinks it very scandalous that the Bishops do not choose to be content with this testimony of his feeling. However, the negotiations with the Legates about these conferences are still going on.It must be allowed that there is not the slightest exaggeration in the words of the seventy-six protesting Bishops. It is strictly true that the new order of business, if it is carried out, must raise the greatest doubts as to the Œcumenical character of the Council among all thinking Catholics, especially such as are familiar with the history of Councils. And it is undeniable that this would excite a terrible disturbance in the Church, a contest the end of which cannot be foreseen. The Jesuits are now stirring the fire with the same assiduity and malicious pleasure as their predecessors in the Order of 1713 and the following years, when the whole of France and the Netherlands was plunged into a state of ecclesiastical strife and confusion by the BullUnigenitus, which they procured. They enjoy such contests, and have always carried them through with the merciless[pg 369]harshness which is peculiar to them, relying on the strength of their organization. It may sound hard that the Order should so often be reproached with making its members at once accusers and bailiffs, but they would themselves consider this rather a note of praise than of blame.The retribution for their conduct in 1713 and afterwards came in 1763 and 1773. But the Order, or at least its Roman members, who are all-powerful through the favour of the Pope, have no fear of such consequences now. A Jesuit can make a home for his theology, now here now there. If the Order is driven from one country, it is received into another; its property is moveable and can be transferred easily and without loss, and moreover it possesses, so to speak, an itinerant mint in its carefully elaborated skill in the direction of female souls, whether lodged in male or female bodies. They are thorough adepts too in the speculations of the money market, and manage their transactions in banknotes as successfully as the most practised merchant, so that they are quietly but surely recovering their prosperity in many cities of the Italian Kingdom, even in Florence, while all other Orders have been suppressed there. So they are well equipped and in excellent[pg 370]spirits for meeting the future. If their system of doctrine is now raised to full dominion by Pope and Council, and if they succeed in the next Conclave in procuring the election of a Pope thoroughly devoted to them and resolved to carry on the present system, the ship of the Order will ride majestically on the waves of future events, and fear no storms. A thoroughly well-informed man has assured us that the Pope said the other day to a Roman prelate, that“the Jesuits had involved him in this business of the Council and infallibility, and he was determined now to go through with it, cost what it might. They must take the responsibility of the results.”A very similar statement was made by the Emperor Francisi.He said that“he could not tell how his finance minister would answer hereafter for having precipitated so many men into poverty and misery by establishing a national bankruptcy.”For the fourth or fifth time since the opening of the Council, the ultramontane correspondents have been instructed to say, that the acoustic defects of the Hall have been remedied through new arrangements. This is not true; the speeches are never understood in many parts of the Chamber, not even where the secretaries sit. Meanwhile the Pope has conceived a desire to appear[pg 371]again in the midst of the Bishops and hold a Solemn Session. Hitherto he has been invisible and generally unapproachable to his“venerable brethren,”as he officially styles them. The last time the assembly saw him was at the unsuccessful Solemn Session of January 6, when the Bishops had to go through the useless ceremony of swearing oaths, in order to fill up the vacant time. For Pius does not feel that there is the slightest need for ascertaining the views of the Bishops about the measures in hand, or their wishes and proposals, and hearing their report of the state of Church matters in their own countries. He stands too high for that. A French prelate remarked lately that the Council does not thrive, because the Pope stands at once too near it and too far from it—so near that he robs it of all freedom, so far that there is no community of feeling and views and understanding.There has never indeed been a period in Church history where it has been made so palpably plain to the Episcopate how much the name of“brother,”which the Pontifex gives to every Bishop, is worth, and how immeasurable is the gulf between the“brother”on the Roman throne, the Pope-King, and the brother in Paris or Vienna or Prague.[pg 372]On the 16th a part of the firstSchemawas distributed in a revised form, and a General Congregation was held upon it on the 18th, at the very time when the Pope was hearing a mass for Montalembert in reparation for his treatment of the illustrious dead on the 15th and 16th. He wanted to hold a Solemn Session on the 25th, and thought there would be some decrees ready to be published. In defiance of the order of business the Bishops had only a day and a half, instead of ten days, allowed them to get acquainted with the revised text. However, so large a number of speakers sent in their names, and so many new difficulties came to light, that Pius had once more to abandon his design of proclaiming new articles of faith on that day to the expectant world. It looks as if the fourth month of the Council would pass by with as little result as the three first. Easter Monday is already named as the period fixed for publishing the first doctrinal decree. Meanwhile a new power has been introduced in the person of the Jesuit, Kleutgen. He had been condemned some time ago by the Holy Office on account of a scandal in a convent. But he has now been rehabilitated, as the Jesuits have no superfluity of theologians, and is to take part in drawing up theSchemata. The time fixed for sending[pg 373]in representations on the infallibility decree has been extended for ten days more, to the 25th. There is no lack of criticisms and counter-statements; the Bishops, although foreseeing that their intellectual progeny will be strangled directly after birth, seem anxious to gain the satisfaction of saying,“dixi et salvavi animam meam.”The German Bishops remember the assurances they gave at Fulda. The Archbishop of Cologne reminded the faithful of his diocese, as late as Feb. 9, of this Pastoral, to set their minds at rest. To-day, March 21, in view of the infallibilistSchemaand the new order of business, he would no doubt hardly think it prudent to say any longer to the Germans,“Be confident that the Council will establish no new dogma, and proclaim nothing which is not written by faith and conscience on your hearts.”The Germans will now be curious to see the circumlocutions and explanations appended, in the fresh Pastorals compiled after the fabrication of the new dogma, to the Pastoral issued from the tomb of St. Boniface.The Bishops should take care that they are not, like the eagle in the Libyan fable, struck with arrows feathered from their own wings. Banneville, who succeeded two men very unacceptable in Rome, Lavalette[pg 374]and Sartiges, was amicably received, and found it agreeable to keep on the best footing with Antonelli, and to treat the whole affair of the Council easily and superficially. Whatever he said was always very mildly expressed. It was so convenient to enjoy the favour both of the Pope and the Secretary of State, and to be commended by the majority of the Council as a pious and enlightened statesman. The differences between him and Count Daru were accordingly inevitable. For Daru appreciates the extent of the danger, not only as a statesman but as a zealous Catholic, while Banneville's one thought has ever been to please the Roman authorities, so that a French prelate said to him shortly before his departure,“Pensiez-vous que vous étiez ambassadeur auprès de Jésuites?”And thus at last the necessity of instructing him has been recognised at Paris. But at the same time Bishop Forcade of Nevers has been sent there, intrusted with the mission of representing Banneville's conduct to the Government as exactly right, and advocating the views and desires of Antonelli and the majority of the Council. He has told them at Paris that the majority do not want to hear anything of the admission of a French ambassador to the Council—which is credible enough—but[pg 375]that the Government has nothing to fear from the decrees, for the Court of Rome would in any case respect the Concordat. Antonelli, as may be seen, abides by his panacea. The only question is whether they are disposed at Paris to be paid with such diplomatic counters. Meanwhile it has been rumoured that Count Daru would send a memorial to the Council. To the Council? Say rather to the Pope and his Secretary of State. This putting forward of the Council, whose freedom and self-determination the Roman Court is neither able nor willing to anticipate, is a device which no one can take seriously. The Bishop of Orleans in his last publication has pierced a hole in the mask, which renders it nearly useless. He remarks (p. 54),“Whatever is to come before the Council can only come through the Commission appointed by the Pope, that is ultimately through himself. He is the master, the sole and absolute master, with whom it rests to admit a proposal or set it aside.”Antonelli says that no ambassadors can be admitted, for if it were conceded to the French, it could not be refused to other powers, Austria, Bavaria, or even Prussia. He is quite right there. It has been a main object from the first with this Council to give a striking[pg 376]example of the entire exclusion of the lay element in ecclesiastical deliberations. It is just because the Governments and States are so deeply concerned in the projected decrees, because their rights and laws and their whole future are affected, that they are not to be heard or admitted. In presence of the representative of his Government, many a Bishop would think twice before assenting to a decree flatly contradicting the laws and political principles of his country. And then the admission of ambassadors would break through the mystery, and make the strict silence imposed on the Bishops almost useless. A large number of them, and above all the entire Opposition, would be very glad of this, but for that very reason the ruling powers detest it the more. As a foretaste and practical illustration of what the maxims of theSchema de Ecclesiâwill lead to, when made into dogmas, it is worth while to notice the decision issued by the Pope and his Penitentiary in September 1869, when this Schema had just been drawn up, on the question whether a priest could swear to observe the Austrian Constitution. To take the oath absolutely was forbidden; he can only take it with an express reservation of the laws of the Church, and—which is very significant—he must state[pg 377]publicly that he only takes the oath, even with this reservation, by virtue of papal permission. That is a new and very important step on the road to be trodden with the aid of the Council. Every clergyman is to be reminded, and to remind others, in merely discharging a simple civil obligation, that he is dependent on the Pope in the matter, and may not properly speaking swear civil fealty and obedience to the laws without papal permission, not even in the conditional form which makes the oath itself illusory. This is quite after the mind of the Jesuits, who have always shown a special predilection for the doctrine that every cleric is not a subject and citizen with corresponding rights, but simply a subaltern and servant of the Pope. This is a prologue to the twenty-one Canons of theSchema de Ecclesiâ.I have just learnt from theKölner Volkszeitungthat the chaplain of a prelate here charges me with a gross falsehood in reference to the words of the Pope. He appeals to the ParisUnion, which has the words used by the Pope,“Je suis la voie, la vérité, et la vie,”with the passage inserted by the editor. I had cited the words from theObservateur Catholiqueof 1866 (p. 357), where they are authenticated by the signature of an ear-witness, MacSheeby, and correspond entirely with the statement[pg 378]of theUnion. But in theMonde, which was not in my reach, a totally different version is given, which has no similarity to that authenticated by Roman correspondents in theUnionandObservateur, and does not connect the words,“I am the way,”etc., with the Pope at all. It must remain uncertain after this whether the version of theMondeor of the two other journals is the genuine one.[pg 379]Thirty-Second Letter.Rome, March 28, 1870.—The Bishops who have attacked the new order of business, because it brought into view the possibility of a dogmatic definition being carried without theconsensus moraliter unanimis, received the desired answer in no doubtful form at the sitting of Tuesday, the 22d. The measures of theCuriafor a month past have been unmistakably contributing more and more to produce a worthy and loyal-hearted attitude among the minority. After long dallying, Rome has brought the secrets of her policy a little too boldly and conspicuously into view. Hardly was the domination of the majority in matters of faith fixed by the stricterregolamento, when the Pope had the proclamation of his own infallibility proposed in the most arrogant form. On this followed the attempt to press it to an immediate decision, and then the determination to admit no ambassadors of the Governments. If these[pg 380]proceedings were not enough to lay bare the perilous nature of the whole situation, the Pope and the zealots of his party supplied the remaining proof,—the former, by his conduct about Falloux, about Montalembert on the day the news of his death arrived, about the Munich theologians in secret consistory, and about the so-called Liberal or“half-Catholics”on every occasion; the latter by their growing impatience about the infallibility definition, and their assurances that there is no real opposition to this dogma, and that, if there was, it could not hold its ground after the promulgation had taken place. And so the opponents of the decree must know at last that they have to deal with a blind and unscrupulous zeal, not with a theological system carefully thought out and placed on an intellectual basis; that the contest has to be carried on against the whole power and influence of the Pope, and not, as had been maintained with transparent hypocrisy, only against the wishes of the noisy and independent party of theCiviltàand its allied journalists. They begin to use more earnest and manlier language, the language of clear apprehension and conscientious conviction. If the comments handed in last week on theSchema de Ecclesiâ, and the protests against any hurrying of the discussion[pg 381]on it, were known to the world, the Catholic Episcopate and the strong reflux current here would appear in a very different light from what might be gathered from the previous course of things. Not a few of these opinions drawn up by the Bishops breathe a truly apostolic spirit, and deal with the Roman proposals in the tone of genuine theology. An influential theologian of a Religious Order has pronounced of one of them, that it exceeds in force and weight the treatise which appeared in Germany last year,Reform of the Church in Her Head and Her Members.69It has been urged by English prelates that it concerns their honour to resist the promulgation of a dogma, the explicit repudiation of which by the Irish Bishops was an efficacious condition of Catholic Emancipation. The American Protest contains a more threatening warning than the German, and the German is stronger than the French.After these declarations the attitude of the minority was clearly defined, and invincible by any foe from without. Their contention is, that no right exists in the Church to sanction a dogma against the will and belief of an important portion of the Episcopate, and that only by abandoning any claim to such a right can[pg 382]the Council be regarded as really Œcumenical. To be quite consistent, the minority ought to take no further part in the Council till this point, on the decision of which they rightly hold its authority to depend, is settled; for their protest implied the doubt whether they were taking part in a true or only a seeming Council, whether they were acting in union with the Holy Ghost or co-operating to carry out a gigantic and sacrilegious deception. Yet the words expressly stating this doubt, and making the distinct withdrawal of the theory of voting dogmas by majorities a condition of any further participation in the proceedings, were not adopted into any of the Protests. This implied that the signataries would appear in the next General Congregation, that they refrained from a suspicious attitude, and were unwilling to interpret the ambiguous order of businessin malam partem, until facts compelled them to do so. A conflict which might have such incalculable results was to be avoided, till necessity made it a positive duty; and that was not the case as long as a favourable interpretation of theregolamentocontinued possible.Thus the minority committed the strategical blunder of postponing a conflict which they saw to be inevitable,[pg 383]and when they could not know whether any more favourable opportunity for entering on it for the benefit of the Church would occur in the future. There is hardly anything doubtful or open to double interpretation in the order of business, when more closely examined. Every Bishop sees quite clearly that it is specially arranged for overcoming the opposition of the minority, and will be used without scruple for that end.70And who knows how many members of the present Opposition, if once theCuriaapplies its last lever, will have strength to resist to extremities? how many are ready, by humble submission or by resigning their Sees, to quiet their consciences and sacrifice their flocks to error? There are men among them better fitted for the contest against the principle formally enounced in the revised order of business, than for the contest against infallibility. The Bishop of Mayence,e.g., passes for one of the strongest and most decided opponents of theregolamento, which I mention as a point of great importance at this moment. The resolve of the protesting Bishops, to avoid the threatened conflict at present, can only be justified if another and better opportunity for[pg 384]defending the cause of the Church occurs in the future course of the Council and before any decision is arrived at. Had they been willing, after handing in their protests, to go on quietly joining in the proceedings, without doing anything to give emphasis to the step they had taken, they would in fact have bent under the yoke of the majority. They only needed to keep silent: that implied everything. For it would necessarily be assumed that they had withdrawn or forgotten their protests, and to continue to act upon and submit to the new order of business themselves would imply that they had renounced their resistance to any of its particular details. It was therefore all the more essential for them to let it be clearly known how far their concessions would extend, and what was their final limit. Unless they did this, they would either seem not quite sincere, or would have really accepted theregolamentowith its obvious consequences. The Council, the Presidents, the Pope, the expectant Catholic world without, had a right to know their real intentions, and whether they meant to adhere to their declarations. The first voting on the propositions of theSchema de Fidecould not fail to decide this point. Thus it became a necessity to put this question of principle in the[pg 385]front at the reopening of the deliberations of the Council.Meanwhile the concessions of the Presidents and the majority on some points had elicited a more friendly feeling in the Opposition. The discussion on infallibility was postponed, and the firstSchemawas returned from the Commission with important modifications. Even the shameful treatment of Montalembert could not altogether destroy this conciliatory state of feeling. Ginoulhiac, the learned Bishop of Grenoble, who was to be preconised as Archbishop of Lyons on Monday the 21st, undertook on the 22d to meet the discreet concessions of the infallibilists in a kindred spirit. He was indeed obliged to make his speech on the Tuesday, though he had not been preconised on the day before. The French, who have no Cardinal—for Mathieu's custom is to go away at any critical moment, and he was not then returned—had gladly left to one of the Austrian Cardinals the less pleasing duty of declaring their attitude towards theregolamento. Schwarzenberg did but slightly glance at it in his speech and yet was called to order. Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis, one of the most imposing figures in the Council, touched on the theme more closely, and dwelt on the office of Bishops[pg 386]as witnesses and judges of faith, in the sense which forms the basis of the opposition of the minority. Lastly, Strossmayer ascended the tribune, and then followed a scene which, for dramatic force and theological significance, almost exceeded anything in the past history of Councils. He began by referring to that passage at the opening of theSchema, where Protestantism is made responsible for modern unbelief—“systematum monstra, mythismi, rationalismi, indifferentismi nomine designata.”He blamed the perversity and injustice of these words, referring to the religious indifference among Catholics which preceded the Reformation, and the horrors of the Revolution, which were caused by godlessness among Catholics, not among Protestants. He added that the able champions of Christian doctrine among the Protestants ought not to be forgotten, to many of whom St. Augustine's words applied,“errant, sed bonâ fide errant;”Catholics had produced no better refutations of the errors enumerated in theSchemathan had been written by Protestants, and all Christians were indebted to such men as Leibnitz and Guizot.Each one of these statements, and the two names, were received with loud murmurs, which at last broke out into[pg 387]a storm of indignation. The President, De Angelis, cried out,“Hicce non est locus laudandi Protestantes.”And he was right, for the Palace of the Inquisition is hardly a hundred paces from the place where he was speaking. Strossmayer exclaimed, in the midst of a great uproar,“That alone can be imposed on the faithful as a dogma, which has a moral unanimity of the Bishops of the Church in its favour.”At these words a frightful tumult arose. Several Bishops sprang from their seats, rushed to the tribune, and shook their fists in the speaker's face. Place, Bishop of Marseilles, one of the boldest of the minority and the first to give in his public adhesion to Dupanloup's Pastoral, cried out,“Ego illum non damno.”Thereupon a shout resounded from all sides,“Omnes, omnes illum damnamus.”The President called Strossmayer to order, but he did not leave the tribune till he had solemnly protested against the violence to which he had been subjected. There was hardly less excitement in the church outside than in the Council Hall. Some thought the Garibaldians had broken in: others, with more presence of mind, thought infallibility had been proclaimed, and these last began shouting“Long live the infallible Pope!”A Bishop of the United States said afterwards, not[pg 388]without a sense of patriotic pride, that he knew now of one assembly still rougher than the Congress of his own country.This memorable day has already become the subject of myths, and so it is no longer possible to define with certainty how many prelates were hurried into these passionate outbreaks. Some speak of 400, some of 200; others again say that the majority disapproved of the interruption. The excitement was followed next day by a profound stillness, which was not broken even when Haynald and the North American Bishop Whelan said very strong things. It seemed as if a sense of what they owed to the dignity of the Council and a feeling of shame had got the better of those turbulent spirits. But enough has occurred to show the world what spirit prevails here, and what sort of men they are who support infallibilism. That up to this time this Council does not deserve the respect of the Catholic world, is the least point; it is of more importance, that an internal split in the Church is more and more revealing itself. Henceforth it will no longer be possible to throw in the teeth of genuine Catholics their compromising or dishonourable solidarity with error and lies, for this has given place to an open and avowed[pg 389]opposition. On one side stands the small but morally powerful band of those who accept Strossmayer's noble words with head and heart, on the other a crowd of“abject”71fanatics and sycophants. This division is of supreme significance for the future course of the Council, because it strengthens and consolidates the minority in their harmony and determination, and obliges them to take a further step, as soon as the majority have made it unmistakably clear that they will not acknowledge and respect their claim to prevent a dogmatic definition.The Presidents, by denouncing Strossmayer's speech but not the interruption of it, as it was their duty to do, gave evidence of an undisguised partiality, and justly incurred the suspicion of sympathizing with the shouters and not with the speaker, and thinking the proclamation of infallibility allowable without the moral unanimity of the Council. Accordingly a categorical demand was sent in to them to declare themselves on this point, and, in case of their giving no answer, another last step is reserved, which will have the nature of an ultimatum and will bring the Œcumenicity of the Vatican Council to a decisive test. And so it may be said that the Bishops of the minority have[pg 390]delayed but not wavered. The moment for a decisive move, which may test the existence of the Council, must come when a dogmatic decree has to be voted on. This crisis seemed to have arrived on Saturday, March 26, when the preamble of theSchema de Fidewas to have been voted on. Various amendments had been proposed, one very important one by Bishop Meignan of Chalons, in which the Fathers were designated as definers of the decrees, and another equally important, implicitly containing infallibility, by Dreux-Brézé, Bishop of Moulins. Moreover this preamble contained the obnoxious passages immortalized by the glowing eloquence of Strossmayer. The antagonistic principles seemed to have reached their ultimate point. Votes were to be taken on dogmatic decrees before any agreement had been come to on the necessary conditions of such voting. At the last moment the Presidents resolved to evade the crisis. The very day before the sitting, Friday, March 25, Cardinal Bilio went to the authors of the amendments and persuaded them to withdraw them, and so on Saturday the text of the preamble was brought forward without any amendment. Nor was there any voting on that either, but they passed at once to the discussion on the first chapter of theSchema,[pg 391]in which the Primate of Hungary (Simor) made an adroit and conciliatory speech as advocate of the Commission on Faith. The debate then proceeded. By the eleventh article of the new order of business, every separate part of aSchemamust be voted on before the next can come on for discussion.It was a breach of this rule to pass on straight to the first chapter of theSchema, without having voted on the preamble. The Bishops asked themselves what this meant. Was it intended, by the withdrawal of the amendments and the abandonment of the discussion, to declare the preamble tacitly accepted? Was it intended to correct that objectionable passage? But the wording of theregolamentowas too strict to allow of that being done except in the General Congregation. It seemed at any rate as if more prudent counsels had prevailed and it was intended to avert the dreaded contest on the main principle by concessions, so as to pass such decrees as were possible, that they may be unanimously promulgated in the Easter session. Thus time would be gained for loosening the compact phalanx of the Opposition, and at the same time getting it more deeply implicated in a compromising actual acceptance of the new order of business, in its form as well as its[pg 392]spirit. This double danger is always imminent, but in fact the Opposition as yet has suffered no loss.We are at the end of the fourth month of the Council, and yet they have not dared to put one decree to the vote. The amendments, which were so obnoxious, have disappeared. The passage about unbelief being the offspring of Protestantism, which Strossmayer assailed, will perhaps be corrected, though in an irregular manner. The simple and sanguine spirits among the Opposition Bishops exult over a victory obtained. One of the most famous of them exclaimed,“It is clear the Holy Ghost is guiding the Council.”[pg 393]Thirty-Third Letter.Rome, March 30, 1870.—Yesterday (the 29th) the first voting in Council took place, on the preamble of theSchema de Fide. As I told you in my last letter, this preamble had been objected to by Strossmayer on account of the passage representing rationalism, indifferentism, the mythical theory of the Bible and unbelief as consequences of Protestantism. Several amendments had been proposed; two of them I have mentioned already, one introduced by Bishop Meignan of Chalons, substituting for a mere approbation of the decree a statement expressly guarding the right of the Episcopate to define,—the other, proposed by Dreux-Brézé, designed to smuggle in the infallibilist doctrine in a form requiring a sharpsighted eye to detect it.72Many[pg 394]infallibilists had reckoned on the victory of their dogma last week by means of this amendment. The Presidents had got some of the amendments withdrawn on Friday, the 25th, but these two they suffered to remain. They were equally sure that the first would be rejected and the second accepted by the majority; nay they counted on a far larger majority for the passage implying infallibility than for the rejection of Meignan's proposal, and hoped that this occasion would tend to bring to light unmistakably the power and extent of the infallibilist party.At the beginning of the sitting of Saturday, the 26th, the exact regulations for the method of voting were first read out, and this was repeated a second time to preclude any risk of misapprehension. Yet it was announced immediately afterwards that there would be no voting, and this unexpected change was made during the Session and in presence of the Fathers. There had in fact been a kind of fermentation going on since Tuesday, the 22nd, when Strossmayer's affair occurred. The justice of his criticism on the passage about Protestantism[pg 395]and unbelief had become evident to many; at least fifteen Bishops made representations to the President about it as late as the Friday. According to a very widely-spread report, one of them was the Bishop of Orleans and the other the Bishop of Augsburg. But in spite of this, and of the prospect of a catastrophe, which the union of the Germans made imminent, they seem to have gone into Saturday's sitting firmly resolved not to yield. Yet a last attempt succeeded. After the mass, when all were assembled, a Bishop handed in a paper with a few lines to the Presidents, on which two of them at once left the Hall. Meanwhile the order of the day and the method of voting was read out. On their return the decision was announced; the preamble was withdrawn to be amended. It was an English Bishop whose paper produced such important results.73On Monday, the 28th, the preamble was distributed in its revised form; Dreux-Brézé's objectionable amendment had disappeared, the passage about Protestantism was altered, and even the style was improved. Primate Simor, speaking in the name of the Commission, had already stated officially that the Bishops were at liberty to subscribe the decrees bydefiniens subscripsi,i.e., to use[pg 396]the ancient conciliar formula by which the Bishops used to describe themselves as defining the decrees. And thus the principle for which Meignan, Strossmayer, and Whelan had contended, was conceded. In this form and after these concessions the preamble could no longer be opposed.The strength of the minority has been proved, though in an irregular manner. But obviously this gives an opening to the majority for similarly setting aside the order of business when it is inconvenient for themselves. Beyond a doubt the spirit of conciliation has triumphed over all opposition at the critical moment. And it may be distinctly said that this result was attained, partly through the firm attitude of the minority, partly through the prudent and abundantly justified yielding of the Presidents. By this discreet procedure they have declined all responsibility for the conduct of those who, on Tuesday the 22d, would hear of no objections to that portion of the preamble. And their doing this so decidedly makes their silence on the other matter, which caused such an outbreak, the more surprising, and some explanation of it is all the more necessary.The amended preamble was then accepted unanimously. But the chapterDe Deo Creatoredid not pass[pg 397]so easily, though it might have been expected that, at the end of four months, the Bishops would have arrived at some agreement on that point. The main difficulty arose from the tendency again to smuggle in statements favourable to infallibility, and paving the way for its definition by a sidewind. The first paragraph,e.g., opens thus,“Sancta Romana Catholica Ecclesia credit et confitetur unum esse Deum verum et vivum, Creatorem cœli et terræ.”Two amendments were proposed on this: (1.)“Proponitur, ut initio capitis primi simpliciter dicatur,‘Sancta Catholica Ecclesia credit et confitetur,’”etc. (2.)“Proponitur, ut in capite primo verba‘Romana Catholica Ecclesia’transferantur, ita ut legatur‘Catholica atque Romana Ecclesia.’Sin autem non placuerit Patribus, ut saltem comma interponatur inter verbaRomanaetCatholica.”There was a great deal of discussion about this word“Romana.”The German Opposition Bishops exhibit a better organization than the French. In spite of the great majority, it was announced that the voting would be only provisional, a“suffragatio provisoria,”and it is probable that the first chapter will be revised in this point, as in several others, before being presented for definitive acceptance.[pg 398]It is very noteworthy that the Italian Government has made no attempt to utilize the new complications, and the introduction of a new system of policy in France very hostile in principle to Roman absolutism. The Roman question has gone to sleep at the moment when a solution seemed to be in view. Indifference has taken the place of zeal at the very time when zeal had a prospect of success. Nowhere is the reason of this seeming apathy better understood than at Rome. The Italians are patient, because they see the settlement approaching in the natural course of things and without violence: they know that with the death of Piusix.a far-reaching change must ensue. His successor will enter on the difficult inheritance under very different conditions.The change of sovereigns will, in another point of view, be a very critical transition for the system dominant here. There is no point the non-Italian Episcopate with the foreign Cardinals and the Great Powers, are so united upon as throwing open theCuriaand the Sacred College to foreigners. A Papal election under present circumstances might be very dangerous for the centralization policy. The hardly-won domination of that party which Piusix.has made into his[pg 399]instrument would be menaced, for after a long pontificate an election is always a reaction and not a continuation. The numerous elements of opposition, which have so long been suppressed, combine then for mutual aid. Piusix.has created the College of Cardinals himself, but his successor will be the creation of the College. The ruling party runs the risk of getting a Pope who will no longer serve it and carry on its policy, and it is certain that the next Pope will be much weaker than the present one in his relations with the Governments, the Cardinals and the Episcopate. Much, very much, of the present resources of the Papacy depends on the person of Piusix., and will be buried with him. It is the interest of all who are concerned in the continuance of the existing system, that his personal influence should survive his reign.He alone can hand on to his successor his own special connection with France, and he alone can secure the choice of a successor in the Jesuit interest. But, to accomplish that, he must survive his own pontificate, must himself fix on the desired successor, must himself inaugurate him and support him with the whole weight of his personal influence. And thus the bold and ingenious device has been started of Piusix.abdicating,[pg 400]and a new election being held during his life. It is said not to be quite a new project; in the honeymoon of the Council, just after the New Year, it first began to be somewhat inconsiderately spoken of. Piusix.is nearly eighty, two years older than is generally said. He was elected June 16, 1846, and will therefore, on June 16, 1870, complete the twenty-fourth year of his pontificate. But there is an old saying, universally believed in Rome, that no Pope will reign twenty-five years, as it was the exclusive privilege of St. Peter to be Pope for a quarter of a century.“Non numerabis annos Petri.”It is a fact that none of the 255 predecessors of the present Pope has held office for twenty-five years; even those elected at thirty-seven, like Innocentiii.and Leox., died earlier. So according to this belief, which is not confined to the vulgar, Pius has only one year more to live. But in spite of his age he is healthy and wonderfully strong, and, as he belongs to a long-lived family, he has the prospect of still living some time, only not as reigning Pope. It is no pleasing prospect for a man, in whose character there is a large element ofamour propre, to be treated as the setting sun, while all are speculating on his speedy death. It would be another thing, at the very moment of his[pg 401]glorious triumph over the Council and after gaining infallibility, to resign it, to decline to enjoy his success, to renounce this mighty power in the first moment of fruition, and to transfer the splendid inheritance to the hands of a younger man. Thus next June might witness the most brilliant jubilee, and an example be given of such imposing grandeur that the world has seen nothing like it, of such wisdom and eventful significance that the present system would be immortalized and become the heirloom of the Papacy for all ages. The Pope would retire into a glorious privacy, like the founder of the North American Republic after his second Presidentship, and taste the honours of an ex-Pope, unequalled by any former ceremonial splendour, and close his days in a position of unprecedented elevation. This seductive dream has found little aliment in the course of the Council hitherto. The plan would be at bottom a conspiracy against existing law, against Cardinals, Governments, and the Episcopate, and notwithstanding its dazzling lustre, would make the very worst impression on the Council. A victorious Pope might conceivably attempt to carry it out, but in the present situation it would be a dangerous challenge.[pg 402]The abdication of a Pope is not without precedent in history. In 1294 a Pope took this step, which has never since been repeated; Celestinev.resigned the papal office, to which he felt himself unequal. After a long and quarrelsome Conclave, the Cardinals, at their wits' end, had elected the pious recluse of Einsiedlen, and dragged him from his mountain home; a few months later they got tired of him and urged him to abdicate, and he complied. Many doubted whether a Pope could resign; they thought that, according to the law established by the Popes themselves in the decretals, no Pope could dissolve of his own power the bond which unites him to the Church and the Church to him. It would require a superior in the hierarchy to do this, and none such exists. It had first therefore to be decided that a Pope could resign, and Celestine settled this by a special Bull. After that he solemnly and publicly laid down his office. Bonifaceviii.succeeded, who shut up the unfortunate man in a mountain fastness, where he died soon afterwards in a damp unhealthy dungeon.In the strictly initiated circles, where the above project is most definitely spoken of, the man selected by Pius for his successor is also known; it is Cardinal[pg 403]Bilio, aged forty-four, who possesses the confidence equally of the Pope and the Jesuits. He edited the Syllabus, and assisted the Jesuits in drawing up the firstSchema; in short, Pius would have the satisfaction of reckoning securely on his carrying on the present system for many years. Of course, even if the seventeen or eighteen vacant Cardinals' Hats were given to men pledged to this scheme, it would still remain a question whether Pius could succeed in still controlling the Conclave after his abdication. Many think that the Cardinals would then, as has so often happened, elect a very aged man, and Cardinal de Angelis is named as the likeliest to be chosen.[pg 404]

