Chapter 15

A writer in theStimmenthought that if those who were separated from the Church had only been present they mighthave been won back. It would be an easy way to settle the merits of a religion, if it could be done by the simple experiment of what body had the grandest building for a display, or the greatest number of richly dressed men to perform. We do not presume to say whether Peter ever did visit Rome or not; but, supposing that he did, the question between him and the sovereign Pontiff of the day, as to the value of their respective religions, would soon have been settled in favour of Nero, if it had gone by buildings, statues, robes, and retinues. Probably the poor itinerant preacher was so conscious that, as Milton would say, his religion "to the gorgeous solemnities of paganism, and the sense of the world's children, seemed but a homely and yeomanly religion," that he would not have challenged comparison with the purpled Pontiff on that ground. Any writer who could imagine that the tendency of a "function" performed in the manner of the one we have described is to convince Protestants that the Church of Rome has in her forms much likeness left to the Church of Christ, must be unaware of the first elements of a comparison. When we search the Scriptures daily to see whether these things are so, the estrangement of the Papacy from the Christianity of Christ, and its affinity to the Romanism of the Pagan Pontiffs, become more and more impressive.

The feeling in St. Peter's did not permit guards to be dispensed with. It transpired that extreme precaution had been taken to prevent the Basilica from being blown up. At the time, the general impression appeared to be that some of the National party had played upon the fears of the priests, hoaxing them with hints of such a design. But after what occurred in Paris during the reign of the Commune, one can hardly think it impossible that some of the violent and ignorant may have entertained wild plans. In 1867, a startling example of what might be done had been shown in the blowing up of a barrack of the zouaves. When populations which have long been governed by spectacle, set out for a political sensation, they sometimes go dreadful lengths to find a stirring one.

The city was to have been grandly illuminated, but thedrenching rain would have mocked all effort to keep in the tender life of the lamps. Let us hope, said the clerical writers, that the blue sky of Rome will smile on the close of the Council, and that then the eternal city will glow brighter even than Ephesus in 431 (Stimmen, N.F., p. 166).

In addition to human helps to faith, it was announced that divine helps had been vouchsafed. On this ever-memorable day the bones of the martyrs at Concordia had distilled water, which in that part of Venetia was a recognized presage of a joyful future. This is announced in the organ of that Court which was soberly undertaking to inaugurate a new era for all the societies of men (Civiltá, VII. ix. 104).

The same periodical in the very next sentence gave samples offanaticalEnglish Protestants. Citing thePall Mall Gazette, it told how a series of meetings had been held in Freemasons' Hall, at the suggestion of Dr. Merle d'Aubigné, to pray for the Council. It went on to say that the Chairman, Mr. Arthur Kinnaird, had told how similar meetings for prayer were to be held all over the world, and even among the Protestants of Italy. It quoted two of the petitions said to have been offered up. Canon Auriol prayedthat all the machinations of Rome might be turned to confusion, and Dr. Cumming that theday of her imagined triumph might prove to be that of her prophesied ruin.

It was much pleasanter work to tell of the Anti-Council of the Freethinkers at Naples. Praying Protestants are to be hated and extinguished. But vaunting infidels are to the Jesuits what fires are to insurance offices—their apparent foes, but their only real supports. That assembly spent a couple of days in vague and sometimes vast talk. It abused the Pope, and the Jesuits say it blasphemed God. It proposed to find a code of morals without religion, those flowers without any stems which are the holy grail of such knights errant. Finally, it attacked the French Emperor and the Italian monarchy, and was dissolved by the police. Demonstrations of a somewhat similar kind were attempted in a few other cities of Italy. In France, on the contrary, the following citieswere illuminated, and were lauded not only in their local clerical journals, but in the greatCiviltá: Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Toulouse, Limoges, Clermont, Saint-Etienne, Laval, Moulins, Nismes, Auch, "and others." Even in Paris many convents illuminated their facades. (Guérin, p. 78.)

At Vienna a meeting of the nobility, gentry, clergy, and officials composing the Catholic Societies, and numbering, it is said, four thousand, was held to celebrate the day. The only Italian city specified as having made any favourable demonstration was Brescia; and the account amounted to no more than that of an attendance of some Society of young men at Mass, and of the sending of a promise of adhesion to the Council.

FOOTNOTES:[198]Frond, iii., p. 254. M. Fisquet is author of the workGallia Christiana, in fifty volumes.[199]The HinduBhagavad Gitathus represents the distinction between God and the gods. "I behold, O God! within Thy heart thedews(gods) assembled, and every specific tribe of beings. I see Brahma (the creator, only a god) sitting on his lotus throne, all the Reeshees, and heavenly Ooragas.... I see Thee without beginning, without middle, and without end.... The space between the heavens and the earth is possessed by Thee alone, and every point around.... Of the celestial bands, some fly to Thee for refuge; whilst some, afraid with joined hands sing forth Thy praise. The Maharshees holy bands hail Thee"; and then follows an enumeration of various orders of celestials, who "all stand gazing on Thee, all alike amazed."(a)(a: Wilkins' translation, Garrett's ed., pp. 34, 55.)While thus Hinduism long anticipated either Pagan or Papal Romanism, in a system of inferior worship to inferior powers, it more logically attached inferior paradises to such worship. "Those who worship theDevatas(gods) go unto the Devatas; those who worship the Patriarchs go unto the Patriarchs; the servants of the spirits go to the spirits; and they who worship me go unto me."(b) That is sensible as a polity, if fallen as a religion. But it may be doubtful whether those who worship the Inquisitors would like to go to the Inquisitors.(b: Ibid., p. 46.)[200]Dr. Philip, author ofThe Ghetto and Rome's Great Show.[201]SeeLiverani at full.[202]Chap. x. 8, 0.[203]Allocutionof June 26, 1867.[204]Wilkins' translation, Garrett's triglot edition, Bangalore, p. 53.[205]Stimmen,Neue Folge, vi. p. 116.[206]Frond, iii, p. 10.[207]In the list of Popes, the name Peter is repeated only in the case of one, and he was an anti-pope.[208]The form of the opening resolutions and of the Decrees is found in any edition of the Canons and Decrees of the Council; the full account of the proceedings, taken down at the time by Massarellus, the Secretary of the Council, in Theiner'sActa Genuina, vol. i. 28, 29.[209]Priv. Petri, Part III. p. 36.[210]This version, made before the publication of the English translation, differs from it only in immaterial points. (SeeEight Months, p, 22.)[211]Times, Dec. 14, 1869.[212]"Les portes-lumiéres et les portes-Dieu."

