Chapter 16

FOOTNOTES:[213]Acta Sanctae Sedis, vol. v. p. 279.[214]Ibid. p. 18.[215]The popular explanation "hinge" is quite correct; the ancient hinge was a pivot inserted in a mortise, on which the door turned.[216]CompareQuirinus, 86, andTagebuch, 25.[217]Stimmen, N.F., vi. p. 170.[218]Id., p. 172.[219]Sambin, p. 41.[220]VII. ix. 6.[221]Civiltá, VII. ix. 103.[222]The first number of theCiviltáfor 1876 (p. 104) contains an account of an audience in which the Pope made a speech to pilgrims from Brittany. Among other things, calling to mind how, on the day of Pentecost, the mockers said that the disciples were full of new wine, he went on to say that there were not wanting leaders of the revolution shameless enough to call by such names as a gang of topers the "respectable and truly Christian youths who, forsaking domestic comfort, came to expose themselves even to blood in defence of this holy see." Liverani, as Canon of Santa Maria Maggiore, lamented his good opportunity, as living near barracks, of estimating the Christian virtues of the "Œcumenical Army." He says very hard things of them; and as to drunkenness makes no scruple of describing the Irish members of the force, in particular, as being not unmindful of home traditions that are no rule of faith, and a bad rule of practice.[223]Tagebuch, pp. 13, 14.[224]Documenta ad Ill., Ab. II, p. 380. The exact date is not given, but only as "before the 10th of December."[225]SeeQuirinus, p. 62.[226]The statement of this writer is no worse than that of many bishops made in pastorals. It is this:Den Bischöfen war vollständig ein Propositionsrecht zugestanden, welches nur der Controle der dafür be stimmten Deputation unterlag, ähnlich wie das auch zu Trient geschehen war.—Katholische Kirche und Christlicher Staat, p. 50.[227]Cecconi, p. 162.[228]Cecconi, p. 160. Hefele, when recommending that the bishops should have the right of proposition, quotes what occurred at the Council of Trent, when the Archbishop of Capaccio-Vallo, on May 10, 1546, repelled the claim of the Legate, Cardinal De Monte, to the exclusive right of proposition. The Archbishop cried, "What am I to do if anything occurs to me which ought to be proposed in this holy Council?" To this De Monte replied, that if either his Grace or any other prelate wished to propose anything, they must submit it to the Legates, who would bring it forward, if they thought well. But should the latter unjustly, or without cause, refuse to bring it forward, then the author, whoever he was, should himself do so. But Hefele does not point to the fact that De Monte made this concession only after being driven to it by force of opposition. Earlier in the very same day, he had asserted the exclusive right of the Legates to propose, and had been confronted by the Cardinal Archbishop of Trent with the plump declaration that he did not want to take the right of proposition from the Legates, but he thought he also might propose what seemed to him right. Then the Legate and the Cardinal, who had been for some time engaged in a passage of arms, apologised to one another. That, however, did not prevent De Monte from again attempting to establish the claim of the chair to the exclusive right of proposition, by once more asserting it. It was on this second attempt that the Archbishop of Capaccio-Vallo reclaimed, and then the Legate had, with ill grace, to give way. (SeeActa Genuina, vol. i. pp. 100, 101.)[229]Priv. Pet., Part III. p. 32.[230]Doc. ad Ill.ii. p. vi.[231]I. 129.[232]I. p. 275.[233]This complaint is ably put in theRheinischer Merkur, first number.[234]Cecconi, pp. 181, 182.[235]Acton, 68.[236]Vol. I. p. 2.[237]Reviewed in theLiteraturblatt, vol. v. p. 157.

FOOTNOTES:

[213]Acta Sanctae Sedis, vol. v. p. 279.

[214]Ibid. p. 18.

[215]The popular explanation "hinge" is quite correct; the ancient hinge was a pivot inserted in a mortise, on which the door turned.

[216]CompareQuirinus, 86, andTagebuch, 25.

[217]Stimmen, N.F., vi. p. 170.

[218]Id., p. 172.

[219]Sambin, p. 41.

[220]VII. ix. 6.

[221]Civiltá, VII. ix. 103.

[222]The first number of theCiviltáfor 1876 (p. 104) contains an account of an audience in which the Pope made a speech to pilgrims from Brittany. Among other things, calling to mind how, on the day of Pentecost, the mockers said that the disciples were full of new wine, he went on to say that there were not wanting leaders of the revolution shameless enough to call by such names as a gang of topers the "respectable and truly Christian youths who, forsaking domestic comfort, came to expose themselves even to blood in defence of this holy see." Liverani, as Canon of Santa Maria Maggiore, lamented his good opportunity, as living near barracks, of estimating the Christian virtues of the "Œcumenical Army." He says very hard things of them; and as to drunkenness makes no scruple of describing the Irish members of the force, in particular, as being not unmindful of home traditions that are no rule of faith, and a bad rule of practice.

[223]Tagebuch, pp. 13, 14.

[224]Documenta ad Ill., Ab. II, p. 380. The exact date is not given, but only as "before the 10th of December."

[225]SeeQuirinus, p. 62.

[226]The statement of this writer is no worse than that of many bishops made in pastorals. It is this:Den Bischöfen war vollständig ein Propositionsrecht zugestanden, welches nur der Controle der dafür be stimmten Deputation unterlag, ähnlich wie das auch zu Trient geschehen war.—Katholische Kirche und Christlicher Staat, p. 50.

[227]Cecconi, p. 162.