Thirty-First Letter.Rome, March 21, 1870.—A feeling of weariness, lethargy and disgust has been forced on many Bishops by the treatment they have received and the whole course of affairs in the Council up to this time. The news of its dissolution would be welcome tidings to their ears. And not only strangers, but many residents here, would joyfully hail their deliverance from the existing situation; even one of the Legates said lately that, if the Council were to be suddenly dissolved by a death, the Church would be freed from a great distress. The Assembly Hall alone would suffice to disgust a prelate with the idea of taking part in a Council for the rest of his life. Yet they are obliged to sit hours in this comfortless chamber, without understanding what is said. A sense of time unprofitably wasted is the only result of many a sitting for men, to whom at home every hour is precious for the care of a large diocese. They say that, for the first[pg 365]time since Councils came into being, the Bishops have been robbed of their essential and inalienable right of free speech on questions of faith; that they are compelled to vote, but not allowed to give reasons for their vote and bear witness to the doctrine of their Churches. They complain that, though they can hand in written observations, no one but the Commission of twenty-four knows anything about them, and that for the Council itself and their fellow Bishops they can do nothing. The Commission will perhaps present a summary report of a hundred of these memorials and counter representations, according to the new order of business. This means that the work carefully matured by a Bishop through weeks or months of severe study will be summed up in two or three words, and in the shape it is thrown into by a hostile Committee. If the Bishops regard it as an intolerable oppression at home to have to submit their Pastorals for previous inspection to their Governments, here they can have nothing printed, even after it has undergone the censorship.It is no mere phrase, when the Bishops say in their Protest against the new order of business that their consciences are intolerably burdened, and that the Œcumenical character of the Council is likely to be assailed[pg 366]and its authority fundamentally shaken (labefacteretur). They consider the arrangement for deciding doctrines by simply counting heads intolerable, and they recognise as of immeasurable importance, and the very turning-point of the whole Council (totius Concilii cardo vertitur), the question as to the necessary conditions of a definition of faith binding the consciences of all the faithful. The Pope wants to have a new article of faith made by the Council, on the acceptance or rejection of which every man's salvation or condemnation is henceforth to depend. And now this same Pope has overthrown the principle always hitherto acknowledged in the Church, that such decrees could only be passed unanimously, and has made the opposite principle into a law.The Opposition Bishops are well aware that any regular examination and discussion of the infallibility question is rendered impossible by the nature of the Council Hall and the plan of voting by majorities. They have therefore proposed to the Legates that a deputation of several Bishops chosen from among themselves should be associated with the Commission on Faith, or with certain Bishops of the majority, to discuss the form of the decree, and that, when they have come to a common understanding, the formula as finally[pg 367]agreed upon should be submitted to the vote of the Council in full assembly. The authorities will not readily yield to this demand on many accounts, and chiefly because what Tacitus said of the Roman people 1800 years ago is well understood at Rome now,“Juvit credulitatem nox et promptior inter tenebras affirmatio.”It was a prudent foresight which led the Pope so strictly to prohibit the Bishops from printing anything here during the sitting of the Council; the Jesuits of theCiviltàmust retain their exclusive monopoly of free speech. But such conferences as the minority wished for were no less dangerous than printing, and would naturally lead to the grounds of their decision being made public. They have been summoned to affirm, not to deny, and“promptior inter tenebras affirmatio.”Meanwhile the Germans say that a thorough sifting of the question is the first thing necessary to be insisted upon, and that for two reasons: first to satisfy their own consciences, and secondly for the sake of their flocks. For they would not think it enough to enforce the new dogmas on the faithful of their dioceses by mere official acts and by referring them to the authority of the Council, which is ultimately reduced to the authority of the Pope, but would feel bound to give them sufficient[pg 368]reasons for its acceptance; and they have not been able to discover the cogency of these reasons themselves. Piusix.considers this superfluous. He feels his infallibility, as he says, and therefore thinks it very scandalous that the Bishops do not choose to be content with this testimony of his feeling. However, the negotiations with the Legates about these conferences are still going on.It must be allowed that there is not the slightest exaggeration in the words of the seventy-six protesting Bishops. It is strictly true that the new order of business, if it is carried out, must raise the greatest doubts as to the Œcumenical character of the Council among all thinking Catholics, especially such as are familiar with the history of Councils. And it is undeniable that this would excite a terrible disturbance in the Church, a contest the end of which cannot be foreseen. The Jesuits are now stirring the fire with the same assiduity and malicious pleasure as their predecessors in the Order of 1713 and the following years, when the whole of France and the Netherlands was plunged into a state of ecclesiastical strife and confusion by the BullUnigenitus, which they procured. They enjoy such contests, and have always carried them through with the merciless[pg 369]harshness which is peculiar to them, relying on the strength of their organization. It may sound hard that the Order should so often be reproached with making its members at once accusers and bailiffs, but they would themselves consider this rather a note of praise than of blame.The retribution for their conduct in 1713 and afterwards came in 1763 and 1773. But the Order, or at least its Roman members, who are all-powerful through the favour of the Pope, have no fear of such consequences now. A Jesuit can make a home for his theology, now here now there. If the Order is driven from one country, it is received into another; its property is moveable and can be transferred easily and without loss, and moreover it possesses, so to speak, an itinerant mint in its carefully elaborated skill in the direction of female souls, whether lodged in male or female bodies. They are thorough adepts too in the speculations of the money market, and manage their transactions in banknotes as successfully as the most practised merchant, so that they are quietly but surely recovering their prosperity in many cities of the Italian Kingdom, even in Florence, while all other Orders have been suppressed there. So they are well equipped and in excellent[pg 370]spirits for meeting the future. If their system of doctrine is now raised to full dominion by Pope and Council, and if they succeed in the next Conclave in procuring the election of a Pope thoroughly devoted to them and resolved to carry on the present system, the ship of the Order will ride majestically on the waves of future events, and fear no storms. A thoroughly well-informed man has assured us that the Pope said the other day to a Roman prelate, that“the Jesuits had involved him in this business of the Council and infallibility, and he was determined now to go through with it, cost what it might. They must take the responsibility of the results.”A very similar statement was made by the Emperor Francisi.He said that“he could not tell how his finance minister would answer hereafter for having precipitated so many men into poverty and misery by establishing a national bankruptcy.”For the fourth or fifth time since the opening of the Council, the ultramontane correspondents have been instructed to say, that the acoustic defects of the Hall have been remedied through new arrangements. This is not true; the speeches are never understood in many parts of the Chamber, not even where the secretaries sit. Meanwhile the Pope has conceived a desire to appear[pg 371]again in the midst of the Bishops and hold a Solemn Session. Hitherto he has been invisible and generally unapproachable to his“venerable brethren,”as he officially styles them. The last time the assembly saw him was at the unsuccessful Solemn Session of January 6, when the Bishops had to go through the useless ceremony of swearing oaths, in order to fill up the vacant time. For Pius does not feel that there is the slightest need for ascertaining the views of the Bishops about the measures in hand, or their wishes and proposals, and hearing their report of the state of Church matters in their own countries. He stands too high for that. A French prelate remarked lately that the Council does not thrive, because the Pope stands at once too near it and too far from it—so near that he robs it of all freedom, so far that there is no community of feeling and views and understanding.There has never indeed been a period in Church history where it has been made so palpably plain to the Episcopate how much the name of“brother,”which the Pontifex gives to every Bishop, is worth, and how immeasurable is the gulf between the“brother”on the Roman throne, the Pope-King, and the brother in Paris or Vienna or Prague.[pg 372]On the 16th a part of the firstSchemawas distributed in a revised form, and a General Congregation was held upon it on the 18th, at the very time when the Pope was hearing a mass for Montalembert in reparation for his treatment of the illustrious dead on the 15th and 16th. He wanted to hold a Solemn Session on the 25th, and thought there would be some decrees ready to be published. In defiance of the order of business the Bishops had only a day and a half, instead of ten days, allowed them to get acquainted with the revised text. However, so large a number of speakers sent in their names, and so many new difficulties came to light, that Pius had once more to abandon his design of proclaiming new articles of faith on that day to the expectant world. It looks as if the fourth month of the Council would pass by with as little result as the three first. Easter Monday is already named as the period fixed for publishing the first doctrinal decree. Meanwhile a new power has been introduced in the person of the Jesuit, Kleutgen. He had been condemned some time ago by the Holy Office on account of a scandal in a convent. But he has now been rehabilitated, as the Jesuits have no superfluity of theologians, and is to take part in drawing up theSchemata. The time fixed for sending[pg 373]in representations on the infallibility decree has been extended for ten days more, to the 25th. There is no lack of criticisms and counter-statements; the Bishops, although foreseeing that their intellectual progeny will be strangled directly after birth, seem anxious to gain the satisfaction of saying,“dixi et salvavi animam meam.”The German Bishops remember the assurances they gave at Fulda. The Archbishop of Cologne reminded the faithful of his diocese, as late as Feb. 9, of this Pastoral, to set their minds at rest. To-day, March 21, in view of the infallibilistSchemaand the new order of business, he would no doubt hardly think it prudent to say any longer to the Germans,“Be confident that the Council will establish no new dogma, and proclaim nothing which is not written by faith and conscience on your hearts.”The Germans will now be curious to see the circumlocutions and explanations appended, in the fresh Pastorals compiled after the fabrication of the new dogma, to the Pastoral issued from the tomb of St. Boniface.The Bishops should take care that they are not, like the eagle in the Libyan fable, struck with arrows feathered from their own wings. Banneville, who succeeded two men very unacceptable in Rome, Lavalette[pg 374]and Sartiges, was amicably received, and found it agreeable to keep on the best footing with Antonelli, and to treat the whole affair of the Council easily and superficially. Whatever he said was always very mildly expressed. It was so convenient to enjoy the favour both of the Pope and the Secretary of State, and to be commended by the majority of the Council as a pious and enlightened statesman. The differences between him and Count Daru were accordingly inevitable. For Daru appreciates the extent of the danger, not only as a statesman but as a zealous Catholic, while Banneville's one thought has ever been to please the Roman authorities, so that a French prelate said to him shortly before his departure,“Pensiez-vous que vous étiez ambassadeur auprès de Jésuites?”And thus at last the necessity of instructing him has been recognised at Paris. But at the same time Bishop Forcade of Nevers has been sent there, intrusted with the mission of representing Banneville's conduct to the Government as exactly right, and advocating the views and desires of Antonelli and the majority of the Council. He has told them at Paris that the majority do not want to hear anything of the admission of a French ambassador to the Council—which is credible enough—but[pg 375]that the Government has nothing to fear from the decrees, for the Court of Rome would in any case respect the Concordat. Antonelli, as may be seen, abides by his panacea. The only question is whether they are disposed at Paris to be paid with such diplomatic counters. Meanwhile it has been rumoured that Count Daru would send a memorial to the Council. To the Council? Say rather to the Pope and his Secretary of State. This putting forward of the Council, whose freedom and self-determination the Roman Court is neither able nor willing to anticipate, is a device which no one can take seriously. The Bishop of Orleans in his last publication has pierced a hole in the mask, which renders it nearly useless. He remarks (p. 54),“Whatever is to come before the Council can only come through the Commission appointed by the Pope, that is ultimately through himself. He is the master, the sole and absolute master, with whom it rests to admit a proposal or set it aside.”Antonelli says that no ambassadors can be admitted, for if it were conceded to the French, it could not be refused to other powers, Austria, Bavaria, or even Prussia. He is quite right there. It has been a main object from the first with this Council to give a striking[pg 376]example of the entire exclusion of the lay element in ecclesiastical deliberations. It is just because the Governments and States are so deeply concerned in the projected decrees, because their rights and laws and their whole future are affected, that they are not to be heard or admitted. In presence of the representative of his Government, many a Bishop would think twice before assenting to a decree flatly contradicting the laws and political principles of his country. And then the admission of ambassadors would break through the mystery, and make the strict silence imposed on the Bishops almost useless. A large number of them, and above all the entire Opposition, would be very glad of this, but for that very reason the ruling powers detest it the more. As a foretaste and practical illustration of what the maxims of theSchema de Ecclesiâwill lead to, when made into dogmas, it is worth while to notice the decision issued by the Pope and his Penitentiary in September 1869, when this Schema had just been drawn up, on the question whether a priest could swear to observe the Austrian Constitution. To take the oath absolutely was forbidden; he can only take it with an express reservation of the laws of the Church, and—which is very significant—he must state[pg 377]publicly that he only takes the oath, even with this reservation, by virtue of papal permission. That is a new and very important step on the road to be trodden with the aid of the Council. Every clergyman is to be reminded, and to remind others, in merely discharging a simple civil obligation, that he is dependent on the Pope in the matter, and may not properly speaking swear civil fealty and obedience to the laws without papal permission, not even in the conditional form which makes the oath itself illusory. This is quite after the mind of the Jesuits, who have always shown a special predilection for the doctrine that every cleric is not a subject and citizen with corresponding rights, but simply a subaltern and servant of the Pope. This is a prologue to the twenty-one Canons of theSchema de Ecclesiâ.I have just learnt from theKölner Volkszeitungthat the chaplain of a prelate here charges me with a gross falsehood in reference to the words of the Pope. He appeals to the ParisUnion, which has the words used by the Pope,“Je suis la voie, la vérité, et la vie,”with the passage inserted by the editor. I had cited the words from theObservateur Catholiqueof 1866 (p. 357), where they are authenticated by the signature of an ear-witness, MacSheeby, and correspond entirely with the statement[pg 378]of theUnion. But in theMonde, which was not in my reach, a totally different version is given, which has no similarity to that authenticated by Roman correspondents in theUnionandObservateur, and does not connect the words,“I am the way,”etc., with the Pope at all. It must remain uncertain after this whether the version of theMondeor of the two other journals is the genuine one.[pg 379]Thirty-Second Letter.Rome, March 28, 1870.—The Bishops who have attacked the new order of business, because it brought into view the possibility of a dogmatic definition being carried without theconsensus moraliter unanimis, received the desired answer in no doubtful form at the sitting of Tuesday, the 22d. The measures of theCuriafor a month past have been unmistakably contributing more and more to produce a worthy and loyal-hearted attitude among the minority. After long dallying, Rome has brought the secrets of her policy a little too boldly and conspicuously into view. Hardly was the domination of the majority in matters of faith fixed by the stricterregolamento, when the Pope had the proclamation of his own infallibility proposed in the most arrogant form. On this followed the attempt to press it to an immediate decision, and then the determination to admit no ambassadors of the Governments. If these[pg 380]proceedings were not enough to lay bare the perilous nature of the whole situation, the Pope and the zealots of his party supplied the remaining proof,—the former, by his conduct about Falloux, about Montalembert on the day the news of his death arrived, about the Munich theologians in secret consistory, and about the so-called Liberal or“half-Catholics”on every occasion; the latter by their growing impatience about the infallibility definition, and their assurances that there is no real opposition to this dogma, and that, if there was, it could not hold its ground after the promulgation had taken place. And so the opponents of the decree must know at last that they have to deal with a blind and unscrupulous zeal, not with a theological system carefully thought out and placed on an intellectual basis; that the contest has to be carried on against the whole power and influence of the Pope, and not, as had been maintained with transparent hypocrisy, only against the wishes of the noisy and independent party of theCiviltàand its allied journalists. They begin to use more earnest and manlier language, the language of clear apprehension and conscientious conviction. If the comments handed in last week on theSchema de Ecclesiâ, and the protests against any hurrying of the discussion[pg 381]on it, were known to the world, the Catholic Episcopate and the strong reflux current here would appear in a very different light from what might be gathered from the previous course of things. Not a few of these opinions drawn up by the Bishops breathe a truly apostolic spirit, and deal with the Roman proposals in the tone of genuine theology. An influential theologian of a Religious Order has pronounced of one of them, that it exceeds in force and weight the treatise which appeared in Germany last year,Reform of the Church in Her Head and Her Members.69It has been urged by English prelates that it concerns their honour to resist the promulgation of a dogma, the explicit repudiation of which by the Irish Bishops was an efficacious condition of Catholic Emancipation. The American Protest contains a more threatening warning than the German, and the German is stronger than the French.After these declarations the attitude of the minority was clearly defined, and invincible by any foe from without. Their contention is, that no right exists in the Church to sanction a dogma against the will and belief of an important portion of the Episcopate, and that only by abandoning any claim to such a right can[pg 382]the Council be regarded as really Œcumenical. To be quite consistent, the minority ought to take no further part in the Council till this point, on the decision of which they rightly hold its authority to depend, is settled; for their protest implied the doubt whether they were taking part in a true or only a seeming Council, whether they were acting in union with the Holy Ghost or co-operating to carry out a gigantic and sacrilegious deception. Yet the words expressly stating this doubt, and making the distinct withdrawal of the theory of voting dogmas by majorities a condition of any further participation in the proceedings, were not adopted into any of the Protests. This implied that the signataries would appear in the next General Congregation, that they refrained from a suspicious attitude, and were unwilling to interpret the ambiguous order of businessin malam partem, until facts compelled them to do so. A conflict which might have such incalculable results was to be avoided, till necessity made it a positive duty; and that was not the case as long as a favourable interpretation of theregolamentocontinued possible.Thus the minority committed the strategical blunder of postponing a conflict which they saw to be inevitable,[pg 383]and when they could not know whether any more favourable opportunity for entering on it for the benefit of the Church would occur in the future. There is hardly anything doubtful or open to double interpretation in the order of business, when more closely examined. Every Bishop sees quite clearly that it is specially arranged for overcoming the opposition of the minority, and will be used without scruple for that end.70And who knows how many members of the present Opposition, if once theCuriaapplies its last lever, will have strength to resist to extremities? how many are ready, by humble submission or by resigning their Sees, to quiet their consciences and sacrifice their flocks to error? There are men among them better fitted for the contest against the principle formally enounced in the revised order of business, than for the contest against infallibility. The Bishop of Mayence,e.g., passes for one of the strongest and most decided opponents of theregolamento, which I mention as a point of great importance at this moment. The resolve of the protesting Bishops, to avoid the threatened conflict at present, can only be justified if another and better opportunity for[pg 384]defending the cause of the Church occurs in the future course of the Council and before any decision is arrived at. Had they been willing, after handing in their protests, to go on quietly joining in the proceedings, without doing anything to give emphasis to the step they had taken, they would in fact have bent under the yoke of the majority. They only needed to keep silent: that implied everything. For it would necessarily be assumed that they had withdrawn or forgotten their protests, and to continue to act upon and submit to the new order of business themselves would imply that they had renounced their resistance to any of its particular details. It was therefore all the more essential for them to let it be clearly known how far their concessions would extend, and what was their final limit. Unless they did this, they would either seem not quite sincere, or would have really accepted theregolamentowith its obvious consequences. The Council, the Presidents, the Pope, the expectant Catholic world without, had a right to know their real intentions, and whether they meant to adhere to their declarations. The first voting on the propositions of theSchema de Fidecould not fail to decide this point. Thus it became a necessity to put this question of principle in the[pg 385]front at the reopening of the deliberations of the Council.Meanwhile the concessions of the Presidents and the majority on some points had elicited a more friendly feeling in the Opposition. The discussion on infallibility was postponed, and the firstSchemawas returned from the Commission with important modifications. Even the shameful treatment of Montalembert could not altogether destroy this conciliatory state of feeling. Ginoulhiac, the learned Bishop of Grenoble, who was to be preconised as Archbishop of Lyons on Monday the 21st, undertook on the 22d to meet the discreet concessions of the infallibilists in a kindred spirit. He was indeed obliged to make his speech on the Tuesday, though he had not been preconised on the day before. The French, who have no Cardinal—for Mathieu's custom is to go away at any critical moment, and he was not then returned—had gladly left to one of the Austrian Cardinals the less pleasing duty of declaring their attitude towards theregolamento. Schwarzenberg did but slightly glance at it in his speech and yet was called to order. Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis, one of the most imposing figures in the Council, touched on the theme more closely, and dwelt on the office of Bishops[pg 386]as witnesses and judges of faith, in the sense which forms the basis of the opposition of the minority. Lastly, Strossmayer ascended the tribune, and then followed a scene which, for dramatic force and theological significance, almost exceeded anything in the past history of Councils. He began by referring to that passage at the opening of theSchema, where Protestantism is made responsible for modern unbelief—“systematum monstra, mythismi, rationalismi, indifferentismi nomine designata.”He blamed the perversity and injustice of these words, referring to the religious indifference among Catholics which preceded the Reformation, and the horrors of the Revolution, which were caused by godlessness among Catholics, not among Protestants. He added that the able champions of Christian doctrine among the Protestants ought not to be forgotten, to many of whom St. Augustine's words applied,“errant, sed bonâ fide errant;”Catholics had produced no better refutations of the errors enumerated in theSchemathan had been written by Protestants, and all Christians were indebted to such men as Leibnitz and Guizot.Each one of these statements, and the two names, were received with loud murmurs, which at last broke out into[pg 387]a storm of indignation. The President, De Angelis, cried out,“Hicce non est locus laudandi Protestantes.”And he was right, for the Palace of the Inquisition is hardly a hundred paces from the place where he was speaking. Strossmayer exclaimed, in the midst of a great uproar,“That alone can be imposed on the faithful as a dogma, which has a moral unanimity of the Bishops of the Church in its favour.”At these words a frightful tumult arose. Several Bishops sprang from their seats, rushed to the tribune, and shook their fists in the speaker's face. Place, Bishop of Marseilles, one of the boldest of the minority and the first to give in his public adhesion to Dupanloup's Pastoral, cried out,“Ego illum non damno.”Thereupon a shout resounded from all sides,“Omnes, omnes illum damnamus.”The President called Strossmayer to order, but he did not leave the tribune till he had solemnly protested against the violence to which he had been subjected. There was hardly less excitement in the church outside than in the Council Hall. Some thought the Garibaldians had broken in: others, with more presence of mind, thought infallibility had been proclaimed, and these last began shouting“Long live the infallible Pope!”A Bishop of the United States said afterwards, not[pg 388]without a sense of patriotic pride, that he knew now of one assembly still rougher than the Congress of his own country.This memorable day has already become the subject of myths, and so it is no longer possible to define with certainty how many prelates were hurried into these passionate outbreaks. Some speak of 400, some of 200; others again say that the majority disapproved of the interruption. The excitement was followed next day by a profound stillness, which was not broken even when Haynald and the North American Bishop Whelan said very strong things. It seemed as if a sense of what they owed to the dignity of the Council and a feeling of shame had got the better of those turbulent spirits. But enough has occurred to show the world what spirit prevails here, and what sort of men they are who support infallibilism. That up to this time this Council does not deserve the respect of the Catholic world, is the least point; it is of more importance, that an internal split in the Church is more and more revealing itself. Henceforth it will no longer be possible to throw in the teeth of genuine Catholics their compromising or dishonourable solidarity with error and lies, for this has given place to an open and avowed[pg 389]opposition. On one side stands the small but morally powerful band of those who accept Strossmayer's noble words with head and heart, on the other a crowd of“abject”71fanatics and sycophants. This division is of supreme significance for the future course of the Council, because it strengthens and consolidates the minority in their harmony and determination, and obliges them to take a further step, as soon as the majority have made it unmistakably clear that they will not acknowledge and respect their claim to prevent a dogmatic definition.The Presidents, by denouncing Strossmayer's speech but not the interruption of it, as it was their duty to do, gave evidence of an undisguised partiality, and justly incurred the suspicion of sympathizing with the shouters and not with the speaker, and thinking the proclamation of infallibility allowable without the moral unanimity of the Council. Accordingly a categorical demand was sent in to them to declare themselves on this point, and, in case of their giving no answer, another last step is reserved, which will have the nature of an ultimatum and will bring the Œcumenicity of the Vatican Council to a decisive test. And so it may be said that the Bishops of the minority have[pg 390]delayed but not wavered. The moment for a decisive move, which may test the existence of the Council, must come when a dogmatic decree has to be voted on. This crisis seemed to have arrived on Saturday, March 26, when the preamble of theSchema de Fidewas to have been voted on. Various amendments had been proposed, one very important one by Bishop Meignan of Chalons, in which the Fathers were designated as definers of the decrees, and another equally important, implicitly containing infallibility, by Dreux-Brézé, Bishop of Moulins. Moreover this preamble contained the obnoxious passages immortalized by the glowing eloquence of Strossmayer. The antagonistic principles seemed to have reached their ultimate point. Votes were to be taken on dogmatic decrees before any agreement had been come to on the necessary conditions of such voting. At the last moment the Presidents resolved to evade the crisis. The very day before the sitting, Friday, March 25, Cardinal Bilio went to the authors of the amendments and persuaded them to withdraw them, and so on Saturday the text of the preamble was brought forward without any amendment. Nor was there any voting on that either, but they passed at once to the discussion on the first chapter of theSchema,[pg 391]in which the Primate of Hungary (Simor) made an adroit and conciliatory speech as advocate of the Commission on Faith. The debate then proceeded. By the eleventh article of the new order of business, every separate part of aSchemamust be voted on before the next can come on for discussion.It was a breach of this rule to pass on straight to the first chapter of theSchema, without having voted on the preamble. The Bishops asked themselves what this meant. Was it intended, by the withdrawal of the amendments and the abandonment of the discussion, to declare the preamble tacitly accepted? Was it intended to correct that objectionable passage? But the wording of theregolamentowas too strict to allow of that being done except in the General Congregation. It seemed at any rate as if more prudent counsels had prevailed and it was intended to avert the dreaded contest on the main principle by concessions, so as to pass such decrees as were possible, that they may be unanimously promulgated in the Easter session. Thus time would be gained for loosening the compact phalanx of the Opposition, and at the same time getting it more deeply implicated in a compromising actual acceptance of the new order of business, in its form as well as its[pg 392]spirit. This double danger is always imminent, but in fact the Opposition as yet has suffered no loss.We are at the end of the fourth month of the Council, and yet they have not dared to put one decree to the vote. The amendments, which were so obnoxious, have disappeared. The passage about unbelief being the offspring of Protestantism, which Strossmayer assailed, will perhaps be corrected, though in an irregular manner. The simple and sanguine spirits among the Opposition Bishops exult over a victory obtained. One of the most famous of them exclaimed,“It is clear the Holy Ghost is guiding the Council.”[pg 393]Thirty-Third Letter.Rome, March 30, 1870.—Yesterday (the 29th) the first voting in Council took place, on the preamble of theSchema de Fide. As I told you in my last letter, this preamble had been objected to by Strossmayer on account of the passage representing rationalism, indifferentism, the mythical theory of the Bible and unbelief as consequences of Protestantism. Several amendments had been proposed; two of them I have mentioned already, one introduced by Bishop Meignan of Chalons, substituting for a mere approbation of the decree a statement expressly guarding the right of the Episcopate to define,—the other, proposed by Dreux-Brézé, designed to smuggle in the infallibilist doctrine in a form requiring a sharpsighted eye to detect it.72Many[pg 394]infallibilists had reckoned on the victory of their dogma last week by means of this amendment. The Presidents had got some of the amendments withdrawn on Friday, the 25th, but these two they suffered to remain. They were equally sure that the first would be rejected and the second accepted by the majority; nay they counted on a far larger majority for the passage implying infallibility than for the rejection of Meignan's proposal, and hoped that this occasion would tend to bring to light unmistakably the power and extent of the infallibilist party.At the beginning of the sitting of Saturday, the 26th, the exact regulations for the method of voting were first read out, and this was repeated a second time to preclude any risk of misapprehension. Yet it was announced immediately afterwards that there would be no voting, and this unexpected change was made during the Session and in presence of the Fathers. There had in fact been a kind of fermentation going on since Tuesday, the 22nd, when Strossmayer's affair occurred. The justice of his criticism on the passage about Protestantism[pg 395]and unbelief had become evident to many; at least fifteen Bishops made representations to the President about it as late as the Friday. According to a very widely-spread report, one of them was the Bishop of Orleans and the other the Bishop of Augsburg. But in spite of this, and of the prospect of a catastrophe, which the union of the Germans made imminent, they seem to have gone into Saturday's sitting firmly resolved not to yield. Yet a last attempt succeeded. After the mass, when all were assembled, a Bishop handed in a paper with a few lines to the Presidents, on which two of them at once left the Hall. Meanwhile the order of the day and the method of voting was read out. On their return the decision was announced; the preamble was withdrawn to be amended. It was an English Bishop whose paper produced such important results.73On Monday, the 28th, the preamble was distributed in its revised form; Dreux-Brézé's objectionable amendment had disappeared, the passage about Protestantism was altered, and even the style was improved. Primate Simor, speaking in the name of the Commission, had already stated officially that the Bishops were at liberty to subscribe the decrees bydefiniens subscripsi,i.e., to use[pg 396]the ancient conciliar formula by which the Bishops used to describe themselves as defining the decrees. And thus the principle for which Meignan, Strossmayer, and Whelan had contended, was conceded. In this form and after these concessions the preamble could no longer be opposed.The strength of the minority has been proved, though in an irregular manner. But obviously this gives an opening to the majority for similarly setting aside the order of business when it is inconvenient for themselves. Beyond a doubt the spirit of conciliation has triumphed over all opposition at the critical moment. And it may be distinctly said that this result was attained, partly through the firm attitude of the minority, partly through the prudent and abundantly justified yielding of the Presidents. By this discreet procedure they have declined all responsibility for the conduct of those who, on Tuesday the 22d, would hear of no objections to that portion of the preamble. And their doing this so decidedly makes their silence on the other matter, which caused such an outbreak, the more surprising, and some explanation of it is all the more necessary.The amended preamble was then accepted unanimously. But the chapterDe Deo Creatoredid not pass[pg 397]so easily, though it might have been expected that, at the end of four months, the Bishops would have arrived at some agreement on that point. The main difficulty arose from the tendency again to smuggle in statements favourable to infallibility, and paving the way for its definition by a sidewind. The first paragraph,e.g., opens thus,“Sancta Romana Catholica Ecclesia credit et confitetur unum esse Deum verum et vivum, Creatorem cœli et terræ.”Two amendments were proposed on this: (1.)“Proponitur, ut initio capitis primi simpliciter dicatur,‘Sancta Catholica Ecclesia credit et confitetur,’”etc. (2.)“Proponitur, ut in capite primo verba‘Romana Catholica Ecclesia’transferantur, ita ut legatur‘Catholica atque Romana Ecclesia.’Sin autem non placuerit Patribus, ut saltem comma interponatur inter verbaRomanaetCatholica.”There was a great deal of discussion about this word“Romana.”The German Opposition Bishops exhibit a better organization than the French. In spite of the great majority, it was announced that the voting would be only provisional, a“suffragatio provisoria,”and it is probable that the first chapter will be revised in this point, as in several others, before being presented for definitive acceptance.[pg 398]It is very noteworthy that the Italian Government has made no attempt to utilize the new complications, and the introduction of a new system of policy in France very hostile in principle to Roman absolutism. The Roman question has gone to sleep at the moment when a solution seemed to be in view. Indifference has taken the place of zeal at the very time when zeal had a prospect of success. Nowhere is the reason of this seeming apathy better understood than at Rome. The Italians are patient, because they see the settlement approaching in the natural course of things and without violence: they know that with the death of Piusix.a far-reaching change must ensue. His successor will enter on the difficult inheritance under very different conditions.The change of sovereigns will, in another point of view, be a very critical transition for the system dominant here. There is no point the non-Italian Episcopate with the foreign Cardinals and the Great Powers, are so united upon as throwing open theCuriaand the Sacred College to foreigners. A Papal election under present circumstances might be very dangerous for the centralization policy. The hardly-won domination of that party which Piusix.has made into his[pg 399]instrument would be menaced, for after a long pontificate an election is always a reaction and not a continuation. The numerous elements of opposition, which have so long been suppressed, combine then for mutual aid. Piusix.has created the College of Cardinals himself, but his successor will be the creation of the College. The ruling party runs the risk of getting a Pope who will no longer serve it and carry on its policy, and it is certain that the next Pope will be much weaker than the present one in his relations with the Governments, the Cardinals and the Episcopate. Much, very much, of the present resources of the Papacy depends on the person of Piusix., and will be buried with him. It is the interest of all who are concerned in the continuance of the existing system, that his personal influence should survive his reign.He alone can hand on to his successor his own special connection with France, and he alone can secure the choice of a successor in the Jesuit interest. But, to accomplish that, he must survive his own pontificate, must himself fix on the desired successor, must himself inaugurate him and support him with the whole weight of his personal influence. And thus the bold and ingenious device has been started of Piusix.abdicating,[pg 400]and a new election being held during his life. It is said not to be quite a new project; in the honeymoon of the Council, just after the New Year, it first began to be somewhat inconsiderately spoken of. Piusix.is nearly eighty, two years older than is generally said. He was elected June 16, 1846, and will therefore, on June 16, 1870, complete the twenty-fourth year of his pontificate. But there is an old saying, universally believed in Rome, that no Pope will reign twenty-five years, as it was the exclusive privilege of St. Peter to be Pope for a quarter of a century.“Non numerabis annos Petri.”It is a fact that none of the 255 predecessors of the present Pope has held office for twenty-five years; even those elected at thirty-seven, like Innocentiii.and Leox., died earlier. So according to this belief, which is not confined to the vulgar, Pius has only one year more to live. But in spite of his age he is healthy and wonderfully strong, and, as he belongs to a long-lived family, he has the prospect of still living some time, only not as reigning Pope. It is no pleasing prospect for a man, in whose character there is a large element ofamour propre, to be treated as the setting sun, while all are speculating on his speedy death. It would be another thing, at the very moment of his[pg 401]glorious triumph over the Council and after gaining infallibility, to resign it, to decline to enjoy his success, to renounce this mighty power in the first moment of fruition, and to transfer the splendid inheritance to the hands of a younger man. Thus next June might witness the most brilliant jubilee, and an example be given of such imposing grandeur that the world has seen nothing like it, of such wisdom and eventful significance that the present system would be immortalized and become the heirloom of the Papacy for all ages. The Pope would retire into a glorious privacy, like the founder of the North American Republic after his second Presidentship, and taste the honours of an ex-Pope, unequalled by any former ceremonial splendour, and close his days in a position of unprecedented elevation. This seductive dream has found little aliment in the course of the Council hitherto. The plan would be at bottom a conspiracy against existing law, against Cardinals, Governments, and the Episcopate, and notwithstanding its dazzling lustre, would make the very worst impression on the Council. A victorious Pope might conceivably attempt to carry it out, but in the present situation it would be a dangerous challenge.[pg 402]The abdication of a Pope is not without precedent in history. In 1294 a Pope took this step, which has never since been repeated; Celestinev.resigned the papal office, to which he felt himself unequal. After a long and quarrelsome Conclave, the Cardinals, at their wits' end, had elected the pious recluse of Einsiedlen, and dragged him from his mountain home; a few months later they got tired of him and urged him to abdicate, and he complied. Many doubted whether a Pope could resign; they thought that, according to the law established by the Popes themselves in the decretals, no Pope could dissolve of his own power the bond which unites him to the Church and the Church to him. It would require a superior in the hierarchy to do this, and none such exists. It had first therefore to be decided that a Pope could resign, and Celestine settled this by a special Bull. After that he solemnly and publicly laid down his office. Bonifaceviii.succeeded, who shut up the unfortunate man in a mountain fastness, where he died soon afterwards in a damp unhealthy dungeon.In the strictly initiated circles, where the above project is most definitely spoken of, the man selected by Pius for his successor is also known; it is Cardinal[pg 403]Bilio, aged forty-four, who possesses the confidence equally of the Pope and the Jesuits. He edited the Syllabus, and assisted the Jesuits in drawing up the firstSchema; in short, Pius would have the satisfaction of reckoning securely on his carrying on the present system for many years. Of course, even if the seventeen or eighteen vacant Cardinals' Hats were given to men pledged to this scheme, it would still remain a question whether Pius could succeed in still controlling the Conclave after his abdication. Many think that the Cardinals would then, as has so often happened, elect a very aged man, and Cardinal de Angelis is named as the likeliest to be chosen.[pg 404]