FOOTNOTES:

[198]Frond, iii., p. 254. M. Fisquet is author of the workGallia Christiana, in fifty volumes.

[199]The HinduBhagavad Gitathus represents the distinction between God and the gods. "I behold, O God! within Thy heart thedews(gods) assembled, and every specific tribe of beings. I see Brahma (the creator, only a god) sitting on his lotus throne, all the Reeshees, and heavenly Ooragas.... I see Thee without beginning, without middle, and without end.... The space between the heavens and the earth is possessed by Thee alone, and every point around.... Of the celestial bands, some fly to Thee for refuge; whilst some, afraid with joined hands sing forth Thy praise. The Maharshees holy bands hail Thee"; and then follows an enumeration of various orders of celestials, who "all stand gazing on Thee, all alike amazed."(a)(a: Wilkins' translation, Garrett's ed., pp. 34, 55.)While thus Hinduism long anticipated either Pagan or Papal Romanism, in a system of inferior worship to inferior powers, it more logically attached inferior paradises to such worship. "Those who worship theDevatas(gods) go unto the Devatas; those who worship the Patriarchs go unto the Patriarchs; the servants of the spirits go to the spirits; and they who worship me go unto me."(b) That is sensible as a polity, if fallen as a religion. But it may be doubtful whether those who worship the Inquisitors would like to go to the Inquisitors.(b: Ibid., p. 46.)

(a: Wilkins' translation, Garrett's ed., pp. 34, 55.)

While thus Hinduism long anticipated either Pagan or Papal Romanism, in a system of inferior worship to inferior powers, it more logically attached inferior paradises to such worship. "Those who worship theDevatas(gods) go unto the Devatas; those who worship the Patriarchs go unto the Patriarchs; the servants of the spirits go to the spirits; and they who worship me go unto me."(b) That is sensible as a polity, if fallen as a religion. But it may be doubtful whether those who worship the Inquisitors would like to go to the Inquisitors.

(b: Ibid., p. 46.)

[200]Dr. Philip, author ofThe Ghetto and Rome's Great Show.

[201]SeeLiverani at full.

[202]Chap. x. 8, 0.

[203]Allocutionof June 26, 1867.

[204]Wilkins' translation, Garrett's triglot edition, Bangalore, p. 53.

[205]Stimmen,Neue Folge, vi. p. 116.

[206]Frond, iii, p. 10.

[207]In the list of Popes, the name Peter is repeated only in the case of one, and he was an anti-pope.

[208]The form of the opening resolutions and of the Decrees is found in any edition of the Canons and Decrees of the Council; the full account of the proceedings, taken down at the time by Massarellus, the Secretary of the Council, in Theiner'sActa Genuina, vol. i. 28, 29.

[209]Priv. Petri, Part III. p. 36.

[210]This version, made before the publication of the English translation, differs from it only in immaterial points. (SeeEight Months, p, 22.)

[211]Times, Dec. 14, 1869.

[212]"Les portes-lumiéres et les portes-Dieu."

CHAPTER II

First Proceedings—Unimportant Committees and All-Important Commissions—No Council if Pope dies—Theologians discover their Disfranchisement—Father Ambrose—Parties and Party Tactics—Were the Bishops Free Legislators?—Plans of Reconstruction—Plan of the German Bishops—Segesser's Plan—New Bull of Excommunications.

Theday following the wonderful Wednesday, of which the proceedings filled up the last chapter, was not too much for rest, and probably, indeed, was too little for the bishops to tell how effective the function had been. On the Friday, however, they had again to meet for the first General Congregation, or deliberative sitting. This was presided over by the Cardinals appointed, whereas the Pope in person presided over the Public Sessions, or solemnities, for formally promulging Decrees. Cardinal De Reisach, Chief President, was not in his chair, but upon his death-bed. As we have seen, he had superintended the drawing up (it is believed that with his own hand he had drawn up) the first code of laws to regulate the relations of the Church to civil society; but his code has never met the public eye.

From this first General Congregation, writes Friedrich, even the theologians were shut out.

The occupation of the day for nearly eight hundred bishops was to elect two committees of five each: one to examine applications for leave of absence; and the other to settle contests as to precedence, and similar matters, which contests at Trent often proved to be serious, indeed ere now the streets of Rome have witnessed bloodshed arising out of disputes of this sort between bishops. The members of these committees were called respectively Judges of Excuses and Judges of Complaints and Disputes. The mode of election wassimple; every one wrote five names on a card. It proved that Fallibilists must not expect the smallest share of office. Cardinal De Luca took the chief place, and opened the Congregation with a few simple sentences. These were translated by interpreters for the Orientals who did not understand Latin. The prelate who on this occasion celebrated Mass at the opening of the sitting was the Bishop of Osimo, afterwards Cardinal Vitelleschi, to whom some have ascribed the authorship of the work of his brother, which we often quote.[213]

The real business of the day, too important to be left to the episcopate, had been done without them. It consisted in appointing the Commission of Proposals. Twelve Cardinals, twelve archbishops, and two bishops were announced as the men whom the Pontiff had put in charge of the rights of their brethren. Prelates with titles from Antioch, Jerusalem, Thessalonica, and Sardis; one from Chili and one from Baltimore; one from Spain, one from Westminster, two Italians, and a few others, were empowered to say whether the men who ruled the sees of Paris, Lyons, Munich, Cologne, and Milan, and those of Hungary and Portugal, were or were not to be recommended to the Pope for permission to bring forward any proposal. The Commission could not grant them leave to do so, but it could report to the Pontiff, who alone could determine.