[228]Cecconi, p. 160. Hefele, when recommending that the bishops should have the right of proposition, quotes what occurred at the Council of Trent, when the Archbishop of Capaccio-Vallo, on May 10, 1546, repelled the claim of the Legate, Cardinal De Monte, to the exclusive right of proposition. The Archbishop cried, "What am I to do if anything occurs to me which ought to be proposed in this holy Council?" To this De Monte replied, that if either his Grace or any other prelate wished to propose anything, they must submit it to the Legates, who would bring it forward, if they thought well. But should the latter unjustly, or without cause, refuse to bring it forward, then the author, whoever he was, should himself do so. But Hefele does not point to the fact that De Monte made this concession only after being driven to it by force of opposition. Earlier in the very same day, he had asserted the exclusive right of the Legates to propose, and had been confronted by the Cardinal Archbishop of Trent with the plump declaration that he did not want to take the right of proposition from the Legates, but he thought he also might propose what seemed to him right. Then the Legate and the Cardinal, who had been for some time engaged in a passage of arms, apologised to one another. That, however, did not prevent De Monte from again attempting to establish the claim of the chair to the exclusive right of proposition, by once more asserting it. It was on this second attempt that the Archbishop of Capaccio-Vallo reclaimed, and then the Legate had, with ill grace, to give way. (SeeActa Genuina, vol. i. pp. 100, 101.)

[229]Priv. Pet., Part III. p. 32.

[230]Doc. ad Ill.ii. p. vi.

[231]I. 129.

[232]I. p. 275.

[233]This complaint is ably put in theRheinischer Merkur, first number.

[234]Cecconi, pp. 181, 182.

[235]Acton, 68.

[236]Vol. I. p. 2.

[237]Reviewed in theLiteraturblatt, vol. v. p. 157.

CHAPTER III

Further Party Manœuvres—Election of Permanent Committees—Bull of Excommunications—Various Opinions of it—Position of Antonelli—No serious Discussion desired—Perplexities of the Bishops—Reisach's Code suppressed—It may reappear—Attitude of Governments.

Authorsdiffer as to the actors in an incident which marked the second General Congregation, on December 14. Quirinus and Fromman say that Darboy and Strossmayer (Friedrich says that Dupanloup and Strossmayer) attempted to speak on the Rules of Procedure, but were stopped by Cardinal De Luca, on the ground that what the Holy Father had decreed could not be discussed. The official writers at the time said not a word of the incident, nor is it named in theActa Sanctae Sedis, nor inFrond.

Thus the bishops had now ascertained their position, but too late. Quirinus naturally says that had the assembly been, in some measure, prepared for the Rules, there would have been opposition; but good care had been taken that the assembly should not be prepared, and should not have any chance of offering opposition. The first gleam of hope, adds this author, excited by the announcement that the bishops would be allowed to propose measures, had speedily vanished. Lord Acton says (p. 63): "The bishops felt themselves in an entangled position. Some began to speak of going home. Some complained that the Rules foreclosed questions involving divine rights, and said that they felt bound to put even the existence of the Council to stake."

The election of the Permanent Committee on Dogma was the great work of the day. Archbishop Kenrick's Latin note[238]states that lithographed lists were distributed some daysbefore the election, with the inscription,To the honour of Mary, conceived Immaculate; and that these lists were recommended by the name of Cardinal De Angelis. Four hundred of the votes sent in gave the list entire. It was by these tactics that every Fallibilist, without exception, was excluded from the committees. But Canon Pelletier, who wrote what inFrondpasses for the history of the Council and is a good history of the ceremonies and the dresses, declares that the election proved the perfect freedom of the Fathers, for though all the names on the official list were chosen, they were not brought in according to the order in which they stood on that list. The French prelates of the minority were especially incensed, both against their leaders and against those whose superior tactics had frustrated their unskilful attempts to unite. Every Frenchman felt that all who represented the traditions and the spirit of the Roman Catholic Church in France were now, in Rome, placed under a species of ostracism. The Fathers left this exciting sitting with another Bull in their hands. Again Letters Apostolic to the present! TheActa Sanctae Sedisaffirm that the work of preparing this Bull could not be got through in time to send it to the Fathers before the Council. Its title was gentle. It was a Bull to Limit the Censures of the Church. Quirinus mentions a mission undertaken by Cardinal Pitra, a Frenchman, with the intention of bringing the prelates of his own country into accord with the Curia. This he followed up by a similar attempt with the German bishops. Pitra began by describing Dupanloup to the latter as "a mischievous teacher of error," but he was stopped, and told that the Germans agreed with Dupanloup.

A favourite topic of conversation now was the chance of disorganizing the Opposition. The first checks appeared to have had the effect of consolidating it, but the resources of the Court were generally assumed to be efficacious. Over and over again was it asserted that the hope of a robe of some distinguishing hue, or of a title on the list of domestic prelates of the Pope, would win over almost any bishop, anassertion which proved not to be correct.[239]Quirinus, in common with German writers generally, speaks of the honour of being on that list as one that ought to be coveted rather by menials than by dignitaries; and Italians may often be heard saying much the same thing. Again, faculties enabling a bishop to give absolution, or dispensations, in certain reserved cases, yield to him both power and fees. "Nine bishops out of ten want favours"—an assertion of Quirinus—seems bold, but it was written in Rome.

The Bull professing to limit the censures of the Church, was found to be another case of a winning title to a dreadful document. The censures with which it dealt were only a portion out of Rome's store, those, namely, under which one falls by the very act of committing the offence, without any need of trial or sentence. They are called offencesLatae Sententiae, or judged already. He that confesses to one such act is,ipso facto, excommunicate, or, in the less heinous cases "suspended." The Bull, as we have said, professed to limit the number of these cases; many of which represent multitudes in all Roman Catholic countries, who must either shun the confessional, knowing that in that tribunal they are judged already, or must go to it to find themselves pronounced outside of the kingdom of grace, and incapable of restoration except by special powers granted from Rome, which always imply special fees.