Thirty-First Letter.Rome, March 21, 1870.—A feeling of weariness, lethargy and disgust has been forced on many Bishops by the treatment they have received and the whole course of affairs in the Council up to this time. The news of its dissolution would be welcome tidings to their ears. And not only strangers, but many residents here, would joyfully hail their deliverance from the existing situation; even one of the Legates said lately that, if the Council were to be suddenly dissolved by a death, the Church would be freed from a great distress. The Assembly Hall alone would suffice to disgust a prelate with the idea of taking part in a Council for the rest of his life. Yet they are obliged to sit hours in this comfortless chamber, without understanding what is said. A sense of time unprofitably wasted is the only result of many a sitting for men, to whom at home every hour is precious for the care of a large diocese. They say that, for the first[pg 365]time since Councils came into being, the Bishops have been robbed of their essential and inalienable right of free speech on questions of faith; that they are compelled to vote, but not allowed to give reasons for their vote and bear witness to the doctrine of their Churches. They complain that, though they can hand in written observations, no one but the Commission of twenty-four knows anything about them, and that for the Council itself and their fellow Bishops they can do nothing. The Commission will perhaps present a summary report of a hundred of these memorials and counter representations, according to the new order of business. This means that the work carefully matured by a Bishop through weeks or months of severe study will be summed up in two or three words, and in the shape it is thrown into by a hostile Committee. If the Bishops regard it as an intolerable oppression at home to have to submit their Pastorals for previous inspection to their Governments, here they can have nothing printed, even after it has undergone the censorship.It is no mere phrase, when the Bishops say in their Protest against the new order of business that their consciences are intolerably burdened, and that the Œcumenical character of the Council is likely to be assailed[pg 366]and its authority fundamentally shaken (labefacteretur). They consider the arrangement for deciding doctrines by simply counting heads intolerable, and they recognise as of immeasurable importance, and the very turning-point of the whole Council (totius Concilii cardo vertitur), the question as to the necessary conditions of a definition of faith binding the consciences of all the faithful. The Pope wants to have a new article of faith made by the Council, on the acceptance or rejection of which every man's salvation or condemnation is henceforth to depend. And now this same Pope has overthrown the principle always hitherto acknowledged in the Church, that such decrees could only be passed unanimously, and has made the opposite principle into a law.The Opposition Bishops are well aware that any regular examination and discussion of the infallibility question is rendered impossible by the nature of the Council Hall and the plan of voting by majorities. They have therefore proposed to the Legates that a deputation of several Bishops chosen from among themselves should be associated with the Commission on Faith, or with certain Bishops of the majority, to discuss the form of the decree, and that, when they have come to a common understanding, the formula as finally[pg 367]agreed upon should be submitted to the vote of the Council in full assembly. The authorities will not readily yield to this demand on many accounts, and chiefly because what Tacitus said of the Roman people 1800 years ago is well understood at Rome now,“Juvit credulitatem nox et promptior inter tenebras affirmatio.”It was a prudent foresight which led the Pope so strictly to prohibit the Bishops from printing anything here during the sitting of the Council; the Jesuits of theCiviltàmust retain their exclusive monopoly of free speech. But such conferences as the minority wished for were no less dangerous than printing, and would naturally lead to the grounds of their decision being made public. They have been summoned to affirm, not to deny, and“promptior inter tenebras affirmatio.”Meanwhile the Germans say that a thorough sifting of the question is the first thing necessary to be insisted upon, and that for two reasons: first to satisfy their own consciences, and secondly for the sake of their flocks. For they would not think it enough to enforce the new dogmas on the faithful of their dioceses by mere official acts and by referring them to the authority of the Council, which is ultimately reduced to the authority of the Pope, but would feel bound to give them sufficient[pg 368]reasons for its acceptance; and they have not been able to discover the cogency of these reasons themselves. Piusix.considers this superfluous. He feels his infallibility, as he says, and therefore thinks it very scandalous that the Bishops do not choose to be content with this testimony of his feeling. However, the negotiations with the Legates about these conferences are still going on.It must be allowed that there is not the slightest exaggeration in the words of the seventy-six protesting Bishops. It is strictly true that the new order of business, if it is carried out, must raise the greatest doubts as to the Œcumenical character of the Council among all thinking Catholics, especially such as are familiar with the history of Councils. And it is undeniable that this would excite a terrible disturbance in the Church, a contest the end of which cannot be foreseen. The Jesuits are now stirring the fire with the same assiduity and malicious pleasure as their predecessors in the Order of 1713 and the following years, when the whole of France and the Netherlands was plunged into a state of ecclesiastical strife and confusion by the BullUnigenitus, which they procured. They enjoy such contests, and have always carried them through with the merciless[pg 369]harshness which is peculiar to them, relying on the strength of their organization. It may sound hard that the Order should so often be reproached with making its members at once accusers and bailiffs, but they would themselves consider this rather a note of praise than of blame.The retribution for their conduct in 1713 and afterwards came in 1763 and 1773. But the Order, or at least its Roman members, who are all-powerful through the favour of the Pope, have no fear of such consequences now. A Jesuit can make a home for his theology, now here now there. If the Order is driven from one country, it is received into another; its property is moveable and can be transferred easily and without loss, and moreover it possesses, so to speak, an itinerant mint in its carefully elaborated skill in the direction of female souls, whether lodged in male or female bodies. They are thorough adepts too in the speculations of the money market, and manage their transactions in banknotes as successfully as the most practised merchant, so that they are quietly but surely recovering their prosperity in many cities of the Italian Kingdom, even in Florence, while all other Orders have been suppressed there. So they are well equipped and in excellent[pg 370]spirits for meeting the future. If their system of doctrine is now raised to full dominion by Pope and Council, and if they succeed in the next Conclave in procuring the election of a Pope thoroughly devoted to them and resolved to carry on the present system, the ship of the Order will ride majestically on the waves of future events, and fear no storms. A thoroughly well-informed man has assured us that the Pope said the other day to a Roman prelate, that“the Jesuits had involved him in this business of the Council and infallibility, and he was determined now to go through with it, cost what it might. They must take the responsibility of the results.”A very similar statement was made by the Emperor Francisi.He said that“he could not tell how his finance minister would answer hereafter for having precipitated so many men into poverty and misery by establishing a national bankruptcy.”For the fourth or fifth time since the opening of the Council, the ultramontane correspondents have been instructed to say, that the acoustic defects of the Hall have been remedied through new arrangements. This is not true; the speeches are never understood in many parts of the Chamber, not even where the secretaries sit. Meanwhile the Pope has conceived a desire to appear[pg 371]again in the midst of the Bishops and hold a Solemn Session. Hitherto he has been invisible and generally unapproachable to his“venerable brethren,”as he officially styles them. The last time the assembly saw him was at the unsuccessful Solemn Session of January 6, when the Bishops had to go through the useless ceremony of swearing oaths, in order to fill up the vacant time. For Pius does not feel that there is the slightest need for ascertaining the views of the Bishops about the measures in hand, or their wishes and proposals, and hearing their report of the state of Church matters in their own countries. He stands too high for that. A French prelate remarked lately that the Council does not thrive, because the Pope stands at once too near it and too far from it—so near that he robs it of all freedom, so far that there is no community of feeling and views and understanding.There has never indeed been a period in Church history where it has been made so palpably plain to the Episcopate how much the name of“brother,”which the Pontifex gives to every Bishop, is worth, and how immeasurable is the gulf between the“brother”on the Roman throne, the Pope-King, and the brother in Paris or Vienna or Prague.[pg 372]On the 16th a part of the firstSchemawas distributed in a revised form, and a General Congregation was held upon it on the 18th, at the very time when the Pope was hearing a mass for Montalembert in reparation for his treatment of the illustrious dead on the 15th and 16th. He wanted to hold a Solemn Session on the 25th, and thought there would be some decrees ready to be published. In defiance of the order of business the Bishops had only a day and a half, instead of ten days, allowed them to get acquainted with the revised text. However, so large a number of speakers sent in their names, and so many new difficulties came to light, that Pius had once more to abandon his design of proclaiming new articles of faith on that day to the expectant world. It looks as if the fourth month of the Council would pass by with as little result as the three first. Easter Monday is already named as the period fixed for publishing the first doctrinal decree. Meanwhile a new power has been introduced in the person of the Jesuit, Kleutgen. He had been condemned some time ago by the Holy Office on account of a scandal in a convent. But he has now been rehabilitated, as the Jesuits have no superfluity of theologians, and is to take part in drawing up theSchemata. The time fixed for sending[pg 373]in representations on the infallibility decree has been extended for ten days more, to the 25th. There is no lack of criticisms and counter-statements; the Bishops, although foreseeing that their intellectual progeny will be strangled directly after birth, seem anxious to gain the satisfaction of saying,“dixi et salvavi animam meam.”The German Bishops remember the assurances they gave at Fulda. The Archbishop of Cologne reminded the faithful of his diocese, as late as Feb. 9, of this Pastoral, to set their minds at rest. To-day, March 21, in view of the infallibilistSchemaand the new order of business, he would no doubt hardly think it prudent to say any longer to the Germans,“Be confident that the Council will establish no new dogma, and proclaim nothing which is not written by faith and conscience on your hearts.”The Germans will now be curious to see the circumlocutions and explanations appended, in the fresh Pastorals compiled after the fabrication of the new dogma, to the Pastoral issued from the tomb of St. Boniface.The Bishops should take care that they are not, like the eagle in the Libyan fable, struck with arrows feathered from their own wings. Banneville, who succeeded two men very unacceptable in Rome, Lavalette[pg 374]and Sartiges, was amicably received, and found it agreeable to keep on the best footing with Antonelli, and to treat the whole affair of the Council easily and superficially. Whatever he said was always very mildly expressed. It was so convenient to enjoy the favour both of the Pope and the Secretary of State, and to be commended by the majority of the Council as a pious and enlightened statesman. The differences between him and Count Daru were accordingly inevitable. For Daru appreciates the extent of the danger, not only as a statesman but as a zealous Catholic, while Banneville's one thought has ever been to please the Roman authorities, so that a French prelate said to him shortly before his departure,“Pensiez-vous que vous étiez ambassadeur auprès de Jésuites?”And thus at last the necessity of instructing him has been recognised at Paris. But at the same time Bishop Forcade of Nevers has been sent there, intrusted with the mission of representing Banneville's conduct to the Government as exactly right, and advocating the views and desires of Antonelli and the majority of the Council. He has told them at Paris that the majority do not want to hear anything of the admission of a French ambassador to the Council—which is credible enough—but[pg 375]that the Government has nothing to fear from the decrees, for the Court of Rome would in any case respect the Concordat. Antonelli, as may be seen, abides by his panacea. The only question is whether they are disposed at Paris to be paid with such diplomatic counters. Meanwhile it has been rumoured that Count Daru would send a memorial to the Council. To the Council? Say rather to the Pope and his Secretary of State. This putting forward of the Council, whose freedom and self-determination the Roman Court is neither able nor willing to anticipate, is a device which no one can take seriously. The Bishop of Orleans in his last publication has pierced a hole in the mask, which renders it nearly useless. He remarks (p. 54),“Whatever is to come before the Council can only come through the Commission appointed by the Pope, that is ultimately through himself. He is the master, the sole and absolute master, with whom it rests to admit a proposal or set it aside.”Antonelli says that no ambassadors can be admitted, for if it were conceded to the French, it could not be refused to other powers, Austria, Bavaria, or even Prussia. He is quite right there. It has been a main object from the first with this Council to give a striking[pg 376]example of the entire exclusion of the lay element in ecclesiastical deliberations. It is just because the Governments and States are so deeply concerned in the projected decrees, because their rights and laws and their whole future are affected, that they are not to be heard or admitted. In presence of the representative of his Government, many a Bishop would think twice before assenting to a decree flatly contradicting the laws and political principles of his country. And then the admission of ambassadors would break through the mystery, and make the strict silence imposed on the Bishops almost useless. A large number of them, and above all the entire Opposition, would be very glad of this, but for that very reason the ruling powers detest it the more. As a foretaste and practical illustration of what the maxims of theSchema de Ecclesiâwill lead to, when made into dogmas, it is worth while to notice the decision issued by the Pope and his Penitentiary in September 1869, when this Schema had just been drawn up, on the question whether a priest could swear to observe the Austrian Constitution. To take the oath absolutely was forbidden; he can only take it with an express reservation of the laws of the Church, and—which is very significant—he must state[pg 377]publicly that he only takes the oath, even with this reservation, by virtue of papal permission. That is a new and very important step on the road to be trodden with the aid of the Council. Every clergyman is to be reminded, and to remind others, in merely discharging a simple civil obligation, that he is dependent on the Pope in the matter, and may not properly speaking swear civil fealty and obedience to the laws without papal permission, not even in the conditional form which makes the oath itself illusory. This is quite after the mind of the Jesuits, who have always shown a special predilection for the doctrine that every cleric is not a subject and citizen with corresponding rights, but simply a subaltern and servant of the Pope. This is a prologue to the twenty-one Canons of theSchema de Ecclesiâ.I have just learnt from theKölner Volkszeitungthat the chaplain of a prelate here charges me with a gross falsehood in reference to the words of the Pope. He appeals to the ParisUnion, which has the words used by the Pope,“Je suis la voie, la vérité, et la vie,”with the passage inserted by the editor. I had cited the words from theObservateur Catholiqueof 1866 (p. 357), where they are authenticated by the signature of an ear-witness, MacSheeby, and correspond entirely with the statement[pg 378]of theUnion. But in theMonde, which was not in my reach, a totally different version is given, which has no similarity to that authenticated by Roman correspondents in theUnionandObservateur, and does not connect the words,“I am the way,”etc., with the Pope at all. It must remain uncertain after this whether the version of theMondeor of the two other journals is the genuine one.