As some seven hundred and fifty bishops found all their hopes of proposing anything placed at the discretion of these twenty-six men, it was not for them to reason why: it was for them simply to read in the names now announced the record of past services and the fate of future suggestions.[214]They had not stayed the proceedings when they found that the Pro-synodal Congregation had been used to fasten upon them an edict which took away their right of self-organization, and it was now hopeless to attempt to recover that right. The three youngest archbishops on the list were Giannelli, Manning, and Deschamps; the secretary of the Nine, andthe two hottest Infallibilists—all three on the way to the purple, which they have since received at one and the same time.

But the sensation of the day, perhaps brought about at this moment to divert attention from the painful inroad just made upon episcopal rights, was a Bull determining the course to be taken should the death of the Pontiff occur during the Council. This edict determined that the bishops must not, in that case, elect a successor or transact any business, but that the Council must be held as suspended till another Pope should be duly elected by the Cardinals alone, and till it should be again called together by him. Pius IX ordained that this law should endure for ever, as the rule in all similar cases. This measure made the Council an appendage to the person of the Pope, not capable of sustaining its existence without him, and consequently having no imaginable power over him. It also made it inferior to the College of Cardinals—an abnormal body, composed of "creatures" of the crown, without any pretence to a constitutional place in the Christian Church—"Princes," and some of them, like Antonelli, not even priests. "Pivots," as their name imports, true "pivots"[215]of the Court, which has turned a religion into a school of costume, policy, and arms, they have, we repeat, as Cardinals, neither name nor place, neither order nor office, in the known constitution of the Catholic Church. When men who held that bishops were successors of the Apostles allowed the right of all the bishops in the world to choose their own head to be confiscated by an edict in favour of these Court officers, they were not likely afterwards to be strong supports of any true authority, only of that arbitrary will which finds all the sanction of its acts in itself. The Cardinals may well denounce nationalism, since to uphold their pretensions the mitres of all nations must bow to the hat of a prince in the suite of one little king. It would be unreasonable to think less of a man for wearing a scarlet hat and scarlet stockings,if his position in life calls him to it; almost as unreasonable as to think more of him for it. But to put a prince into that grotesque Court dress, and then turn him, by virtue of his Court position, into a titular bishop, or archbishop, and to expect his irregular office to be recommended by his incongruous attire, is a proof of the unlimited faith of the Curia in costume.

The experience of the day taught two lessons. First, the hall proved to be utterly unfit for deliberation, as every architect or public speaker must have known that it would prove, though about twenty-four thousand pounds had been spent in adapting a space within the Cathedral. But the second lesson of the day's experience was of a different kind. It had become plain that Fallibilists and Infallibilists were to be parted off from one another by a hard official line, and that no distinction would be made between Fallibilists and Inopportunists. The Curia, instead of showing any fear of the minority, was evidently resolved on letting it be known that Rome was not the place to form an opposition. The Rules had in fact already disposed of the minority.

We have intimated that possibly theologians came up to the Council with no more knowledge of what awaited them than the bishops. This was at least the case with Friedrich. On the Monday after the opening ceremony, accompanied by Kagarer, theologian to his Grace of Munich, he waited on the Secretary of the Council. I knew, says the Professor, that at Trent every theologian was not entitled only, but bound, to take part in the labours of the Council, by preparing papers and publicly discussing questions. But, he adds, "we were undeceived with a witness." The Secretary told them that the duty of theologians in connexion with the Council was "nothing." They were only to give information or advice to their respective bishops, as it might be asked for.

The decision thus announced to the doctors had been taken eleven months previously. The Nine, at their meetings of January 24 and 31, (Cecconi, p. 205) had determined thatthere should be no congregation of inferior theologians, as the doctors were called, in opposition to the bishops, the superior theologians. The open discussions which had given light to the people on the one side and to the prelates on the other were thus quenched. The people were no more to have any means of ascertaining what was being done with their creed, nor even, when something had been done, were they to have means of ascertaining what were the processes by which the new dogmas had been established. All that they were now to learn was to be thefait accompli, henceforth to become the standard of faith for all and in all. The order of priests was to be shorn of its last vestige of representation in the Councils of the Church. The bishops, on the other hand, were not to be allowed to know what could be said for or against a proposed dogma, before they were called upon to close it up for ever. This one turn of the screw wrung even from Cecconi a mild but distinct expression of doubt. He feels (p. 205) that "the Fathers generally lost a mighty assistance in the discharge of their high office." He ventures to quote Pallavicino, the Jesuit historian of Trent, whose language shows that the old Jesuits had broad views compared with those now ruling. Pallavicino's words remind us of the cry of poor Monsignor Liverani: "We might be allowed to be Liberals up to the mark of Bellarmine"—

Many of the bishops were learned in the science of theology, but the most eminent, as is the case in all sciences, were the private theologians, since they had not been diverted by public cares from regular study, without which eminent prudence is often acquired, but not eminent erudition.

But Pius IX had no intention of allowing bishops to satisfy their consciences by hearing all that could be said on both sides before they gave a judgment.