It was freely said, This is a re-issue of the BullIn Coena Domini, the terrible syllabus of excommunications, at one time annually published; a custom which had ceased since the days of Clement XIV. This cessation was often cited as indicating greater mildness in the spirit of the Roman Court. In the new BullApostolicae Sedisthese excommunications reappeared. They were under different heads. Three classes were reserved to bishops, so that no ordinary priest could release from them. Twenty-nine classes were reservedto the Pontiff, so that no bishop could release from them. Four classes were not reserved to any one.[240]Some bishops declared that they found excommunications here of which they had never been aware up to that moment. Vitelleschi said that if some found in old books were omitted, the Bull re-enacted all of the penal code of the Church that was in force. According as men looked at this document, from a fiscal, hierarchical, or monarchical point of view, their appreciation of it varied. Beyond excommunicating all heretics and heretical books, with the readers, abettors, and so forth, it dealt with few matters which any true theologian would not gladly banish from his bounds, as trespassers.

The hierarchical aspect of the Bull was striking. More than one of its sections pronounced excommunication upon the sin of appealing from any act of the Pope to a future General Council. This was the mortal blow to the doctrine that a Council could judge, and even depose, the Pope, as Councils had done. Being issued in the face of a General Council actually sitting, no alternative remained but that of conflict between the Council and the Pope, or else final abandonment of this once vigorous doctrine. The defiant crowings of the Gallican cock were for ever hushed by this one grip in the claws of the Vatican eagle. This Bull, as compared with the action of the Council of Constance, which deposed two Popes and itself elected one, served to measure the decline of the episcopal and the growth of the pontifical power in the Church. Many of the bishops were old enough to have maintained the doctrine that the Council was above the Pope, against Protestants, who innocently accused all Roman Catholics of being Papists. If any one of them thought of standing by the old flag, what was he to do? To put a notice of motion on the books? That was not permitted. To send a suggestion to the Twenty-six? It might as well go into his own wastepaper basket as into theirs. To speak upon the point? Thatwould be out of order, for bishops were to speak only on matters proposed, and nothing was to be proposed but what the Pope proposed. Moreover, even if in speeches irrelevant matter should be allowed, such matter as that now contemplated would be at once pronounced rebellion. It would be an attempt to discuss what the Holy Father had already decreed. Thus the question of the relative judicial powers of the single Bishop of Rome, and of all the other bishops of the world collectively, was settled by an arbitrary sentence, uttered in the face of all the bishops assembled in conclave; and their assembly, though called a General Council, had no liberty to canvass the decision!

It was a hard dilemma for a man to be placed in who had a sense either of human rights or of a divine office to defend. But the hand of power was over the bishops. No man who opposed even embryo Decrees could ever reasonably hope for a hat; and he who should venture to attack a Bull actually issued must expect to see his mitre reduced to an empty dignity by the withdrawal of his faculties. So the bishops saw a Bull which "thrust the souls entrusted to them by thousands out of the Church"; and what could they do? "The more excommunications, the more perplexed and tormented consciences," cries Quirinus—reminding us of what might often be heard in the old times from thoughtful men in Rome. The whole effort of the priests, they would say, is to keep the conscience in agony, or at least in unrest; for this drives people to the confessor, and hence no end of gains.

A diplomatist regarded the political aspects of the Bull as serious.[241]Excommunicating men for an appeal to a General Council was, as he took it, both the forerunner and the application of the dogma of infallibility. Excommunicating all who should punish bishops, or higher officers of the Church, without making an exception for any breach whatever of law, and, moreover, excommunicating any who, directly or indirectly, should obstruct the execution of Papal mandates, were not only blows but stabs at all civil authority. Thediplomatist argued that the way in which the Pope abolished privileges granted by his predecessors was a poor pledge of the value of any engagements into which the Papacy might enter. The diplomatist ought to have known that the immunity of the clergy from lay jurisdiction was an essential part of the restoration to be accomplished. He ought also to have known that "the free communication" of the Pope with the faithful, or his right to promulge in all countries his decrees as their highest law, was equally essential. The excommunication, not only of heretics, but of all who should harbour or defend them, ay, or should even read their books, led Vitelleschi to raise a question for young theologians, whether the Pope has not excommunicated himself and his own government, seeing he had done more than harbour heretics in an inn, by allowing them a church outside thePorta del Popolo.

The Bull, said some, is only one of a series of measures to be framed, assuming the infallibility of preceding Popes. The dispute as to Bulls which taught any dogma in theology or morals must for ever end. The very points which Liberal Catholics had alleged to be without binding force must be beyond appeal bound on earth, and of course ratified in heaven. A little circumstance not without significance was the fact that, in publishing this document, theCiviltádid not, as it usually does with official documents, furnish a translation of the Latin; and theStimmen, for Germany, followed the example.

In Germany or other Protestant countries an unfavourable impression might be taken of the means to be resorted to for restoring Papal ascendancy when, in the terrible category of offences judged already, without power to remit the sentence beingreserved to any one, even to the Vicar of God, were found the following deeds, which many Christians would do with as cool a sense of duty as that with which under slavelaws they would have befriended a fugitive slave: "Injuring or intimidating Inquisitors, informers, witnesses, or other ministers of the Holy Office; tearing up or burning the papersof its sacred tribunal; or giving to any of the aforesaid aid, counsel, or favour." If the day ever comes for attempting to put this law in force on the now happy soil of England, blessed among her sons or daughters will that one be who first has grace to endure the torments of the Holy Office rather than not break the wicked law!