Rome, March 21, 1870.—A feeling of weariness, lethargy and disgust has been forced on many Bishops by the treatment they have received and the whole course of affairs in the Council up to this time. The news of its dissolution would be welcome tidings to their ears. And not only strangers, but many residents here, would joyfully hail their deliverance from the existing situation; even one of the Legates said lately that, if the Council were to be suddenly dissolved by a death, the Church would be freed from a great distress. The Assembly Hall alone would suffice to disgust a prelate with the idea of taking part in a Council for the rest of his life. Yet they are obliged to sit hours in this comfortless chamber, without understanding what is said. A sense of time unprofitably wasted is the only result of many a sitting for men, to whom at home every hour is precious for the care of a large diocese. They say that, for the first[pg 365]time since Councils came into being, the Bishops have been robbed of their essential and inalienable right of free speech on questions of faith; that they are compelled to vote, but not allowed to give reasons for their vote and bear witness to the doctrine of their Churches. They complain that, though they can hand in written observations, no one but the Commission of twenty-four knows anything about them, and that for the Council itself and their fellow Bishops they can do nothing. The Commission will perhaps present a summary report of a hundred of these memorials and counter representations, according to the new order of business. This means that the work carefully matured by a Bishop through weeks or months of severe study will be summed up in two or three words, and in the shape it is thrown into by a hostile Committee. If the Bishops regard it as an intolerable oppression at home to have to submit their Pastorals for previous inspection to their Governments, here they can have nothing printed, even after it has undergone the censorship.