It would be hard to find a neater specimen of the terms in which the abolition of a venerable franchise may be couched than in the words of Cecconi. He lets us know that on the 4th of July, 1869, the Nine resolved to "confer on the theologians of bishops the right of being eligible to be called to serve the committees of the Council." It would be only in keeping with a system of quotation regularly practised if this statement of Cecconi should be, hereafter, used to prove that the theologians at the Vatican Council did not suffer any curtailment of their rights, but received an increase of them. But exclusion from the right of pleading before "my lords" was not all the degradation awaiting the unfortunate doctors. Bishop Fessler told them that they were free to give information or advice each to his own bishop, but, adds Friedrich,only to him. We wonder what man was not free to give private advice if asked for it. They were not to be allowedto attend meetings of the bishops; not even to meet among themselves to consult in common upon questions affecting the Council.[216]Friedrich was not the most to be pitied of the theologians. Father Ambrose, a Carmelite, had been brought up from Germany by his general, a Spaniard. At the first interview the general told him that the all-important question was that of Papal infallibility. Father Ambrose declared himself a Fallibilist, and produced a work which he had prepared on the subject. He at once lost his post; and the general wished to send him off to Malta. Cardinal Hohenlohe pleaded for his restoration, but in vain. The general feared that the order would be utterly put to shame if in addition to the scandal of the Cracow nun, and that of Father Hyacinthe's defection, a theologian of the Order brought up to the Council should be known as a Fallibilist. The poor man had even to go to Cardinal Hohenlohe, and to beg of him to give him back a copy of his little work which he had presented to his Eminence. This the Cardinal refused to do, saying that even if the general had ordered it, he had nothing to say to a Cardinal. Ambrose was permitted to return to Würzburg, and before he started a prelate said to him, "I should rejoice if any one recalled me or sent me home. We bishops have been ordered here to the Council without being told what we were to deliberate upon, andnow that I know it, I could gladly turn my back upon the Council and Rome."

Another minute touch of Friedrich at this moment shows how he heard a devoted Roman adherent of the Papacy say that an officer had sent him twenty scudi (about four pounds) as an offering to Peter's Pence; but he had returned the money, telling his friend he would do better to spend it on his family. "His conscience had dictated this course," for he knew how Peter's Pence were spent.

The correspondent of theStimmenmust have been under the triumphal influence of the opening, when he informed his German readers that wonderful unanimity reigned, and that what might be called the Opposition was daily shrinking up into nothing, and would soon reward only microscopical research.[217]TheUnitá Cattolicaof January 1 alleged that theFrançais, in using the expression, "A fraction of malcontents," might possibly be right, if it meant an almost impalpable fraction; but if it meant anything more, it was false. The alleged discontent, it went on to say, was spoken of as if it related to the Commission of Proposals appointed by the Pope. Some were said to wish that the Council itself should have had the selection of a committee. It was false; no one complained. It could not be disputed that the Pontiff, having the right to convoke, rule, and guide the Council, had also the right to determine what questions should be submitted to it. Pius IX had, indeed, himself confirmed this in the Bull by which he settled the Rules of Procedure. This is not conscious but unconscious irony. It reflects the course of the Papacy, displaying its administrative force and its logical infirmity in one word. A right is first desired, then secretly assumed, next insinuated in indirect forms, and finally embodied in an act assuming it as already ascertained; after which, this very act is taken as proof that it was previously established. When the Nine met, they confessed that it was questionable if the right existed to lay down rules for a General Council of the Catholic Church by a sub-committee of the Cardinals. But they assumed the right as unchallenged, embodied the assumption in an edict, and now turned to that edict as proof of the pre-existing right. A few days later, the correspondent of theStimmenagain said that, while the intelligence furnished to the ordinary journals was absurd, one thing might be relied upon, namely, that what was called an Opposition was daily diminishing.[218]

Another Jesuit, writing after the Council, did not confirm these statements of the inspired organs, but followed the profane journals, whose intelligence was at the time decried—

Behold, says Sambin, two camps face to face! On one side, Rome and her Sovereign Pontiff, surrounded by a vast majority of the bishops, displaying the banner of the Church as set up by her divine Redeemer. On the other side, an uncertain number of men belonging to all ranks of the hierarchy, seduced by illusory appearances or frightened by the danger of attacking modern ideas in front—men who fancy that the Church ought to parley with the notions of the age.[219]

The orthodox view on this point was expressed by theCiviltáin its first number after the Council was opened. "The Press and public meetings are the two mainsprings by which the spirit of the age, or Masonry, or, to give things their proper names, Satan, moves public opinion for his own ends."[220]At that moment Satan was busy not only with the Italian and German Press, but with theStandard,Saturday Review, and other English papers.

Another aspect of the Council was exhibited, not in the secular newspapers, but in the clerical periodicals. Eight days after the opening session, theStimmenwas informed how, on an afternoon as mild as summer, the grounds of the Villa Borghese were enlivened by a review in honour of the Fathers of the Council. The troops were much commended, not omitting theSquadriglieri, whom the Italians profanely charged with having been recruited from the brigands but whom the Jesuits described as excellent Catholics. TheCiviltáwas really edified by this display. In the militaryreview, it says—and we repeat word for word—the profane spectacle was dominated by the thought of thenew crusadersdefiling before so many bishops, spectators and a spectacle no longer witnessed at a military review. It was well and truly said that thisreviewlooked like afunctionin St. Peters'.[221]

A few days later, the faithful, whose supply of news never related to either doctrine or discipline, were edified by an account of a performance in a military casino, in honour of the Austrian and Swiss bishops. It is inferred that the Pope's foreign troops must be highly educated, because the beautiful scenery had been entirely painted by the soldiers. The curtain represented St. Michael the Archangel overcoming thefirst great rebel. The first great rebel, by some wonderful prolepsis, was clad in a red shirt, and wore the features of Garibaldi. No writers so well know as the Jesuits how to make fun of Garibaldi's bit of ritualism, with his red shirt and poncho. A German war-song of the middle ages, addressed to St. Michael, was sung with loud applause, and sungencore. Cardinal Prince Schwarzenberg, the Archbishops of Salsburg and Cologne, the Bishop of Mainz, and the Prussian Military Bishop, with a retinue of counts and one prince, hallowed and graced the performance.[222]

In spite of these diversions, and the protests and assertions of perfect unanimity made by the clerical writers, the indications which had for some time been making themselves obscurely felt of a Court party and an Opposition party, had at last emerged into painful consciousness on both sides. The idea of a sovereign above any party was too lofty for the place. One party, as we have seen stated by Sambin, was Rome and her Pontiff, while the other was an opposition, not against the opinions of Infallibilists, or the plans of a Cabinet, but against the Sovereign. Both sides had been very reluctant to acknowledge the reality of such antagonism, even long after its existence began to be tolerably evident. The Curia had nursed the hope, as we shall see, of all but unanimous adhesion to its preconcerted plans. It reckoned on the ascendant of the Pope when in presence, on that of the Sacred College, on the sympathy of numbers, the witcheries of ceremony, the baits of promotion, and, if need should arise, on wholesome fear.