The fiscal bearing of the Bull would be the one first to strike and most to occupy the Romans. Among men of the different orders, it would occasion many a chat over questions of sin, sacraments, crime, communion, dispensation, remission, and redemption from purgatory, and of the fees flowing from each respectively. Quirinus represents the Jesuits as beholding both the present and the future in rosy hues. The bishops would not be able to give absolution in the reserved cases, but the Jesuits, in very many of them, would haveplenary power. Hence the bishops and the parochial clergy would suffer both in fees and influence, while the confessionals of their powerful rivals would be thronged. "So, each of those multiplied excommunications is worth its weight in gold to the Order, and helps to build colleges and professed houses."[242]Against the complaints which greeted the Bull, theCiviltáalleged that it contained nothing new, and above all that it had been posted up in the customary places in Rome, and was therefore already the law of the Church universal. It was, on the other hand, boldly alleged that there were many new cases of suspension, interdict, or excommunication. Cardinal Antonelli, however, said that there were three hundred excommunications which were not included in the Bull. Lord Acton (p. 70) quotes a passage from the organ of the Archbishop of Cologne, which shows that a good many more will have to be added before all actions are placed under perfect control. The Bull, it is said, does not prohibit "the works of Jews, since Jews are not heretics; nor does it prohibit heretical pamphlets and journals, for these are not books; nor is the hearing of heretical books when read aloud forbidden, since hearing is not reading."

Some doubt hangs round the feeling of Cardinal Antonelli as to the Council. It was often asserted that he had been opposed to it from the first, and was still decidedly so. This seems very probable. A worldly-wise man, capable of amassing a colossal fortune amid the ruins of a petty State, was hardly likely to believe that theà priorifabric of Tarquini and the other Jesuits, and the hot-headed schemes of the Pope, were solid enough to bear what was to be built upon them, or would lead to anything but defeat of the Papacy, and misery to the nations. But in contradiction to this view, Quirinus says that Antonelli was too good a statesman and financier not to see the gain that would flow from the new dogma in power and revenue. The new dogma would doubtless enormously increase the power of the Curia within the Church and over all her organizations. It would thus increase the facility of bringing pressure to bear on a government by threats of disaffection and agitation; but it would at the same time arouse all statesmen, and eventually all intelligent men, except real disciples, against this sacerdotal empire. The most likely explanation of any zeal Antonelli may have shown for the new order of things would perhaps be that while retaining his own view of the risks about to be run, he knew that what was to be was to be, and determined to make the best of it.

Papers immediately preceding the Bull in the pages of theCiviltá[243]seemed to indicate steadiness in the purpose either to bend the States or to break them. One article rang the changes on the old theme of the royalplacetorexequatur, "the crime whereby ecclesiastical judgments are submitted to lay examination." "The Church," it adds, "is not a foreign power, and hence concludes that the State has no right of precautionjus cavendi, in respect of her." The internal power on which the Curia counts, in any country, being that of threatening political agitation, the denial to the State of all right of precaution is essential to the full application of the principle of the Pope's "free communication" with all hissubjects. A physical impediment to the promulging of a Bull was, in old times, not more a precaution than is, in our day, the principle that the law of the land is supreme. Just as the physical impediment was unlawful, so is the legislative one; both stay the free course of "the divine word." The old dukes, kings, and emperors, knowing that in the popular conscience the law of the Pope ranked above all civil law, put a check upon the promulgation of his Bulls. We say, Promulge what you please, but the law of the land is the only law in the land. "Here is the ground on which the future battle is to be fought out."

Just between this article and the catalogue of excommunications came a discussion on unfulfilled prophecy. The Jesuit Father, Soprano, had, by comments on the prophecies of Balaam, Daniel, and the Apocalypse, clearly proved (according to his reviewer) that the city of Rome was destined of God to be in perpetuity the centre of the Catholic Church. The war against the kingdom of Christ was to fail, because "she" could not lose her empire. But certain points as to the issue of the war now raging between the innovators and the kingdom of Christ, were open to inquiry—"What dynasties will survive, what forms of government will prevail, what end will such and such kingdoms come to? Finally, we may ask whether the Holy City, the mount of God, the capital of the Catholic world, Rome, mayfor a timefall under the power of sinners and parricides, to be outraged by fire and sword, and defaced with crimes." But, on the other hand, as to Rome being the stable domicile of catholicity, we might doubt of that only if the mount which cannot be moved could be levelled with the ground.

This expositor is true to the old interpretation that the Babylon of the Apocalypse is Rome, but that was the Pagan Rome, which "fell with the victory of Constantine." It will be observed that he takes the possibility of a temporary fall of the sacred Rome into the hand of the enemy as but an episode in a war that is to continue through a long series of years.

Since 1870, such forecasts as the above, when uttered, have not the same triumphant tone. Nevertheless, they are now as clearly expressed as ever. But at the time of which we speak, if the bishops only read what was written for their learning they could not doubt as to the kind of service which was expected of them in the future. Friedrich intimates that they did not read it, when he relates that, in trying to enlighten one of them, he told him that the only way to understand the Council was to study it with theCiviltá Cattolicain one's hand. But some of them showed a solicitude that could not be explained on any ground short of a perception of the dangers on which the Pope was running the hierarchy. They evidently did not take the view either of those who thought that the Pope, erected into a vice-God, was about to become the real as well as the titular governor of the world, or the view of those who looked on such dreams as matter to laugh at. The calculations which produced the Crusades and the Thirty Years' War, were dreams; but could the Church afford the indemnity which mankind would exact for the miseries of such another struggle?