It is no mere phrase, when the Bishops say in their Protest against the new order of business that their consciences are intolerably burdened, and that the Œcumenical character of the Council is likely to be assailed[pg 366]and its authority fundamentally shaken (labefacteretur). They consider the arrangement for deciding doctrines by simply counting heads intolerable, and they recognise as of immeasurable importance, and the very turning-point of the whole Council (totius Concilii cardo vertitur), the question as to the necessary conditions of a definition of faith binding the consciences of all the faithful. The Pope wants to have a new article of faith made by the Council, on the acceptance or rejection of which every man's salvation or condemnation is henceforth to depend. And now this same Pope has overthrown the principle always hitherto acknowledged in the Church, that such decrees could only be passed unanimously, and has made the opposite principle into a law.

The Opposition Bishops are well aware that any regular examination and discussion of the infallibility question is rendered impossible by the nature of the Council Hall and the plan of voting by majorities. They have therefore proposed to the Legates that a deputation of several Bishops chosen from among themselves should be associated with the Commission on Faith, or with certain Bishops of the majority, to discuss the form of the decree, and that, when they have come to a common understanding, the formula as finally[pg 367]agreed upon should be submitted to the vote of the Council in full assembly. The authorities will not readily yield to this demand on many accounts, and chiefly because what Tacitus said of the Roman people 1800 years ago is well understood at Rome now,“Juvit credulitatem nox et promptior inter tenebras affirmatio.”

It was a prudent foresight which led the Pope so strictly to prohibit the Bishops from printing anything here during the sitting of the Council; the Jesuits of theCiviltàmust retain their exclusive monopoly of free speech. But such conferences as the minority wished for were no less dangerous than printing, and would naturally lead to the grounds of their decision being made public. They have been summoned to affirm, not to deny, and“promptior inter tenebras affirmatio.”Meanwhile the Germans say that a thorough sifting of the question is the first thing necessary to be insisted upon, and that for two reasons: first to satisfy their own consciences, and secondly for the sake of their flocks. For they would not think it enough to enforce the new dogmas on the faithful of their dioceses by mere official acts and by referring them to the authority of the Council, which is ultimately reduced to the authority of the Pope, but would feel bound to give them sufficient[pg 368]reasons for its acceptance; and they have not been able to discover the cogency of these reasons themselves. Piusix.considers this superfluous. He feels his infallibility, as he says, and therefore thinks it very scandalous that the Bishops do not choose to be content with this testimony of his feeling. However, the negotiations with the Legates about these conferences are still going on.

It must be allowed that there is not the slightest exaggeration in the words of the seventy-six protesting Bishops. It is strictly true that the new order of business, if it is carried out, must raise the greatest doubts as to the Œcumenical character of the Council among all thinking Catholics, especially such as are familiar with the history of Councils. And it is undeniable that this would excite a terrible disturbance in the Church, a contest the end of which cannot be foreseen. The Jesuits are now stirring the fire with the same assiduity and malicious pleasure as their predecessors in the Order of 1713 and the following years, when the whole of France and the Netherlands was plunged into a state of ecclesiastical strife and confusion by the BullUnigenitus, which they procured. They enjoy such contests, and have always carried them through with the merciless[pg 369]harshness which is peculiar to them, relying on the strength of their organization. It may sound hard that the Order should so often be reproached with making its members at once accusers and bailiffs, but they would themselves consider this rather a note of praise than of blame.

The retribution for their conduct in 1713 and afterwards came in 1763 and 1773. But the Order, or at least its Roman members, who are all-powerful through the favour of the Pope, have no fear of such consequences now. A Jesuit can make a home for his theology, now here now there. If the Order is driven from one country, it is received into another; its property is moveable and can be transferred easily and without loss, and moreover it possesses, so to speak, an itinerant mint in its carefully elaborated skill in the direction of female souls, whether lodged in male or female bodies. They are thorough adepts too in the speculations of the money market, and manage their transactions in banknotes as successfully as the most practised merchant, so that they are quietly but surely recovering their prosperity in many cities of the Italian Kingdom, even in Florence, while all other Orders have been suppressed there. So they are well equipped and in excellent[pg 370]spirits for meeting the future. If their system of doctrine is now raised to full dominion by Pope and Council, and if they succeed in the next Conclave in procuring the election of a Pope thoroughly devoted to them and resolved to carry on the present system, the ship of the Order will ride majestically on the waves of future events, and fear no storms. A thoroughly well-informed man has assured us that the Pope said the other day to a Roman prelate, that“the Jesuits had involved him in this business of the Council and infallibility, and he was determined now to go through with it, cost what it might. They must take the responsibility of the results.”A very similar statement was made by the Emperor Francisi.He said that“he could not tell how his finance minister would answer hereafter for having precipitated so many men into poverty and misery by establishing a national bankruptcy.”