On the other hand, even the prelates who most feared what was about to be done, disliked the idea of being in opposition, not only to the Curia, but to the Pontiff, and that on a personal question. They flattered themselves, moreover, that the good feeling of the Pope would lead him to moderate his prompters, and would not allow him to expose bishops to difficulties with their flocks and their governments, which they clearly foresaw. The men hoped that the general would modify his plans, and would win the campaign by strategy, without forcing them against stone walls.

Even before the opening, a painful feeling, according to Friedrich, had seized upon some of the bishops, when studying the Rules of Procedure. Fessler, he states, had told Dinkel, of Augsburg, that some dogmatic Decrees would be forthcoming on the opening day. Yet not a hint had been given as to what these Decrees might be; and such secrecy on matters so solemn was taken ill.[223]So far as the Curia was preparing a counter revolution, it acted only like any other political body in keeping its plans hidden. But it was a different matter to make secret preparations for effecting changes in a creed that men had taught until they were grey-headed, and then to expect them to face the alternative of either accepting the change or ruining their official prospects.

Scarcely had the opening session passed, when an address was signed by fourteen French prelates and the powerful Croatian Bishop Strossmayer, representing to the Pope in humble yet clear terms the danger of any restraint on the liberty of the Council. They did not rise in their places and move that the Council itself should frame its Rules of Procedure; they did not even move to accept the Rules laid before it in the BullMultiplices Inter, with certain specified amendments. Nothing short of this would have asserted the freedom of their Assembly. On the contrary, like all men trained under absolutism, they did not know how to maintain their inherited rights against encroachment and at the same time to abide loyal and true; but submitted, grumbling at their wrongs, and groping for some opening in the wall which shut them in. Had they attempted to bring forward such a motion as we have supposed, it would soon have been seen whether the assertions were or were not true which were made by English and American bishops about the Council being as free as the Senates of their own nations. Any one attempting to make such a proposal would have been informed that in the Pro-Synodal Congregation the Rules had been issued as a Papal Bull, and that in the first session the forms therein prescribed had been acted upon; so that those Rules, not being an act of the Council, but of the Pope, were not subject to revision by the Council; and, furthermore, that the Council had already practically adopted them. In fine, the prelates stood to some ideal Council in some such relation as we stand in to the Parliament; we cannot propose a motion, but we can send in a petition. Yet our petition would go to the House itself, not to the Cabinet. It would be named in the hearing of the House, and noted on its records. The petition of the poor bishops could not be presented in the Assembly, no trace of it is in theActa; its only open way was to the steps of the throne. It was never answered, never mentioned in the official documents,and the faithful who sought information in the accredited organs that rang with charges of misrepresentation against worldly ones, never received a hint of any such transaction.

"Unless the thoroughness of examination and the perfect freedom of discussion are as clear as day," say the fifteen prelates, it is to be feared that the effect will be to lower religion in public esteem and to aggravate the troubles of the Church.[224]The first point on which the petitioners fastened was the right of proposition. Yet, simple as this right was, they had not the courage to claim it. Perhaps even they were deceived, as Quirinus and many other writers evidently were,[225]at the first glance, by the way in which the denial of that right was veiled over in the Rules of Procedure. The mode of putting it is one often employed in the documents of the Roman Court. When some serious restriction is to be announced, you may find at first a sentence or paragraph which conveys an impression of something different, perhaps opposite to what is to be the conclusion. Indeed, practised Liberal Catholics sometimes write as if with them it was a tacit canon of interpretation that when in Jesuit teaching you find a principle affirmed in the opening of a paragraph, that is the principle which is to be rendered nugatory by qualifications ere you reach the close; and when you find a principle disclaimed, that is the principle which, under veils and covers, is to be set up.

In the Rules of Procedure the section on proposals did not say that no Bishop should be permitted to propose anything in the Council, which was the thing meant. To plainly say what was meant, would be to copy the Tower of Babel, the wicked modern Parliament. The section said that though the right of bringing forward proposals belonged to the Pope alone, he wished the bishops freely to exercise it. This sufficed to set many writing good news home. They did not wait to weigh the following words. These showed that the rightof proposition, handsomely announced to the Fathers of the Council, was just the right which everybody in the world possessed, that, namely, of forwarding a suggestion to the Pope. Curiously enough, even that common right was granted here only in a circuitous way, for the Pope himself named a Commission to receive propositions from the bishops, to consider them, and to report to him. If, after such report, he should wish any of them to come before the Council, he would send them forward. Most of the bishops, being unused to Parliamentary forms, began only by slow degrees to realize the fact that thus they had no right of proposition whatever. It was a good while before they became aware that they were simply in the position of private people. Anybody in Rome, or in Calcutta, could forward a suggestion to the Pope without going to a Royal Commission.

The address of the fifteen bishops requests that authors of proposals shall be admitted to a hearing before the Commission, and also that the latter shall be required to assign reasons when it reports against any proposal. But the bishops do not even ask leave to put their suggestions upon the books. That would, at least, have given members the right of letting their fellow members know what they wished to see done. The idea of entering a notice of motion would of course have been in that atmosphere not liberty but licence. They do, however, venture to suggest that some members of the Commission might be elected by the Council. They also point out that secrecy cannot be really maintained. The address, as we have said, was not even answered.