December 16 marked the second failure in the organization of the Council. The first was the irremediable one of the absence of Cardinal Reisach, and now, before serious discussion had begun, the third General Congregation had to be postponed from the 16th to the 20th,[244]because nobody could be heard in the hall. So six days passed without a sitting. Debates were actually to take place—a thing which had neither been desired nor expected. The hall was a good place for spectacle, but a bad place for a parliament. In vain do bishops frown and editors sneer at the writers who said that the Curia had not expected much discussion. Cecconi comes to the support of the "liars," as in official indignation they were called who told just what there was to tell (p. 180)—

It was a deeply-rooted belief of the Directing Congregation that but rarely would anything have to be referred to the committees of the Council, because the Directing Congregation so well knew how profound had been the attention given by the Preparatory Commissions, that it seemed extremely difficult to believe that the Drafts so prepared should not be received with general favour by the Fathers.

This, in fact, is the excuse put forward by the Nine for not having given the bishops a word to say to the Drafts of Decrees before they were confronted with them, as being already in a form to be voted upon. The practice at Trent had been to state the question as a question. Then it was first discussed by the doctors in the presence of the bishops, who after that appointed a small committee of their own number to put resolutions into shape. The Council proceeded to discuss the Drafts so prepared, amending and again amending them, until they were in a form on which (if the subject was doctrine) almost every one could agree.

It was now, however, coolly assumed that so complete had been the work of the secret commissions that the bishops would not raise any difficulties.

Great variety of opinion, say the Nine, would probably be rare, seeing that the matters to be treated would be already prepared, with great accuracy, by the special Commission, formed by his Holiness, in conjunction with the Directing Congregation (Cecconi, p. 180).

Cecconi repeats that the great confidence felt in the excellence of the work of the theologians had generated in the majority of the members of the Directing Congregation this conviction. He is candid enough to give the reason for bringing the Drafts ready made into full assembly, which was to prevent them from being exposed to the influences which a restricted number of prelates might exert. That amounts to saying that the able men whom a free assembly would have chosen to consider and digest its forms of resolution, were not to be allowed any chance of unitedly studying the forms prepared in secret for them. The Court would bring its own plans, with all their details and complex notes, before the full assembly, which could never thoroughly sift them, and in which the majority was assured.

While in almost everything else the rejection of parliamentary forms was commended, as becoming an assembly which had to contend against both the principles and results of parliamentary government, the practice of our own Houses in bringing in Bills ready drawn was pleaded in favour of the course taken in preparing extended drafts of dogmatic decrees. But our Parliament has never yet been called together to vote that laws are as good if issued by the Crown, without the advice of Lords and Commons, as with it. Nor has it ever been asked to pass a measure which neither it nor any succeeding Parliament could recall. Our Parliament is never asked to discuss a Bill without first having the right to say whether it shall or shall not be brought in. It never finds a Bill before it which, if it pleases, it may not refer to a special committee. Any member can move the rejection or the postponement of the whole, can move the omission or amendment of any part, and can take the sense of the House. None of these things could be done at the Vatican Council. The bishops could make Latin speeches in a row, first on the Draft as a whole, and then, in a second row, on the parts. But only twenty-four of their number could ever put a hand to the amending of the proposed statute. With those twenty-four were associated irresponsible persons, non-members. As that mixed body finally shaped the propositions, must the Fathers vote upon them, with a Yea or Nay that sealed the creed of their churches for ever.

It was not wonderful that the Curia should believe in the perfection of the Roman theology, since they took their own government for perfect, and the capital for a model city of the saints. The German estimate of the Court theology is indicated by Quirinus when he says that "though the Pope had four hundred theologians, theology is now rare, very rare, in Rome." He goes on to assert that if one should say that ability to read the Greek Testament and the Greek Fathers in the original was a necessary qualification of a theologian, "he would be ridiculed." As to the divinity even of the bishops, the evidence of Quirinus is little more flattering than that of Friedrich; but the discussions yet to come will show that men of real power were not wanting.

The first Scheme or Draft of Decrees on dogma now appeared. It was nothing less than a book of one hundred and forty quarto pages, containing eighteen chapters and fifty-four paragraphs. Frond makes it folio and of 131 pages.

TheRheinischer Merkurquotes a Catholic journal which in admiration of this masterpiece says that when adopted by the Council it would form a text-book. Yet this mass of divinity, any phrase, almost any word of which might affect the vital truths of religion, was put before the bishops with only a few days to study it, and they were expected to vote it as an irreformable creed, to be ready for promulgation, as bound on earth and bound in heaven, on January 6, the day decreed in the first session! Friedrich, looking at this bulky pamphlet, cries, All through we have the language of the schools; any one familiar with the Jesuit writings sees at once by whom it has been prepared.

Graf W., a Roman prelate, paid Friedrich a visit arrayed in all his vestments and decorations. Surprised at such a display by a stranger, Friedrich asked himself, Does he want to make an impression upon me, or to excite a longing for similar clothes? The conversation turned upon infallibility, and the Count Monsignore said that it would be carried through; for when the Curia had committed itself to anything, it was not to be balked. Friedrich, saying that for his part he had nothing to do but to speak according to his conscience, and that as a priest he knew well what must be his course when once the point was decided, went on to state that, not having his eye on a canonry or a bishopric, and being happy in his independent position as a professor in the university, he felt free. This surprised the Curialist, but Friedrich in turn was still more surprised when the man in soft raiment and living in kings' houses said that it was otherwise with him. He belonged to the Roman prelacy, and if he meant to continue in it, he must do what he was bid.

The German doctor was struck by hearing people assurehim that life was tolerably safe in Rome if you were sure of your cook, your doctor, and your chemist (p. 30).