For the fourth or fifth time since the opening of the Council, the ultramontane correspondents have been instructed to say, that the acoustic defects of the Hall have been remedied through new arrangements. This is not true; the speeches are never understood in many parts of the Chamber, not even where the secretaries sit. Meanwhile the Pope has conceived a desire to appear[pg 371]again in the midst of the Bishops and hold a Solemn Session. Hitherto he has been invisible and generally unapproachable to his“venerable brethren,”as he officially styles them. The last time the assembly saw him was at the unsuccessful Solemn Session of January 6, when the Bishops had to go through the useless ceremony of swearing oaths, in order to fill up the vacant time. For Pius does not feel that there is the slightest need for ascertaining the views of the Bishops about the measures in hand, or their wishes and proposals, and hearing their report of the state of Church matters in their own countries. He stands too high for that. A French prelate remarked lately that the Council does not thrive, because the Pope stands at once too near it and too far from it—so near that he robs it of all freedom, so far that there is no community of feeling and views and understanding.

There has never indeed been a period in Church history where it has been made so palpably plain to the Episcopate how much the name of“brother,”which the Pontifex gives to every Bishop, is worth, and how immeasurable is the gulf between the“brother”on the Roman throne, the Pope-King, and the brother in Paris or Vienna or Prague.

On the 16th a part of the firstSchemawas distributed in a revised form, and a General Congregation was held upon it on the 18th, at the very time when the Pope was hearing a mass for Montalembert in reparation for his treatment of the illustrious dead on the 15th and 16th. He wanted to hold a Solemn Session on the 25th, and thought there would be some decrees ready to be published. In defiance of the order of business the Bishops had only a day and a half, instead of ten days, allowed them to get acquainted with the revised text. However, so large a number of speakers sent in their names, and so many new difficulties came to light, that Pius had once more to abandon his design of proclaiming new articles of faith on that day to the expectant world. It looks as if the fourth month of the Council would pass by with as little result as the three first. Easter Monday is already named as the period fixed for publishing the first doctrinal decree. Meanwhile a new power has been introduced in the person of the Jesuit, Kleutgen. He had been condemned some time ago by the Holy Office on account of a scandal in a convent. But he has now been rehabilitated, as the Jesuits have no superfluity of theologians, and is to take part in drawing up theSchemata. The time fixed for sending[pg 373]in representations on the infallibility decree has been extended for ten days more, to the 25th. There is no lack of criticisms and counter-statements; the Bishops, although foreseeing that their intellectual progeny will be strangled directly after birth, seem anxious to gain the satisfaction of saying,“dixi et salvavi animam meam.”The German Bishops remember the assurances they gave at Fulda. The Archbishop of Cologne reminded the faithful of his diocese, as late as Feb. 9, of this Pastoral, to set their minds at rest. To-day, March 21, in view of the infallibilistSchemaand the new order of business, he would no doubt hardly think it prudent to say any longer to the Germans,“Be confident that the Council will establish no new dogma, and proclaim nothing which is not written by faith and conscience on your hearts.”The Germans will now be curious to see the circumlocutions and explanations appended, in the fresh Pastorals compiled after the fabrication of the new dogma, to the Pastoral issued from the tomb of St. Boniface.

The Bishops should take care that they are not, like the eagle in the Libyan fable, struck with arrows feathered from their own wings. Banneville, who succeeded two men very unacceptable in Rome, Lavalette[pg 374]and Sartiges, was amicably received, and found it agreeable to keep on the best footing with Antonelli, and to treat the whole affair of the Council easily and superficially. Whatever he said was always very mildly expressed. It was so convenient to enjoy the favour both of the Pope and the Secretary of State, and to be commended by the majority of the Council as a pious and enlightened statesman. The differences between him and Count Daru were accordingly inevitable. For Daru appreciates the extent of the danger, not only as a statesman but as a zealous Catholic, while Banneville's one thought has ever been to please the Roman authorities, so that a French prelate said to him shortly before his departure,“Pensiez-vous que vous étiez ambassadeur auprès de Jésuites?”And thus at last the necessity of instructing him has been recognised at Paris. But at the same time Bishop Forcade of Nevers has been sent there, intrusted with the mission of representing Banneville's conduct to the Government as exactly right, and advocating the views and desires of Antonelli and the majority of the Council. He has told them at Paris that the majority do not want to hear anything of the admission of a French ambassador to the Council—which is credible enough—but[pg 375]that the Government has nothing to fear from the decrees, for the Court of Rome would in any case respect the Concordat. Antonelli, as may be seen, abides by his panacea. The only question is whether they are disposed at Paris to be paid with such diplomatic counters. Meanwhile it has been rumoured that Count Daru would send a memorial to the Council. To the Council? Say rather to the Pope and his Secretary of State. This putting forward of the Council, whose freedom and self-determination the Roman Court is neither able nor willing to anticipate, is a device which no one can take seriously. The Bishop of Orleans in his last publication has pierced a hole in the mask, which renders it nearly useless. He remarks (p. 54),“Whatever is to come before the Council can only come through the Commission appointed by the Pope, that is ultimately through himself. He is the master, the sole and absolute master, with whom it rests to admit a proposal or set it aside.”

Antonelli says that no ambassadors can be admitted, for if it were conceded to the French, it could not be refused to other powers, Austria, Bavaria, or even Prussia. He is quite right there. It has been a main object from the first with this Council to give a striking[pg 376]example of the entire exclusion of the lay element in ecclesiastical deliberations. It is just because the Governments and States are so deeply concerned in the projected decrees, because their rights and laws and their whole future are affected, that they are not to be heard or admitted. In presence of the representative of his Government, many a Bishop would think twice before assenting to a decree flatly contradicting the laws and political principles of his country. And then the admission of ambassadors would break through the mystery, and make the strict silence imposed on the Bishops almost useless. A large number of them, and above all the entire Opposition, would be very glad of this, but for that very reason the ruling powers detest it the more. As a foretaste and practical illustration of what the maxims of theSchema de Ecclesiâwill lead to, when made into dogmas, it is worth while to notice the decision issued by the Pope and his Penitentiary in September 1869, when this Schema had just been drawn up, on the question whether a priest could swear to observe the Austrian Constitution. To take the oath absolutely was forbidden; he can only take it with an express reservation of the laws of the Church, and—which is very significant—he must state[pg 377]publicly that he only takes the oath, even with this reservation, by virtue of papal permission. That is a new and very important step on the road to be trodden with the aid of the Council. Every clergyman is to be reminded, and to remind others, in merely discharging a simple civil obligation, that he is dependent on the Pope in the matter, and may not properly speaking swear civil fealty and obedience to the laws without papal permission, not even in the conditional form which makes the oath itself illusory. This is quite after the mind of the Jesuits, who have always shown a special predilection for the doctrine that every cleric is not a subject and citizen with corresponding rights, but simply a subaltern and servant of the Pope. This is a prologue to the twenty-one Canons of theSchema de Ecclesiâ.

I have just learnt from theKölner Volkszeitungthat the chaplain of a prelate here charges me with a gross falsehood in reference to the words of the Pope. He appeals to the ParisUnion, which has the words used by the Pope,“Je suis la voie, la vérité, et la vie,”with the passage inserted by the editor. I had cited the words from theObservateur Catholiqueof 1866 (p. 357), where they are authenticated by the signature of an ear-witness, MacSheeby, and correspond entirely with the statement[pg 378]of theUnion. But in theMonde, which was not in my reach, a totally different version is given, which has no similarity to that authenticated by Roman correspondents in theUnionandObservateur, and does not connect the words,“I am the way,”etc., with the Pope at all. It must remain uncertain after this whether the version of theMondeor of the two other journals is the genuine one.

Thirty-Second Letter.Rome, March 28, 1870.—The Bishops who have attacked the new order of business, because it brought into view the possibility of a dogmatic definition being carried without theconsensus moraliter unanimis, received the desired answer in no doubtful form at the sitting of Tuesday, the 22d. The measures of theCuriafor a month past have been unmistakably contributing more and more to produce a worthy and loyal-hearted attitude among the minority. After long dallying, Rome has brought the secrets of her policy a little too boldly and conspicuously into view. Hardly was the domination of the majority in matters of faith fixed by the stricterregolamento, when the Pope had the proclamation of his own infallibility proposed in the most arrogant form. On this followed the attempt to press it to an immediate decision, and then the determination to admit no ambassadors of the Governments. If these[pg 380]proceedings were not enough to lay bare the perilous nature of the whole situation, the Pope and the zealots of his party supplied the remaining proof,—the former, by his conduct about Falloux, about Montalembert on the day the news of his death arrived, about the Munich theologians in secret consistory, and about the so-called Liberal or“half-Catholics”on every occasion; the latter by their growing impatience about the infallibility definition, and their assurances that there is no real opposition to this dogma, and that, if there was, it could not hold its ground after the promulgation had taken place. And so the opponents of the decree must know at last that they have to deal with a blind and unscrupulous zeal, not with a theological system carefully thought out and placed on an intellectual basis; that the contest has to be carried on against the whole power and influence of the Pope, and not, as had been maintained with transparent hypocrisy, only against the wishes of the noisy and independent party of theCiviltàand its allied journalists. They begin to use more earnest and manlier language, the language of clear apprehension and conscientious conviction. If the comments handed in last week on theSchema de Ecclesiâ, and the protests against any hurrying of the discussion[pg 381]on it, were known to the world, the Catholic Episcopate and the strong reflux current here would appear in a very different light from what might be gathered from the previous course of things. Not a few of these opinions drawn up by the Bishops breathe a truly apostolic spirit, and deal with the Roman proposals in the tone of genuine theology. An influential theologian of a Religious Order has pronounced of one of them, that it exceeds in force and weight the treatise which appeared in Germany last year,Reform of the Church in Her Head and Her Members.69It has been urged by English prelates that it concerns their honour to resist the promulgation of a dogma, the explicit repudiation of which by the Irish Bishops was an efficacious condition of Catholic Emancipation. The American Protest contains a more threatening warning than the German, and the German is stronger than the French.After these declarations the attitude of the minority was clearly defined, and invincible by any foe from without. Their contention is, that no right exists in the Church to sanction a dogma against the will and belief of an important portion of the Episcopate, and that only by abandoning any claim to such a right can[pg 382]the Council be regarded as really Œcumenical. To be quite consistent, the minority ought to take no further part in the Council till this point, on the decision of which they rightly hold its authority to depend, is settled; for their protest implied the doubt whether they were taking part in a true or only a seeming Council, whether they were acting in union with the Holy Ghost or co-operating to carry out a gigantic and sacrilegious deception. Yet the words expressly stating this doubt, and making the distinct withdrawal of the theory of voting dogmas by majorities a condition of any further participation in the proceedings, were not adopted into any of the Protests. This implied that the signataries would appear in the next General Congregation, that they refrained from a suspicious attitude, and were unwilling to interpret the ambiguous order of businessin malam partem, until facts compelled them to do so. A conflict which might have such incalculable results was to be avoided, till necessity made it a positive duty; and that was not the case as long as a favourable interpretation of theregolamentocontinued possible.Thus the minority committed the strategical blunder of postponing a conflict which they saw to be inevitable,[pg 383]and when they could not know whether any more favourable opportunity for entering on it for the benefit of the Church would occur in the future. There is hardly anything doubtful or open to double interpretation in the order of business, when more closely examined. Every Bishop sees quite clearly that it is specially arranged for overcoming the opposition of the minority, and will be used without scruple for that end.70And who knows how many members of the present Opposition, if once theCuriaapplies its last lever, will have strength to resist to extremities? how many are ready, by humble submission or by resigning their Sees, to quiet their consciences and sacrifice their flocks to error? There are men among them better fitted for the contest against the principle formally enounced in the revised order of business, than for the contest against infallibility. The Bishop of Mayence,e.g., passes for one of the strongest and most decided opponents of theregolamento, which I mention as a point of great importance at this moment. The resolve of the protesting Bishops, to avoid the threatened conflict at present, can only be justified if another and better opportunity for[pg 384]defending the cause of the Church occurs in the future course of the Council and before any decision is arrived at. Had they been willing, after handing in their protests, to go on quietly joining in the proceedings, without doing anything to give emphasis to the step they had taken, they would in fact have bent under the yoke of the majority. They only needed to keep silent: that implied everything. For it would necessarily be assumed that they had withdrawn or forgotten their protests, and to continue to act upon and submit to the new order of business themselves would imply that they had renounced their resistance to any of its particular details. It was therefore all the more essential for them to let it be clearly known how far their concessions would extend, and what was their final limit. Unless they did this, they would either seem not quite sincere, or would have really accepted theregolamentowith its obvious consequences. The Council, the Presidents, the Pope, the expectant Catholic world without, had a right to know their real intentions, and whether they meant to adhere to their declarations. The first voting on the propositions of theSchema de Fidecould not fail to decide this point. Thus it became a necessity to put this question of principle in the[pg 385]front at the reopening of the deliberations of the Council.Meanwhile the concessions of the Presidents and the majority on some points had elicited a more friendly feeling in the Opposition. The discussion on infallibility was postponed, and the firstSchemawas returned from the Commission with important modifications. Even the shameful treatment of Montalembert could not altogether destroy this conciliatory state of feeling. Ginoulhiac, the learned Bishop of Grenoble, who was to be preconised as Archbishop of Lyons on Monday the 21st, undertook on the 22d to meet the discreet concessions of the infallibilists in a kindred spirit. He was indeed obliged to make his speech on the Tuesday, though he had not been preconised on the day before. The French, who have no Cardinal—for Mathieu's custom is to go away at any critical moment, and he was not then returned—had gladly left to one of the Austrian Cardinals the less pleasing duty of declaring their attitude towards theregolamento. Schwarzenberg did but slightly glance at it in his speech and yet was called to order. Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis, one of the most imposing figures in the Council, touched on the theme more closely, and dwelt on the office of Bishops[pg 386]as witnesses and judges of faith, in the sense which forms the basis of the opposition of the minority. Lastly, Strossmayer ascended the tribune, and then followed a scene which, for dramatic force and theological significance, almost exceeded anything in the past history of Councils. He began by referring to that passage at the opening of theSchema, where Protestantism is made responsible for modern unbelief—“systematum monstra, mythismi, rationalismi, indifferentismi nomine designata.”He blamed the perversity and injustice of these words, referring to the religious indifference among Catholics which preceded the Reformation, and the horrors of the Revolution, which were caused by godlessness among Catholics, not among Protestants. He added that the able champions of Christian doctrine among the Protestants ought not to be forgotten, to many of whom St. Augustine's words applied,“errant, sed bonâ fide errant;”Catholics had produced no better refutations of the errors enumerated in theSchemathan had been written by Protestants, and all Christians were indebted to such men as Leibnitz and Guizot.Each one of these statements, and the two names, were received with loud murmurs, which at last broke out into[pg 387]a storm of indignation. The President, De Angelis, cried out,“Hicce non est locus laudandi Protestantes.”And he was right, for the Palace of the Inquisition is hardly a hundred paces from the place where he was speaking. Strossmayer exclaimed, in the midst of a great uproar,“That alone can be imposed on the faithful as a dogma, which has a moral unanimity of the Bishops of the Church in its favour.”At these words a frightful tumult arose. Several Bishops sprang from their seats, rushed to the tribune, and shook their fists in the speaker's face. Place, Bishop of Marseilles, one of the boldest of the minority and the first to give in his public adhesion to Dupanloup's Pastoral, cried out,“Ego illum non damno.”Thereupon a shout resounded from all sides,“Omnes, omnes illum damnamus.”The President called Strossmayer to order, but he did not leave the tribune till he had solemnly protested against the violence to which he had been subjected. There was hardly less excitement in the church outside than in the Council Hall. Some thought the Garibaldians had broken in: others, with more presence of mind, thought infallibility had been proclaimed, and these last began shouting“Long live the infallible Pope!”A Bishop of the United States said afterwards, not[pg 388]without a sense of patriotic pride, that he knew now of one assembly still rougher than the Congress of his own country.This memorable day has already become the subject of myths, and so it is no longer possible to define with certainty how many prelates were hurried into these passionate outbreaks. Some speak of 400, some of 200; others again say that the majority disapproved of the interruption. The excitement was followed next day by a profound stillness, which was not broken even when Haynald and the North American Bishop Whelan said very strong things. It seemed as if a sense of what they owed to the dignity of the Council and a feeling of shame had got the better of those turbulent spirits. But enough has occurred to show the world what spirit prevails here, and what sort of men they are who support infallibilism. That up to this time this Council does not deserve the respect of the Catholic world, is the least point; it is of more importance, that an internal split in the Church is more and more revealing itself. Henceforth it will no longer be possible to throw in the teeth of genuine Catholics their compromising or dishonourable solidarity with error and lies, for this has given place to an open and avowed[pg 389]opposition. On one side stands the small but morally powerful band of those who accept Strossmayer's noble words with head and heart, on the other a crowd of“abject”71fanatics and sycophants. This division is of supreme significance for the future course of the Council, because it strengthens and consolidates the minority in their harmony and determination, and obliges them to take a further step, as soon as the majority have made it unmistakably clear that they will not acknowledge and respect their claim to prevent a dogmatic definition.The Presidents, by denouncing Strossmayer's speech but not the interruption of it, as it was their duty to do, gave evidence of an undisguised partiality, and justly incurred the suspicion of sympathizing with the shouters and not with the speaker, and thinking the proclamation of infallibility allowable without the moral unanimity of the Council. Accordingly a categorical demand was sent in to them to declare themselves on this point, and, in case of their giving no answer, another last step is reserved, which will have the nature of an ultimatum and will bring the Œcumenicity of the Vatican Council to a decisive test. And so it may be said that the Bishops of the minority have[pg 390]delayed but not wavered. The moment for a decisive move, which may test the existence of the Council, must come when a dogmatic decree has to be voted on. This crisis seemed to have arrived on Saturday, March 26, when the preamble of theSchema de Fidewas to have been voted on. Various amendments had been proposed, one very important one by Bishop Meignan of Chalons, in which the Fathers were designated as definers of the decrees, and another equally important, implicitly containing infallibility, by Dreux-Brézé, Bishop of Moulins. Moreover this preamble contained the obnoxious passages immortalized by the glowing eloquence of Strossmayer. The antagonistic principles seemed to have reached their ultimate point. Votes were to be taken on dogmatic decrees before any agreement had been come to on the necessary conditions of such voting. At the last moment the Presidents resolved to evade the crisis. The very day before the sitting, Friday, March 25, Cardinal Bilio went to the authors of the amendments and persuaded them to withdraw them, and so on Saturday the text of the preamble was brought forward without any amendment. Nor was there any voting on that either, but they passed at once to the discussion on the first chapter of theSchema,[pg 391]in which the Primate of Hungary (Simor) made an adroit and conciliatory speech as advocate of the Commission on Faith. The debate then proceeded. By the eleventh article of the new order of business, every separate part of aSchemamust be voted on before the next can come on for discussion.It was a breach of this rule to pass on straight to the first chapter of theSchema, without having voted on the preamble. The Bishops asked themselves what this meant. Was it intended, by the withdrawal of the amendments and the abandonment of the discussion, to declare the preamble tacitly accepted? Was it intended to correct that objectionable passage? But the wording of theregolamentowas too strict to allow of that being done except in the General Congregation. It seemed at any rate as if more prudent counsels had prevailed and it was intended to avert the dreaded contest on the main principle by concessions, so as to pass such decrees as were possible, that they may be unanimously promulgated in the Easter session. Thus time would be gained for loosening the compact phalanx of the Opposition, and at the same time getting it more deeply implicated in a compromising actual acceptance of the new order of business, in its form as well as its[pg 392]spirit. This double danger is always imminent, but in fact the Opposition as yet has suffered no loss.We are at the end of the fourth month of the Council, and yet they have not dared to put one decree to the vote. The amendments, which were so obnoxious, have disappeared. The passage about unbelief being the offspring of Protestantism, which Strossmayer assailed, will perhaps be corrected, though in an irregular manner. The simple and sanguine spirits among the Opposition Bishops exult over a victory obtained. One of the most famous of them exclaimed,“It is clear the Holy Ghost is guiding the Council.”