Hergenröther, the writer on whose authority Cardinal Manning requires us to rely, devotes some strength to this question. He begins by affirming that in Trent there was no fixed order. His proof for that assertion is that there is no written Code of Procedure, the record showing only the course actually followed from time to time. He also asserts that the bishops in the Vatican Councilhad perfect libertyof proposition. He moreover informs those who learn from such as he, that in all great assemblies the right of thePresident includes that of proposition, at least so far as to give him the decision, as to the order in which the proposals are taken.[226]Hergenröther, moreover, affirms that Friedrich wished to deny the right of proposition to the Pope—a blunder arising from not distinguishing between a right and an exclusive right. The Directing Congregation made a distinction as singular as was this failure to distinguish on the part of Hergenröther. It held that the Pope had the direct right of proposition, and the bishops the indirect right. But the fact was that they had no right of proposing to the Council whatever. They had no right beyond that of making a suggestion to the Pope, which, we repeat, anybody in the world could do; the only difference being that the one suggestion went before a Royal Commission, while the other did not.

The Directing Congregation had been first of all inclined to let the Fathers choose a committee of their own, but finally determined that the Pope himself should appoint a commission. This was an arrangement open to objections which even they did not wholly fail to see; but the Court historian finds a perfect answer by saying that if a good proposal should rest unheeded the author of it would have the satisfaction of having done his duty, and he must trust to divine Providence, which would never fail the Church.[227]Clouds of words were raised about this simple matter. The Catholics made solemn asseverations that the bishops had as perfect liberty of proposition as the members of any public body. The Liberal Catholics protested that they had not. They were cried down as slanderers.

Hefele, a learned German, gave confused and even contradictory advice as a consulter; first contending that the bishops should have a right of proposition, and then suggesting the very arrangements finally adopted. Sanguineti, a Roman consulter, plainly stated what was to be aimed at, namely, that the Pope alone should have the right of public proposition, leaving to the bishops what he calls the right of private proposition; as the directing Congregation calls it, of indirect proposition, or, as we call it, of suggestion.[228]

The result, then, was that the bishops could not bring in any substantive motion, could not move for a subject to be taken into consideration, could not put a notice of motion on the books, could not move an amendment on what the President proposed, could not move the previous question, could not move to decline taking the matter into consideration, could not move to postpone it. All that they could do was to speak to what the President proposed, to send suggested amendments before a committee, and finally to vote Yea or Nay upon the question, in the form into which that committee ultimately put it. No minutes of proceedings were printed, or even read day by day. No knowledge was allowedto speakers even of the reports taken of their own speeches; no sight of the reported speeches of others.

Notwithstanding all this, bishop after bishop returned from the Council to denounce in pastorals those who had said that they had not the liberty of proposition. Even our English tongue had to make itself the vehicle of such statements for two mighty nations. Bishop bore witness to bishop, and they were true and all men were liars. Archbishop Manning told how bishops "of the freest country in the world" hadsaid truly, "The liberty of our Congress is not greater than the liberty of the Council."[229]We fear that American bishops might have quoted similar declarations from English ones. It is for members of Congress and of Parliament to judge.

La Liberté du Concileis a tract which, Friedrich says, if not written by Darboy, was inspired by him.[230]Only fifty copies were printed during the Council, for distribution exclusively among the Cardinals, and with the strictest injunctions of secrecy. The whole is given in theDocumenta ad Illustrandum.[231]It is introduced by an article from theMoniteurof the 14th February, 1870. One of its earliest sentences compresses the secret history of Cecconi into a few words. "The first unhappy thought, and that from which the Council now suffers, was the wish, so to speak, to make the Council beforehand, and to make it without the bishops." It is right to mention that M. Veuillot says that this writer recounts ill, reasons worse, and draws inferences worst of all.[232]

For two years, complains this writer, the bishops had been refused any programme. They had not been afforded any possibility of studying questions about to be raised, or of preparing themselves to discuss them.[233]It would seem that the writer did not know that the preparations had extended over five years instead of two. He says that the Council had not made its Rules of Procedure; the Pope had imposed them.It had not chosen one of its officers, not even a scrutineer; the Pope had selected them all beforehand. The reason for the restraints imposed on the liberty of the bishops was stated by M. Veuillot as being to take away the liberty of evil, which the writer considers an insult to the bishops. We may remark that this is a principle which, had it been acted upon by the great government above us all, would have precluded every question as to the origin of evil. This tract affirms that the Commission for Proposals was composed exclusively of declared partisans of the Court. That statement is not quite accurate. Rauscher was a mighty instrument of the Curia in its ordinary aggressions on the civil power, but too sensible to approve of its present projects. Cardinal Corsi also, though at last he voted with the majority, was all along reputed as averse to the definition of infallibility. The next complaint is that the Committees for the important subjects of Dogma, Discipline, the Religious Orders, and Oriental affairs, are permanent, chosen once for all, and chosen by a strictly party vote, excluding every Fallibilist. Thus, is it urged, only ninety-six bishops out of nearly eight hundred would ever know anything of those real deliberations which principally determine the results of the Council. These Committees would have to decide upon all alterations to be made in Drafts of Decrees after the first Drafts had been discussed by the bishops generally. They would have the sole responsibility of bringing them forward in the definitive shape in which they must be voted upon, Yea or Nay. Thus, he repeats, seven hundred out of eight hundred are absolutely excluded from a share, at any time whatever, in the most important operations of the Council. The indignation of the author would not have been lessened had he known that this particular point had been carefully weighed by the Nine. They at first resolved to allow the Council to elect, as had been done at Trent, committees for each particular matter as it arose. It was, however, subsequently foreseen that this regulation might open the way to the election of men who were not safe. After a discussion, a man who had displayedability in treating the matter in hand might be elected on the committee for that reason alone! If, on the other hand, committees were chosen once for all, it would be easy to secure the exclusion of wrong names in that one election, and no opportunity of changing them would ever arise.[234]

The writer ofLa Liberté du Concileproceeds to say that a number of bishops urgently requested the Pope, in order to ensure a wise selection of these all-controlling committees, to direct that the Fathers should be divided into groups, and should in these discuss pending questions separately, on the plan adopted in theBureauxof the French and Italian Chambers. Thus the Fathers, who for the most part were perfect strangers to one another, would in a little time learn who were the capable men, and would be in a position to make a proper selection. This appeal, probably the one we have already mentioned, was not even answered.