The German bishops had not, like the French, asked permission to meet among themselves, but their place of meeting had been cared for. Monsignor Nardi, a slashing writer, and a conspicuous member of the Curia, spared no pains to secure them for his own house. Cardinal Hohenlohe offered his for the purpose, but he scarcely received a civil answer. Even German bishops said as much as that they should compromise themselves by being identified with him. They began to feel their position very delicate. As they were assembled on December 22, with Cardinal Schwarzenberg in the chair, they were joined for the first time by three favourites of the Curia—Senestrey, Martin, and Leonrod. But when Senestrey found that they were discussing the propriety of petitioning the Pope for a relaxation of the Rules, he remembered that business required his presence elsewhere. We may be ready to smile at men, holding professedly the position of members of a Council, who durst not rise in their places and insist on having liberty to propose what their consciences dictated; and who, when refused that liberty, instead of declining to take part in the mock Council, went into a caucus, and drew up a petition to the autocrat who had snatched away their rights.

But their position was very difficult. If they attempted in their places to speak on the matter, the fatal sentence fell upon them that what the Holy Father had decreed could not be discussed. What then could they do but decline to take part in the Council? This would be coming into direct collision with the Pope. The moral education of their lives had aimed at fixing in their own minds, and they, in their action upon others, had aimed at fixing in their minds, one conviction—that the crime exceeding and comprehending all others was to break with the Pope. They were so placed as to have no alternative but either "disobedience" or the surrender of their individual and collective rights. They seem, indeed, to have thought that it was rather a spirited proceeding to send in a petition.

Archbishop Haynald of Hungary proposed that they should request the Pope to divide the Fathers into eight national groups. This was suggested with some idea of counter-balancing the fictitious majority made up by titular bishops and vicars apostolic. Had one nation been allowed to balance another, the effect no doubt would have been considerable; but how these venerable men could imagine that this scheme had any chance with the Pope, we cannot tell. The bishopsin partibus, and the missionary bishops, being mostly Italians, would have been well nigh lost in such an arrangement. The Curia well knew that it had been tried at Constance, and was not to be caught.

What Friedrich heard of the opinions of the prelates as to the Draft Decrees, was unfavourable. Cardinal Rauscher was reported to have said that he would allow the paper to be read in his seminaries as the work of a student, but that to propose it to a German Council was too bad (p. 35). Many of the bishops said that its condemnations were untimely, and that it was unworthy of the dignity of a General Council. It was said to be the work of the Jesuit Fathers Schrader and Franzelin; but instead of the latter, Kleutgen was often named. The Dominicans spoke slightingly of it. The Bishop of Ascoli, a Carmelite, said he had only patience to get through half of it, and then he threw it away. Strossmayer said to Friedrich, Why must the Council at this time of day pronounce condemnations as to squabbles heard of only in the schools, and worn out even there? (p. 37). Kagerer told Friedrich that the bishops had agreed not to tell their theologians what passed at their private meetings; on which Friedrich remarks that the bishops were right, for the chaplains and secretaries by whom they were served could not be properly described as theologians. He then gave a sigh for Hefele. Meanwhile, he said, it was hard to listen to the talk of men, like Kagerer, who had come up without preparation, who were not furnished with books, and who drove a trade in theology by guesswork.

Monsignor Nardi's hospitality to the German bishops hadnot a smooth course. After having met at his house for the greater part of December, when they alighted one night in the Piazza Campitelli, they found the servant of Cardinal Schwarzenberg posted there to send them back again. The Cardinal had received from Nardi a request to be relieved of their further presence, giving so short notice that there was no means of meeting the case but that of setting the servant to turn the bishops away from the door. Thenceforth they found a German host, Cardinal Rauscher.[245]

The General Congregation of December 20, after learning the names chosen for the Permanent Committee on Faith, had been occupied with the election of the Permanent Committee on Discipline; but as theActacontain no records of any transactions of the Congregations, beyond the bare lists of the committees elected by them, the strictly official means of ascertaining what passed are all butnil. TheActa Sanctae Sedismay be fairly considered as official in a looser sense; and it is strange how the brief but clear occasional notes of particulars which they contain, almost invariably confirm the profane writers in statements denied, or apparently denied, at the time by faithful ones. Deputations, including among others Strossmayer, went hither and thither in search of a hall to meet in. Quirinus thought that the one in the Vatican by the Sistine Chapel would not be of good omen, on account of the picture of St. Bartholomew's massacre. Had any real wish existed to find a place in which seven hundred gentlemen might sit and speak, it could easily have been done; but the wholesome exhalations from the tomb of St. Peter would not have been so potent anywhere else, even in Rome, as in the Vatican. One-third of the space in the hall was now curtained off. The debates were to open on December 28, that is, after twenty days had been lost.

News of the death of Cardinal Reisach destroyed the hope that his influence might prevent the Germans from standing with the Opposition. The preparations for a code regulating civil and ecclesiastical relations, on which he had spent years,were not to see the light. It had already been resolved not to present to the Council the Drafts prepared by his Commission on Ecclesiastico-Political Affairs. Cecconi (p. 266) thinks that probably the absence of the Cardinal "contributed to the shipwreck" of his proposals. The subject was "thorny"; and again, it was not decorous to make inoperative laws, or expedient to make combative ones. It would seem that the supreme cause of the shipwreck was the practical consideration that nowadays civil governments, "which form an essential element in such matters," oppose ecclesiastical laws, instead of taking charge of their execution. The official historian, however, is of opinion that the failure of this first attempt to indite a code of ecclesiastico-political law is not final. A time, he thinks, may come when it can be renewed, with hope of success—a declaration full of instruction as to the future. The time for renewing the attempt to prepare such a code will, according to the Archbishop of Florence,

arrive when this rapid and ceaseless movement, political and social, going on under our eyes, and making us daily spectators of great and often of unlooked-for events, shall have reached its ultimate period, to which will certainly succeed (unless the last days succeed) an entirely new era in the history of the human species. When that day comes, I know not what portion of the old institutions will remain standing; but sure I am that one of them will have survived, though peradventure externally bruised and lacerated. She alone will be mistress of the field that day, and the princes (if indeed the sound of that name will still be heard), but certainly the nations, having then, after long and cruel experience, made up their minds that out of her there is no well-being, either in this life or beyond the tomb, will demand from her the laws of tranquil repose, together with the earnest of eternal happiness (p. 301).