Rome, March 28, 1870.—The Bishops who have attacked the new order of business, because it brought into view the possibility of a dogmatic definition being carried without theconsensus moraliter unanimis, received the desired answer in no doubtful form at the sitting of Tuesday, the 22d. The measures of theCuriafor a month past have been unmistakably contributing more and more to produce a worthy and loyal-hearted attitude among the minority. After long dallying, Rome has brought the secrets of her policy a little too boldly and conspicuously into view. Hardly was the domination of the majority in matters of faith fixed by the stricterregolamento, when the Pope had the proclamation of his own infallibility proposed in the most arrogant form. On this followed the attempt to press it to an immediate decision, and then the determination to admit no ambassadors of the Governments. If these[pg 380]proceedings were not enough to lay bare the perilous nature of the whole situation, the Pope and the zealots of his party supplied the remaining proof,—the former, by his conduct about Falloux, about Montalembert on the day the news of his death arrived, about the Munich theologians in secret consistory, and about the so-called Liberal or“half-Catholics”on every occasion; the latter by their growing impatience about the infallibility definition, and their assurances that there is no real opposition to this dogma, and that, if there was, it could not hold its ground after the promulgation had taken place. And so the opponents of the decree must know at last that they have to deal with a blind and unscrupulous zeal, not with a theological system carefully thought out and placed on an intellectual basis; that the contest has to be carried on against the whole power and influence of the Pope, and not, as had been maintained with transparent hypocrisy, only against the wishes of the noisy and independent party of theCiviltàand its allied journalists. They begin to use more earnest and manlier language, the language of clear apprehension and conscientious conviction. If the comments handed in last week on theSchema de Ecclesiâ, and the protests against any hurrying of the discussion[pg 381]on it, were known to the world, the Catholic Episcopate and the strong reflux current here would appear in a very different light from what might be gathered from the previous course of things. Not a few of these opinions drawn up by the Bishops breathe a truly apostolic spirit, and deal with the Roman proposals in the tone of genuine theology. An influential theologian of a Religious Order has pronounced of one of them, that it exceeds in force and weight the treatise which appeared in Germany last year,Reform of the Church in Her Head and Her Members.69It has been urged by English prelates that it concerns their honour to resist the promulgation of a dogma, the explicit repudiation of which by the Irish Bishops was an efficacious condition of Catholic Emancipation. The American Protest contains a more threatening warning than the German, and the German is stronger than the French.

After these declarations the attitude of the minority was clearly defined, and invincible by any foe from without. Their contention is, that no right exists in the Church to sanction a dogma against the will and belief of an important portion of the Episcopate, and that only by abandoning any claim to such a right can[pg 382]the Council be regarded as really Œcumenical. To be quite consistent, the minority ought to take no further part in the Council till this point, on the decision of which they rightly hold its authority to depend, is settled; for their protest implied the doubt whether they were taking part in a true or only a seeming Council, whether they were acting in union with the Holy Ghost or co-operating to carry out a gigantic and sacrilegious deception. Yet the words expressly stating this doubt, and making the distinct withdrawal of the theory of voting dogmas by majorities a condition of any further participation in the proceedings, were not adopted into any of the Protests. This implied that the signataries would appear in the next General Congregation, that they refrained from a suspicious attitude, and were unwilling to interpret the ambiguous order of businessin malam partem, until facts compelled them to do so. A conflict which might have such incalculable results was to be avoided, till necessity made it a positive duty; and that was not the case as long as a favourable interpretation of theregolamentocontinued possible.

Thus the minority committed the strategical blunder of postponing a conflict which they saw to be inevitable,[pg 383]and when they could not know whether any more favourable opportunity for entering on it for the benefit of the Church would occur in the future. There is hardly anything doubtful or open to double interpretation in the order of business, when more closely examined. Every Bishop sees quite clearly that it is specially arranged for overcoming the opposition of the minority, and will be used without scruple for that end.70And who knows how many members of the present Opposition, if once theCuriaapplies its last lever, will have strength to resist to extremities? how many are ready, by humble submission or by resigning their Sees, to quiet their consciences and sacrifice their flocks to error? There are men among them better fitted for the contest against the principle formally enounced in the revised order of business, than for the contest against infallibility. The Bishop of Mayence,e.g., passes for one of the strongest and most decided opponents of theregolamento, which I mention as a point of great importance at this moment. The resolve of the protesting Bishops, to avoid the threatened conflict at present, can only be justified if another and better opportunity for[pg 384]defending the cause of the Church occurs in the future course of the Council and before any decision is arrived at. Had they been willing, after handing in their protests, to go on quietly joining in the proceedings, without doing anything to give emphasis to the step they had taken, they would in fact have bent under the yoke of the majority. They only needed to keep silent: that implied everything. For it would necessarily be assumed that they had withdrawn or forgotten their protests, and to continue to act upon and submit to the new order of business themselves would imply that they had renounced their resistance to any of its particular details. It was therefore all the more essential for them to let it be clearly known how far their concessions would extend, and what was their final limit. Unless they did this, they would either seem not quite sincere, or would have really accepted theregolamentowith its obvious consequences. The Council, the Presidents, the Pope, the expectant Catholic world without, had a right to know their real intentions, and whether they meant to adhere to their declarations. The first voting on the propositions of theSchema de Fidecould not fail to decide this point. Thus it became a necessity to put this question of principle in the[pg 385]front at the reopening of the deliberations of the Council.

Meanwhile the concessions of the Presidents and the majority on some points had elicited a more friendly feeling in the Opposition. The discussion on infallibility was postponed, and the firstSchemawas returned from the Commission with important modifications. Even the shameful treatment of Montalembert could not altogether destroy this conciliatory state of feeling. Ginoulhiac, the learned Bishop of Grenoble, who was to be preconised as Archbishop of Lyons on Monday the 21st, undertook on the 22d to meet the discreet concessions of the infallibilists in a kindred spirit. He was indeed obliged to make his speech on the Tuesday, though he had not been preconised on the day before. The French, who have no Cardinal—for Mathieu's custom is to go away at any critical moment, and he was not then returned—had gladly left to one of the Austrian Cardinals the less pleasing duty of declaring their attitude towards theregolamento. Schwarzenberg did but slightly glance at it in his speech and yet was called to order. Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis, one of the most imposing figures in the Council, touched on the theme more closely, and dwelt on the office of Bishops[pg 386]as witnesses and judges of faith, in the sense which forms the basis of the opposition of the minority. Lastly, Strossmayer ascended the tribune, and then followed a scene which, for dramatic force and theological significance, almost exceeded anything in the past history of Councils. He began by referring to that passage at the opening of theSchema, where Protestantism is made responsible for modern unbelief—“systematum monstra, mythismi, rationalismi, indifferentismi nomine designata.”He blamed the perversity and injustice of these words, referring to the religious indifference among Catholics which preceded the Reformation, and the horrors of the Revolution, which were caused by godlessness among Catholics, not among Protestants. He added that the able champions of Christian doctrine among the Protestants ought not to be forgotten, to many of whom St. Augustine's words applied,“errant, sed bonâ fide errant;”Catholics had produced no better refutations of the errors enumerated in theSchemathan had been written by Protestants, and all Christians were indebted to such men as Leibnitz and Guizot.

Each one of these statements, and the two names, were received with loud murmurs, which at last broke out into[pg 387]a storm of indignation. The President, De Angelis, cried out,“Hicce non est locus laudandi Protestantes.”And he was right, for the Palace of the Inquisition is hardly a hundred paces from the place where he was speaking. Strossmayer exclaimed, in the midst of a great uproar,“That alone can be imposed on the faithful as a dogma, which has a moral unanimity of the Bishops of the Church in its favour.”At these words a frightful tumult arose. Several Bishops sprang from their seats, rushed to the tribune, and shook their fists in the speaker's face. Place, Bishop of Marseilles, one of the boldest of the minority and the first to give in his public adhesion to Dupanloup's Pastoral, cried out,“Ego illum non damno.”Thereupon a shout resounded from all sides,“Omnes, omnes illum damnamus.”The President called Strossmayer to order, but he did not leave the tribune till he had solemnly protested against the violence to which he had been subjected. There was hardly less excitement in the church outside than in the Council Hall. Some thought the Garibaldians had broken in: others, with more presence of mind, thought infallibility had been proclaimed, and these last began shouting“Long live the infallible Pope!”A Bishop of the United States said afterwards, not[pg 388]without a sense of patriotic pride, that he knew now of one assembly still rougher than the Congress of his own country.

This memorable day has already become the subject of myths, and so it is no longer possible to define with certainty how many prelates were hurried into these passionate outbreaks. Some speak of 400, some of 200; others again say that the majority disapproved of the interruption. The excitement was followed next day by a profound stillness, which was not broken even when Haynald and the North American Bishop Whelan said very strong things. It seemed as if a sense of what they owed to the dignity of the Council and a feeling of shame had got the better of those turbulent spirits. But enough has occurred to show the world what spirit prevails here, and what sort of men they are who support infallibilism. That up to this time this Council does not deserve the respect of the Catholic world, is the least point; it is of more importance, that an internal split in the Church is more and more revealing itself. Henceforth it will no longer be possible to throw in the teeth of genuine Catholics their compromising or dishonourable solidarity with error and lies, for this has given place to an open and avowed[pg 389]opposition. On one side stands the small but morally powerful band of those who accept Strossmayer's noble words with head and heart, on the other a crowd of“abject”71fanatics and sycophants. This division is of supreme significance for the future course of the Council, because it strengthens and consolidates the minority in their harmony and determination, and obliges them to take a further step, as soon as the majority have made it unmistakably clear that they will not acknowledge and respect their claim to prevent a dogmatic definition.

The Presidents, by denouncing Strossmayer's speech but not the interruption of it, as it was their duty to do, gave evidence of an undisguised partiality, and justly incurred the suspicion of sympathizing with the shouters and not with the speaker, and thinking the proclamation of infallibility allowable without the moral unanimity of the Council. Accordingly a categorical demand was sent in to them to declare themselves on this point, and, in case of their giving no answer, another last step is reserved, which will have the nature of an ultimatum and will bring the Œcumenicity of the Vatican Council to a decisive test. And so it may be said that the Bishops of the minority have[pg 390]delayed but not wavered. The moment for a decisive move, which may test the existence of the Council, must come when a dogmatic decree has to be voted on. This crisis seemed to have arrived on Saturday, March 26, when the preamble of theSchema de Fidewas to have been voted on. Various amendments had been proposed, one very important one by Bishop Meignan of Chalons, in which the Fathers were designated as definers of the decrees, and another equally important, implicitly containing infallibility, by Dreux-Brézé, Bishop of Moulins. Moreover this preamble contained the obnoxious passages immortalized by the glowing eloquence of Strossmayer. The antagonistic principles seemed to have reached their ultimate point. Votes were to be taken on dogmatic decrees before any agreement had been come to on the necessary conditions of such voting. At the last moment the Presidents resolved to evade the crisis. The very day before the sitting, Friday, March 25, Cardinal Bilio went to the authors of the amendments and persuaded them to withdraw them, and so on Saturday the text of the preamble was brought forward without any amendment. Nor was there any voting on that either, but they passed at once to the discussion on the first chapter of theSchema,[pg 391]in which the Primate of Hungary (Simor) made an adroit and conciliatory speech as advocate of the Commission on Faith. The debate then proceeded. By the eleventh article of the new order of business, every separate part of aSchemamust be voted on before the next can come on for discussion.

It was a breach of this rule to pass on straight to the first chapter of theSchema, without having voted on the preamble. The Bishops asked themselves what this meant. Was it intended, by the withdrawal of the amendments and the abandonment of the discussion, to declare the preamble tacitly accepted? Was it intended to correct that objectionable passage? But the wording of theregolamentowas too strict to allow of that being done except in the General Congregation. It seemed at any rate as if more prudent counsels had prevailed and it was intended to avert the dreaded contest on the main principle by concessions, so as to pass such decrees as were possible, that they may be unanimously promulgated in the Easter session. Thus time would be gained for loosening the compact phalanx of the Opposition, and at the same time getting it more deeply implicated in a compromising actual acceptance of the new order of business, in its form as well as its[pg 392]spirit. This double danger is always imminent, but in fact the Opposition as yet has suffered no loss.

We are at the end of the fourth month of the Council, and yet they have not dared to put one decree to the vote. The amendments, which were so obnoxious, have disappeared. The passage about unbelief being the offspring of Protestantism, which Strossmayer assailed, will perhaps be corrected, though in an irregular manner. The simple and sanguine spirits among the Opposition Bishops exult over a victory obtained. One of the most famous of them exclaimed,“It is clear the Holy Ghost is guiding the Council.”