The lords of wide dioceses, accustomed to rule their clergy with military authority and to face statesmen with considerable pretensions, were now reduced to struggle for very small liberties. They attempted to form themselves into groups, by nation or by language. So far as the French were concerned, this arrangement failed. Each of their two Cardinals, De Bonnechose and Matthieu, received a group in his own house. Cardinal De Bonnechose would not consent that all the French bishops should meet together. Even when they divided, he went for advice to Antonelli, who intimated that they ought not to meet inlarger groups than fifteen or twenty. The effect of all this was, that when the time for making arrangements for the election of the committees came, they had no concert among themselves; and the writer states that after that election, the annoyances confronting Cardinal Matthieu were so great, that he felt obliged for a time to leave Rome. Hereupon the bishops who had previously met at his house resolved to go to that of Cardinal De Bonnechose, who had, for once, to receive them; but he againconsulted Antonelli, and declared that this first general meeting should also be the last.

The bishops desired to select the best men of their own nation to be nominated as members of the permanent committees. The Curia, however, had provided for all that. The "ticket" of Cardinal De Angelis, as it would be called in America, was the counter move. The German and Hungarian bishops had shown more cohesion than the French. They met together, and made a selection of the principal men from their own number; but that resulted in nothing. The Curia had selected those whom it preferred, setting aside the men who stood high with their fellow-countrymen, and putting forward those who with them would have had no chance. An official list was prepared bearing the name of Cardinal De Angelis. Of course the bishopsin partibus, the missionary bishops, and all the mere dependents of the Court, voted for the official list; and thus the whole of the four permanent committees were composed, as the secret preparatory commission had been, exclusively of the nominees of the Curia. The Jesuit Press gloried over this result. M. Veuillot said that the Committee on Faith was an echo of the great commission appointed by the Pope. Sambin recorded the triumph, with satisfaction, for permanent history. The result showed that the Court could count on about 550 votes.[235]De Angelis was appointed to the vacant post of Chief President, in room of Reisach. Cardinal Schwarzenberg was not on any committee, Hohenlohe was out of the question. Even the Archbishop of Cologne was only on a petty committee for granting leave of absence. But Bishop Senestrey, of Regensburg, the author of the throne-upsetting speech, was on the all-important committee for dogma.

This manœuvre excited strong indignation amongst all shades of the marked men. They found themselves shut off from such a part in deliberations as would have been granted by any worldly cabinet to an honourable Opposition. Then, the mode of securing the result by the expedients of a politicalelection caused bitter recollections of frequent admonitions, given both verbally and in the Press, not to reason about the Council as an ordinary human assembly, but to evince a worthy confidence in the all-guiding power of the Holy Ghost. TheRheinischer Merkurremarked that the Romans had a saying, that at the beginning of a conclave the devil reigns, then the world carries all before it, and only at the last does the Holy Ghost turn both out and regulate things according to His own will. This genuine specimen of Roman mockery is applied to the Council by theMerkursaying that as yet the third stage had certainly not set in.[236]The selection, said theMerkur, of committees was one-sided and narrow-minded. The Archbishop of Paris and the Bishop of Orleans saw themselves thrown aside, and nominal bishops put in the places they ought to have occupied. The German bishops, who had strongly confided in the moderation of the Curia, found that no amount of trimming would avail; nothing short of a sound profession on the question of infallibility. Vitelleschi says that the clearest, most sincere and disinterested opposition was that of the German bishops. They knew what they meant, and also knew that they expressed the collective sense of their people; besides, they always acted with moderation. He ascribes this moderation to two causes, namely, the fact that they consciously did express the views of their people, and that they were, more or less, influenced by Protestant modes of thinking. We confess that we see little proof that any German bishops but the Curialistic ones were clear. We should rather have said that they were at sea. As to the moderation, however, Vitelleschi adds that no such moderating influence of Protestant opinion appeared in the case of the English prelates. "Several bishops, with Manning at their head, more Catholic than the Pope, are noted for their Ultramontanism" (p. 45). He adds, that even the Irish bishops were less uniformly Infallibilists than the English. Of the Belgians, he says that some naturally took the more liberal direction. De Mérode, well known inRome as a Court prelate, placeman, and speculator, like Dupanloup, had been a champion of the temporal power, but now proved to be an anti-infallibilist.Et tu, Brute, fili mi!exclaims the Roman. As to the Spaniards, Vitelleschi says that they had been trained in the school of Torquemada; and if they were content with being only Ultramontanes, that was something gained. These are the divines of whom Quirinus says that if ordered by the Pope to vote that there were four persons in the Trinity, they would do it. Vitelleschi remarks that the prelates of the United States were simpler than their brethren, and less practised in ecclesiastical politics. Their want of any political importance at home, he believes, had predisposed them to warmer sympathy with Curialistic views than might have been expected from them. Nevertheless, it proved in time that, under the forms of ecclesiastical discipline, the spirit of citizens of a free country did now and then make its appearance among them. Another of his remarks is, that, with the exception of Portugal, most of the bishops from small countries were in the interest of the Curia. Speaking of Mermillod, from Geneva, Quirinus says that he "rivals Manning in his fanatical zeal for the new dogma." Of course the Italian bishops, with very few exceptions, were Infallibilists, and those from South America were all upon the same side. The bulk of the Opposition bishops were German, Hungarian, and French, reinforced by some of the older ones from Ireland, a few of the English, a good many of the North American, and only about twenty of the entire body of the Italian.