This language is the more significant as having been written since the war in 1870, and even since the outbreak in Germany of imperial resistance to the movement for priestly domination. With regard to princes, it seems to breathe the threat which was screeched out by the Jesuit organs in 1869 and 1870, that if they were not to sink in the coming struggle, they must make peace with the Church.

As to the nations and the laws of the Church, it adroitly represents the nations, not as submitting to receive the law at her dictation, but as demanding from her the laws which give repose. The ever-recurring alternative of submission or disturbance, if not destruction, is smoothly but gravely put. Still, the historian seems as if he wrote thus rather by official duty than by personal impulse. But, like all the "inspired" writers, he takes it for granted that the Church holds the "repose" of nations in her power. Cardinals count on the effect of thorns planted in the pillows of statesmen. They know how to teach principles that form a people within the nation ready to obey a foreign word of command, and they know how and when to give the word. They always—so say men in Italy—know how to find an Ahithophel, and how a Delilah!

Fears were often expressed lest an attempt should be made on December 28 to carry Papal infallibility by acclamation. The bishops, however, seem to have had backbone enough to determine upon a formal protest should this occur. Friedrich tells how those dignitaries who make little of denouncing the laws of their respective countries were very anxious in Rome to find some mode of giving expression to their complaints and desires without printing, which in the Model State they durst not do.

He also states that on the day before the opening of the discussion the Pope was greatly depressed. It may have been a diplomatic depression. What bishop could be so heartless as to make speeches that would weigh on the spirit of the Holy Father, and in fact to call in question Draft Decrees prepared by his authority and proposed in his name? What bishop, by obstructing their adoption, could occasion a risk that the day fixed by Decree for the second session should arrive without any Decree being ready? One of Friedrich's statements, which, before Cecconi published, seemed the most improbable of all, was that Cardinal Bilio, the President of the Preparatory Commission on Dogma, had reckoned on the Draft being carried with scarcely any discussion. Much as we knew of the displacement of the idea of conviction by thatof submission, this statement seemed too monstrous. But the Archbishop of Florence appears unconscious of anything strange in the case. If Italian novelists and journalists, with whom the indifference of the national mind to religion is a favourite idea, had combined to give an illustration of that indifference, they could hardly have invented anything so expressive. A Cardinal taking it for granted that seven hundred bishops could hastily adopt for ever as doctrine binding upon themselves, their successors, and their Churches, a considerable work, every single phrase of which any serious man would weigh before he accepted it for his own creed, but would weigh ten times more carefully before he imposed it upon others—before he took it upon his soul to curse all who did not accept it, and to declare them cut off from the kingdom of God! Yet it is plain that not only Bilio, but the Curia generally, expected the passing of the Draft as almost a matter of course. In their minds the idea of submission to the Papal authority had first displaced, and then completely replaced, the idea of religious conviction.

The first Vatican Decree passed after the Council had been declared open, fixed the feast of Epiphany (January 6) as the day of the second session, in the expectation that this Draft, or a portion of it, would by that time have been adopted. But, like the first Vatican appointment, the first Vatican Decree had been not ratified in heaven. TheCiviltásaid (VII. ix. 227), "As the discussion on the Draft proposed is not terminated, no Decrees will be published in the second session." TheActa Sanctae Sediscurtly wrote, "No Decree was published because none was ready."[246]

Meantime the relative attitudes of the Council and of the Catholic governments had become more clearly defined. Following France, and rejecting the view of Bavaria and Portugal, the governments had determined not to interfere. Portugal had sent to her minister his credentials as ambassador to the Council, but finding that he should be alone, Count Lavradio did not present them. France, which for the last tenyears had been abused by the Papal organs, was now loudly praised. Even M. Veuillot said that she was more liberal and more Christian than the other nations, for her bayonets were at Civitá Vecchia to restrain the violence of the Italians, and God would not forget it to her. True, French statesmen every now and then did show some apprehension as to what might come to pass if every child in France should learn in his catechism that the Pope was infallible, and if most of them should grow up under teachers who would gently show how the Modern State rebelled against the divine constitution of the world as implied in that fundamental truth, for the government of the nations. It was even said that Darboy plainly declared that should infallibility be proclaimed, the French troops would no longer remain in the Papal States. However that might have been, all that fell from the inspired pens was pervaded with quiet reliance on France. It seemed as if the writers believed that, just then, events depended more on one Spanish lady, in the Tuileries, than on all the Frenchmen in Paris and the departments.

It cannot be said that the compliance with the wishes of the Curia shown by politicians, was repaid by a milder attitude. The new Bull, technically calledApostolicae Sedis, popularly called the newIn Coena Domini, was menacing. The graveCiviltá(VII. ix. 134) said—

Whom would the people obey? God and the Church, or the State?... As it is evident that the Church assembled in Council can only repeat, and that more strongly than ever, that as between God and men, as between the Church and the State, obedience is to be rendered to God and the Church instead of to man and the State, and as it is evident that in Catholic and civilized countries, in spite of all the efforts of sects, respect for the Church endures, and increases, while all respect for States and governments diminishes, it is clear that the Liberals, who are dominant almost everywhere, tremble at the Council, which is bound to proclaim more loudly than ever, We must obey God rather than men.