Thirty-Third Letter.Rome, March 30, 1870.—Yesterday (the 29th) the first voting in Council took place, on the preamble of theSchema de Fide. As I told you in my last letter, this preamble had been objected to by Strossmayer on account of the passage representing rationalism, indifferentism, the mythical theory of the Bible and unbelief as consequences of Protestantism. Several amendments had been proposed; two of them I have mentioned already, one introduced by Bishop Meignan of Chalons, substituting for a mere approbation of the decree a statement expressly guarding the right of the Episcopate to define,—the other, proposed by Dreux-Brézé, designed to smuggle in the infallibilist doctrine in a form requiring a sharpsighted eye to detect it.72Many[pg 394]infallibilists had reckoned on the victory of their dogma last week by means of this amendment. The Presidents had got some of the amendments withdrawn on Friday, the 25th, but these two they suffered to remain. They were equally sure that the first would be rejected and the second accepted by the majority; nay they counted on a far larger majority for the passage implying infallibility than for the rejection of Meignan's proposal, and hoped that this occasion would tend to bring to light unmistakably the power and extent of the infallibilist party.At the beginning of the sitting of Saturday, the 26th, the exact regulations for the method of voting were first read out, and this was repeated a second time to preclude any risk of misapprehension. Yet it was announced immediately afterwards that there would be no voting, and this unexpected change was made during the Session and in presence of the Fathers. There had in fact been a kind of fermentation going on since Tuesday, the 22nd, when Strossmayer's affair occurred. The justice of his criticism on the passage about Protestantism[pg 395]and unbelief had become evident to many; at least fifteen Bishops made representations to the President about it as late as the Friday. According to a very widely-spread report, one of them was the Bishop of Orleans and the other the Bishop of Augsburg. But in spite of this, and of the prospect of a catastrophe, which the union of the Germans made imminent, they seem to have gone into Saturday's sitting firmly resolved not to yield. Yet a last attempt succeeded. After the mass, when all were assembled, a Bishop handed in a paper with a few lines to the Presidents, on which two of them at once left the Hall. Meanwhile the order of the day and the method of voting was read out. On their return the decision was announced; the preamble was withdrawn to be amended. It was an English Bishop whose paper produced such important results.73On Monday, the 28th, the preamble was distributed in its revised form; Dreux-Brézé's objectionable amendment had disappeared, the passage about Protestantism was altered, and even the style was improved. Primate Simor, speaking in the name of the Commission, had already stated officially that the Bishops were at liberty to subscribe the decrees bydefiniens subscripsi,i.e., to use[pg 396]the ancient conciliar formula by which the Bishops used to describe themselves as defining the decrees. And thus the principle for which Meignan, Strossmayer, and Whelan had contended, was conceded. In this form and after these concessions the preamble could no longer be opposed.The strength of the minority has been proved, though in an irregular manner. But obviously this gives an opening to the majority for similarly setting aside the order of business when it is inconvenient for themselves. Beyond a doubt the spirit of conciliation has triumphed over all opposition at the critical moment. And it may be distinctly said that this result was attained, partly through the firm attitude of the minority, partly through the prudent and abundantly justified yielding of the Presidents. By this discreet procedure they have declined all responsibility for the conduct of those who, on Tuesday the 22d, would hear of no objections to that portion of the preamble. And their doing this so decidedly makes their silence on the other matter, which caused such an outbreak, the more surprising, and some explanation of it is all the more necessary.The amended preamble was then accepted unanimously. But the chapterDe Deo Creatoredid not pass[pg 397]so easily, though it might have been expected that, at the end of four months, the Bishops would have arrived at some agreement on that point. The main difficulty arose from the tendency again to smuggle in statements favourable to infallibility, and paving the way for its definition by a sidewind. The first paragraph,e.g., opens thus,“Sancta Romana Catholica Ecclesia credit et confitetur unum esse Deum verum et vivum, Creatorem cœli et terræ.”Two amendments were proposed on this: (1.)“Proponitur, ut initio capitis primi simpliciter dicatur,‘Sancta Catholica Ecclesia credit et confitetur,’”etc. (2.)“Proponitur, ut in capite primo verba‘Romana Catholica Ecclesia’transferantur, ita ut legatur‘Catholica atque Romana Ecclesia.’Sin autem non placuerit Patribus, ut saltem comma interponatur inter verbaRomanaetCatholica.”There was a great deal of discussion about this word“Romana.”The German Opposition Bishops exhibit a better organization than the French. In spite of the great majority, it was announced that the voting would be only provisional, a“suffragatio provisoria,”and it is probable that the first chapter will be revised in this point, as in several others, before being presented for definitive acceptance.[pg 398]It is very noteworthy that the Italian Government has made no attempt to utilize the new complications, and the introduction of a new system of policy in France very hostile in principle to Roman absolutism. The Roman question has gone to sleep at the moment when a solution seemed to be in view. Indifference has taken the place of zeal at the very time when zeal had a prospect of success. Nowhere is the reason of this seeming apathy better understood than at Rome. The Italians are patient, because they see the settlement approaching in the natural course of things and without violence: they know that with the death of Piusix.a far-reaching change must ensue. His successor will enter on the difficult inheritance under very different conditions.The change of sovereigns will, in another point of view, be a very critical transition for the system dominant here. There is no point the non-Italian Episcopate with the foreign Cardinals and the Great Powers, are so united upon as throwing open theCuriaand the Sacred College to foreigners. A Papal election under present circumstances might be very dangerous for the centralization policy. The hardly-won domination of that party which Piusix.has made into his[pg 399]instrument would be menaced, for after a long pontificate an election is always a reaction and not a continuation. The numerous elements of opposition, which have so long been suppressed, combine then for mutual aid. Piusix.has created the College of Cardinals himself, but his successor will be the creation of the College. The ruling party runs the risk of getting a Pope who will no longer serve it and carry on its policy, and it is certain that the next Pope will be much weaker than the present one in his relations with the Governments, the Cardinals and the Episcopate. Much, very much, of the present resources of the Papacy depends on the person of Piusix., and will be buried with him. It is the interest of all who are concerned in the continuance of the existing system, that his personal influence should survive his reign.He alone can hand on to his successor his own special connection with France, and he alone can secure the choice of a successor in the Jesuit interest. But, to accomplish that, he must survive his own pontificate, must himself fix on the desired successor, must himself inaugurate him and support him with the whole weight of his personal influence. And thus the bold and ingenious device has been started of Piusix.abdicating,[pg 400]and a new election being held during his life. It is said not to be quite a new project; in the honeymoon of the Council, just after the New Year, it first began to be somewhat inconsiderately spoken of. Piusix.is nearly eighty, two years older than is generally said. He was elected June 16, 1846, and will therefore, on June 16, 1870, complete the twenty-fourth year of his pontificate. But there is an old saying, universally believed in Rome, that no Pope will reign twenty-five years, as it was the exclusive privilege of St. Peter to be Pope for a quarter of a century.“Non numerabis annos Petri.”It is a fact that none of the 255 predecessors of the present Pope has held office for twenty-five years; even those elected at thirty-seven, like Innocentiii.and Leox., died earlier. So according to this belief, which is not confined to the vulgar, Pius has only one year more to live. But in spite of his age he is healthy and wonderfully strong, and, as he belongs to a long-lived family, he has the prospect of still living some time, only not as reigning Pope. It is no pleasing prospect for a man, in whose character there is a large element ofamour propre, to be treated as the setting sun, while all are speculating on his speedy death. It would be another thing, at the very moment of his[pg 401]glorious triumph over the Council and after gaining infallibility, to resign it, to decline to enjoy his success, to renounce this mighty power in the first moment of fruition, and to transfer the splendid inheritance to the hands of a younger man. Thus next June might witness the most brilliant jubilee, and an example be given of such imposing grandeur that the world has seen nothing like it, of such wisdom and eventful significance that the present system would be immortalized and become the heirloom of the Papacy for all ages. The Pope would retire into a glorious privacy, like the founder of the North American Republic after his second Presidentship, and taste the honours of an ex-Pope, unequalled by any former ceremonial splendour, and close his days in a position of unprecedented elevation. This seductive dream has found little aliment in the course of the Council hitherto. The plan would be at bottom a conspiracy against existing law, against Cardinals, Governments, and the Episcopate, and notwithstanding its dazzling lustre, would make the very worst impression on the Council. A victorious Pope might conceivably attempt to carry it out, but in the present situation it would be a dangerous challenge.[pg 402]The abdication of a Pope is not without precedent in history. In 1294 a Pope took this step, which has never since been repeated; Celestinev.resigned the papal office, to which he felt himself unequal. After a long and quarrelsome Conclave, the Cardinals, at their wits' end, had elected the pious recluse of Einsiedlen, and dragged him from his mountain home; a few months later they got tired of him and urged him to abdicate, and he complied. Many doubted whether a Pope could resign; they thought that, according to the law established by the Popes themselves in the decretals, no Pope could dissolve of his own power the bond which unites him to the Church and the Church to him. It would require a superior in the hierarchy to do this, and none such exists. It had first therefore to be decided that a Pope could resign, and Celestine settled this by a special Bull. After that he solemnly and publicly laid down his office. Bonifaceviii.succeeded, who shut up the unfortunate man in a mountain fastness, where he died soon afterwards in a damp unhealthy dungeon.In the strictly initiated circles, where the above project is most definitely spoken of, the man selected by Pius for his successor is also known; it is Cardinal[pg 403]Bilio, aged forty-four, who possesses the confidence equally of the Pope and the Jesuits. He edited the Syllabus, and assisted the Jesuits in drawing up the firstSchema; in short, Pius would have the satisfaction of reckoning securely on his carrying on the present system for many years. Of course, even if the seventeen or eighteen vacant Cardinals' Hats were given to men pledged to this scheme, it would still remain a question whether Pius could succeed in still controlling the Conclave after his abdication. Many think that the Cardinals would then, as has so often happened, elect a very aged man, and Cardinal de Angelis is named as the likeliest to be chosen.

Rome, March 30, 1870.—Yesterday (the 29th) the first voting in Council took place, on the preamble of theSchema de Fide. As I told you in my last letter, this preamble had been objected to by Strossmayer on account of the passage representing rationalism, indifferentism, the mythical theory of the Bible and unbelief as consequences of Protestantism. Several amendments had been proposed; two of them I have mentioned already, one introduced by Bishop Meignan of Chalons, substituting for a mere approbation of the decree a statement expressly guarding the right of the Episcopate to define,—the other, proposed by Dreux-Brézé, designed to smuggle in the infallibilist doctrine in a form requiring a sharpsighted eye to detect it.72Many[pg 394]infallibilists had reckoned on the victory of their dogma last week by means of this amendment. The Presidents had got some of the amendments withdrawn on Friday, the 25th, but these two they suffered to remain. They were equally sure that the first would be rejected and the second accepted by the majority; nay they counted on a far larger majority for the passage implying infallibility than for the rejection of Meignan's proposal, and hoped that this occasion would tend to bring to light unmistakably the power and extent of the infallibilist party.

At the beginning of the sitting of Saturday, the 26th, the exact regulations for the method of voting were first read out, and this was repeated a second time to preclude any risk of misapprehension. Yet it was announced immediately afterwards that there would be no voting, and this unexpected change was made during the Session and in presence of the Fathers. There had in fact been a kind of fermentation going on since Tuesday, the 22nd, when Strossmayer's affair occurred. The justice of his criticism on the passage about Protestantism[pg 395]and unbelief had become evident to many; at least fifteen Bishops made representations to the President about it as late as the Friday. According to a very widely-spread report, one of them was the Bishop of Orleans and the other the Bishop of Augsburg. But in spite of this, and of the prospect of a catastrophe, which the union of the Germans made imminent, they seem to have gone into Saturday's sitting firmly resolved not to yield. Yet a last attempt succeeded. After the mass, when all were assembled, a Bishop handed in a paper with a few lines to the Presidents, on which two of them at once left the Hall. Meanwhile the order of the day and the method of voting was read out. On their return the decision was announced; the preamble was withdrawn to be amended. It was an English Bishop whose paper produced such important results.73

On Monday, the 28th, the preamble was distributed in its revised form; Dreux-Brézé's objectionable amendment had disappeared, the passage about Protestantism was altered, and even the style was improved. Primate Simor, speaking in the name of the Commission, had already stated officially that the Bishops were at liberty to subscribe the decrees bydefiniens subscripsi,i.e., to use[pg 396]the ancient conciliar formula by which the Bishops used to describe themselves as defining the decrees. And thus the principle for which Meignan, Strossmayer, and Whelan had contended, was conceded. In this form and after these concessions the preamble could no longer be opposed.

The strength of the minority has been proved, though in an irregular manner. But obviously this gives an opening to the majority for similarly setting aside the order of business when it is inconvenient for themselves. Beyond a doubt the spirit of conciliation has triumphed over all opposition at the critical moment. And it may be distinctly said that this result was attained, partly through the firm attitude of the minority, partly through the prudent and abundantly justified yielding of the Presidents. By this discreet procedure they have declined all responsibility for the conduct of those who, on Tuesday the 22d, would hear of no objections to that portion of the preamble. And their doing this so decidedly makes their silence on the other matter, which caused such an outbreak, the more surprising, and some explanation of it is all the more necessary.

The amended preamble was then accepted unanimously. But the chapterDe Deo Creatoredid not pass[pg 397]so easily, though it might have been expected that, at the end of four months, the Bishops would have arrived at some agreement on that point. The main difficulty arose from the tendency again to smuggle in statements favourable to infallibility, and paving the way for its definition by a sidewind. The first paragraph,e.g., opens thus,“Sancta Romana Catholica Ecclesia credit et confitetur unum esse Deum verum et vivum, Creatorem cœli et terræ.”Two amendments were proposed on this: (1.)“Proponitur, ut initio capitis primi simpliciter dicatur,‘Sancta Catholica Ecclesia credit et confitetur,’”etc. (2.)“Proponitur, ut in capite primo verba‘Romana Catholica Ecclesia’transferantur, ita ut legatur‘Catholica atque Romana Ecclesia.’Sin autem non placuerit Patribus, ut saltem comma interponatur inter verbaRomanaetCatholica.”There was a great deal of discussion about this word“Romana.”The German Opposition Bishops exhibit a better organization than the French. In spite of the great majority, it was announced that the voting would be only provisional, a“suffragatio provisoria,”and it is probable that the first chapter will be revised in this point, as in several others, before being presented for definitive acceptance.

It is very noteworthy that the Italian Government has made no attempt to utilize the new complications, and the introduction of a new system of policy in France very hostile in principle to Roman absolutism. The Roman question has gone to sleep at the moment when a solution seemed to be in view. Indifference has taken the place of zeal at the very time when zeal had a prospect of success. Nowhere is the reason of this seeming apathy better understood than at Rome. The Italians are patient, because they see the settlement approaching in the natural course of things and without violence: they know that with the death of Piusix.a far-reaching change must ensue. His successor will enter on the difficult inheritance under very different conditions.

The change of sovereigns will, in another point of view, be a very critical transition for the system dominant here. There is no point the non-Italian Episcopate with the foreign Cardinals and the Great Powers, are so united upon as throwing open theCuriaand the Sacred College to foreigners. A Papal election under present circumstances might be very dangerous for the centralization policy. The hardly-won domination of that party which Piusix.has made into his[pg 399]instrument would be menaced, for after a long pontificate an election is always a reaction and not a continuation. The numerous elements of opposition, which have so long been suppressed, combine then for mutual aid. Piusix.has created the College of Cardinals himself, but his successor will be the creation of the College. The ruling party runs the risk of getting a Pope who will no longer serve it and carry on its policy, and it is certain that the next Pope will be much weaker than the present one in his relations with the Governments, the Cardinals and the Episcopate. Much, very much, of the present resources of the Papacy depends on the person of Piusix., and will be buried with him. It is the interest of all who are concerned in the continuance of the existing system, that his personal influence should survive his reign.

He alone can hand on to his successor his own special connection with France, and he alone can secure the choice of a successor in the Jesuit interest. But, to accomplish that, he must survive his own pontificate, must himself fix on the desired successor, must himself inaugurate him and support him with the whole weight of his personal influence. And thus the bold and ingenious device has been started of Piusix.abdicating,[pg 400]and a new election being held during his life. It is said not to be quite a new project; in the honeymoon of the Council, just after the New Year, it first began to be somewhat inconsiderately spoken of. Piusix.is nearly eighty, two years older than is generally said. He was elected June 16, 1846, and will therefore, on June 16, 1870, complete the twenty-fourth year of his pontificate. But there is an old saying, universally believed in Rome, that no Pope will reign twenty-five years, as it was the exclusive privilege of St. Peter to be Pope for a quarter of a century.“Non numerabis annos Petri.”It is a fact that none of the 255 predecessors of the present Pope has held office for twenty-five years; even those elected at thirty-seven, like Innocentiii.and Leox., died earlier. So according to this belief, which is not confined to the vulgar, Pius has only one year more to live. But in spite of his age he is healthy and wonderfully strong, and, as he belongs to a long-lived family, he has the prospect of still living some time, only not as reigning Pope. It is no pleasing prospect for a man, in whose character there is a large element ofamour propre, to be treated as the setting sun, while all are speculating on his speedy death. It would be another thing, at the very moment of his[pg 401]glorious triumph over the Council and after gaining infallibility, to resign it, to decline to enjoy his success, to renounce this mighty power in the first moment of fruition, and to transfer the splendid inheritance to the hands of a younger man. Thus next June might witness the most brilliant jubilee, and an example be given of such imposing grandeur that the world has seen nothing like it, of such wisdom and eventful significance that the present system would be immortalized and become the heirloom of the Papacy for all ages. The Pope would retire into a glorious privacy, like the founder of the North American Republic after his second Presidentship, and taste the honours of an ex-Pope, unequalled by any former ceremonial splendour, and close his days in a position of unprecedented elevation. This seductive dream has found little aliment in the course of the Council hitherto. The plan would be at bottom a conspiracy against existing law, against Cardinals, Governments, and the Episcopate, and notwithstanding its dazzling lustre, would make the very worst impression on the Council. A victorious Pope might conceivably attempt to carry it out, but in the present situation it would be a dangerous challenge.

The abdication of a Pope is not without precedent in history. In 1294 a Pope took this step, which has never since been repeated; Celestinev.resigned the papal office, to which he felt himself unequal. After a long and quarrelsome Conclave, the Cardinals, at their wits' end, had elected the pious recluse of Einsiedlen, and dragged him from his mountain home; a few months later they got tired of him and urged him to abdicate, and he complied. Many doubted whether a Pope could resign; they thought that, according to the law established by the Popes themselves in the decretals, no Pope could dissolve of his own power the bond which unites him to the Church and the Church to him. It would require a superior in the hierarchy to do this, and none such exists. It had first therefore to be decided that a Pope could resign, and Celestine settled this by a special Bull. After that he solemnly and publicly laid down his office. Bonifaceviii.succeeded, who shut up the unfortunate man in a mountain fastness, where he died soon afterwards in a damp unhealthy dungeon.

In the strictly initiated circles, where the above project is most definitely spoken of, the man selected by Pius for his successor is also known; it is Cardinal[pg 403]Bilio, aged forty-four, who possesses the confidence equally of the Pope and the Jesuits. He edited the Syllabus, and assisted the Jesuits in drawing up the firstSchema; in short, Pius would have the satisfaction of reckoning securely on his carrying on the present system for many years. Of course, even if the seventeen or eighteen vacant Cardinals' Hats were given to men pledged to this scheme, it would still remain a question whether Pius could succeed in still controlling the Conclave after his abdication. Many think that the Cardinals would then, as has so often happened, elect a very aged man, and Cardinal de Angelis is named as the likeliest to be chosen.

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