The various groups had now everything to stimulate them to put their proposals into shape. Those of the Curia were in shape already. They naturally took the old direction of conforming the creed to innovations in practice. At Trent this was done with many innovations, which must either fall into discredit or be lifted above dispute. In this way was the demand for a reform of the Church to raise her to the level of the creed, met by a determination to bring down the creed to the level of the Church. The two movements wereconfronted. Reformation, on the one side, renovating the condition of the Church; and Conformity, on the other side, adulterating the creed. Both together resulted in the wide separation which has been witnessed ever since. The necessity now pressing sprang from different causes. No party had arisen to challenge the primacy of the Pope, even in the form of all but unlimited monarchy, into which, under cover of the gentle word "primacy," it had been monstrously developed. On the contrary, indeed, of late years the faithful had shown increasing submissiveness, proportioned to the dangers surrounding the Pope. But the Papacy itself was moving for constitutional powers which demanded a new dogmatic basis.

In comparison with the magnificence of the scheme of one fold and one shepherd, the notions of the German bishops, as disclosed by Friedrich, are an illustration of how administrators putter when immense issues press for solution. While the architects were designing a new coliseum, the joiners and stone-cutters were great upon cusps and corbels. In answer to the seventeen questions issued in Rome at the centenary of St. Peter, the German bishops had deliberated at Fulda for five days. Marriage, as a mine yielding richly to the local authorities in fees, and to the Curia in dispensation taxes, and also as a means of power over females, and over the education of children, was naturally one of the main points. Another point included the offences for which parish priests should be liable to deposition. On this the bishops advised the addition of two offences to the list—notorious fornication and open concubinage.

Hints were thrown out about abolishing all benefices, as they were said to be feudal. The clergy could not be fully mobilized but by the abolition of permanent appointments. The whole effect of the questions was to bring out the existence in Germany of too great toleration of intercourse with Protestants; intercourse to a degree not consistent with the militant footing on which things were to be put. This applied to christenings, weddings, burials, and other events of life, where the milk of human kindness sometimes willoverflow, and men will forget that they belong to a society which scarcely regards those who are not of it as morally entitled to existence. The bishops naturally desired that the number ofcausae majores, or reserved cases, should be curtailed, as that would increase their own freedom and power. They also expressed a wish that censures should not be enforced against Catholic judges who found themselves obliged to pronounce sentences adverse to the canon law. This they advised in order to avoid the exclusion of Catholics from the judicial bench. They moreover suggested that unreasonably contracting debts and habitual drunkenness should be added to the list of causes warranting the removal of a priest. They did touch a few minute points of a properly religious kind, connected with the forgiveness of sins, ordination, and other questions.

Friedrich remarks that these ideas tended to the omnipotence of the bishops by sacrificing the parish priests. This object, however, was a natural complement of the sacrifice of the bishops to the Curia. If the bishop is himself an absolute dependent on the Court, all his subordinates must be left to his mercy. The Curia knew how to lure on the bishops to the forfeiting of their own franchises, by using their love of power against the franchises of the priests.

Friedrich gravely says that the movableness of the parish priests would not cure the moral evils complained of. It is not by outward correction that a man becomes morally better, but by the ennobling of the inner man, which, alas! is so little aimed at among the clergy. When a French bishop can say in the Senate, "My clergy are a regiment; they are bound to march, and they do march," he only shows how the Christian spirit has evaporated from among the hierarchy. A few weeks before Friedrich left home he had conversed with Döllinger upon the seventeen questions, and he says that they were the only points respecting the Council on which they did converse together. What the aged provost said, observes Friedrich, will always remain in my memory. "On one occasion, Windischmann remarked in my presenceand that of others, 'If I was compelled to answer according to the contents of the ordinary's book, whether celibacy should be abolished or not, I should have to speak unconditionally for its abolition.'"

We have seen, in a previous chapter, that some of the lower clergy had indicated plans of considerable range, but they pointed in a direction in which Rome was incapable of going. Great attention was attracted by a project, appearing with the name of a learned layman in Switzerland, Dr. Segesser.[237]His charter had no less than twelve points, which are well worth a moment's notice.

1. He held that the Church, in having, for the first time in her history, declined to invite the co-operation of governments with the Council, must now declare for the separation of Church and State.

2. The Council must be a Reform Council in the fullest sense of the word.

3. It must certify the freedom of its members to the world.

4. It must be declared that all who believe in the redeeming work of Christ belong to the Christian communion.

5. No dogma must be added unless urgently called for, not only by theologians, but by the faithful.

6. The primacy being divine, but the Papacy being only a joint product of Roman jurisprudence and theology, the dogma of the pontifical infallibility of the Pope, which would lead back to theocratic ideas, would set the Church and State on a war of mutual annihilation. Therefore it is the absolute duty of the Church to declare herself completely released from the theocratic ideas of the great Popes of the middle ages.

7. The question of infallibility must not be passed over in silence, but must be solemnly declared to be in opposition to the right idea of the constitution of the Church.

8. In mixed questions, such as those of the Church and State, laymen should have some voice.

9. The temporal power must be treated as a local Romaninstitution, and not confounded with the affairs of the universal Church.

10. Freedom of teaching, of organization, and of worship, and equality with all other communions, must be proclaimed; and the Church would do well if she gave up all claim to the immunity of her property, and placed it entirely under the control of the common law.

11. The Index to be given up.

12. We give this in full: "The Christian State was a great ideal, but a yet greater is a State of Christians. To attain to the last the Church must not domineer, but must possess freedom, and give it."

The language of this Liberal Catholic, brought up among German Protestants on the one hand and Swiss ones on the other, would sound altogether alien to the ears of the Cardinals, and would only deepen their painful impression of the evil influences of Protestant teaching upon the children of the Church. Enough occurred at the Council to show that, even among the bishops, there were one or two who would have dared to propose some of the points in Dr. Segesser's scheme, had the members of the Council been permitted to make proposals.

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