Even the little review at the Villa Borghese set M. Veuillot reflecting on the restoration of that "Christian order" whichconsists in the due submission of the natural to the supernatural order—

If we only think that the Council has to re-establish the Christian order without restoring the ancient aristocracy, irremediably fallen, and has to replace the social laws in a position where property and liberty shall be freed from the grasp of democracy, which is no more than an administrative aristocracy, we shall conclude that the task is not a trifle, and that the seed to be sown is not of a kind to ripen in a day.

In most Papal countries, indeed, the ancient aristocracy has fallen, and, much as priests like titles and stars in their train, they like broad acres still better, and legislative power even better still. Even when barons held lands in fief under prince-bishops and abbots, they were frequently tempted to insubordination. And in the Model State, the career open to a lord was as nearly as possible that which in our chaotic state is open to a lady. So, the aristocracy were not to be restored. But in the new Christian order both freedom and property were to be taken out of the hands of the democracy. This had been well done in the states of the Church, and partly done elsewhere, in the middle ages. In the formula, "The Pope and the People," people does not, we repeat, mean democracy, but subject populace, with a ruling priesthood and nobody to come between priest and mob. Matters would be greatly simplified if both an aristocracy and an administrative democracy were removed out of the way. But, true to the far-aiming plans of the school, M. Veuillot was thinking of the seed-time, knowing that the harvest was as yet far off. When the prize is no less than the supremacy of the world, a year may well be counted for a day.

M. Veuillot, alluding to those profane creatures the correspondents of worldly newspapers, said he had had to do with government spies, but Press spies made him respect the former. The Press spies detested respectable men, seeming to think that they spoiled the profession, and prevented it from enjoying all the hatred and contempt it merited (i. 33). M. Veuillot could afford to assume this attitude. TheUniverswas sanctified by the Pope's blessing, and certified by his brief. This high-caste scribe had not, however, said a word about the device by which the election of committees had been carried, though he gloried in the choice of men. He had not mentioned the electoral tickets, nor alluded to the prohibition of collective meetings of the French bishops, nor to the petition sent in by some of their number for a few morsels of liberty. He had, however, told the faithful that none of the bishops had any desire to be put on the committees, and that a prelate from South America, on finding himself elected, wept and said, "What do you mean? I am not fit. I know nothing." Writing on January 20, after the division of parties had become clearly defined, M. Veuillot said that should an Opposition group be formed, as some feared would be the case, it would only be small, and would be rather outside of the Council than in it. "Outside," said a bishop to me yesterday, "there is some room for the spirit of man; inside there will be no room for anything but the Spirit of God; and though unanimity is by no means necessary, it will nevertheless seldom fail." It was, at this time, still hoped that the "pontifical secret" would leave no chink by which the tenor of the debates could leak out. "How," exclaims M. Veuillot, "will this assembly be able to distribute its incalculable labours, and carry them to an end? Immense questions arise on all sides. It is the human species that has to be set in march. Nature feels its infirmity." Still, it will prove, he asserts, that the Council can more easily make decrees for centuries, than modern governments can make constitutions to last a few months.

An address to the Holy Father, from the Society of Catholic Italian youth having its headquarters in Bologna, declared that in answer to the infernal fury of the enemies of the sacred Council, they protested their resolution to obey its Decrees as the holy gospel, as the decrees of God Himself, and to defend its disciplinary acts as the acts of God Himself. In conclusion, they call the Pope, among other titles, the living Peter, the infallible mouth of the Church and of Christ Himself, the Vicar of God, "whose word for us and the Catholic universe is the truth of God which endureth for ever."[247]A strong force of equally well-trained youths in every country would do something to give substance to the dream of universal empire, by a Crusade of St. Peter.

To say that theCiviltáand theUnitá Cattolicacontradicted nearly all the facts reported by the journals of Europe, would be a tame statement of the case. They not only gave the lie, but did so with all sorts of aggravating epithets. The Italian papers were most belied, because they, feeling no respect for the men of the Curia, did not care to put on any, but tore off false covers relentlessly, and even with mockery. According to an ordinary Italian saying, respect for the Curia begins outside the walls of Rome, and increases in proportion to distance. Still, the French, German, and English papers, though more respectful—the last, in comparison, deferential—were denounced as lying and lying again. This went smoothly till the lie-givers descended to particulars. Even then it answered, to some extent, till time brought facts to the test. Now, it is sad to look at these contradictions, and compare them with documents registered in the same pages, or with facts which even there are no longer disputed. Any one who wants a lesson in the art of giving the lie may go to an article in theCiviltá(VII. ix. p. 327), and succeeding ones. After studying them an Englishman would be more charitable to Romans when they say that if the Jesuits contradict a thing well, they begin to think it must be true. But he would discover that, under an apparent contradiction, there is often preserved a possibility of saying that there was no real one. A statement has been made containing one main fact, which was perfectly true, but with two or three accidental appendages, some one of which was not true, and the whole is treated as false. For instance, the whole tale of Nardi dismissing the German prelates is to appearance ridiculed, because one journal says that Nardi had made a secret door, at which he played the eavesdropper. Of course it was anItalian journal—La Nazione—which thought that a probable action for a monsignore of the Curia.

TheNuova Antologia, a review of high standing in Italy, published articles on the Council, which formed the basis of Vitelleschi's book. TheCiviltáassigned them to Salvatore de Renzi, spoke of them as being not more inaccurate than others, and after general charges came to particulars. The author's "want of reflection" appeared in his supposing that though abbots and generals of orders both had seats, only the former had votes. Moreover, he had said that in the sessions the Fathers always wore the read pluvial and mitre; whereas in the first two sessions they had worn the white ones, and the statement as to the mitre wasfalsissimo, as false as could be, for in Rome, and in the presence of the Pope, they always wore one of white silk or cloth. When all Catholics were in serious excitement, when they knew that hands were laid on their creed to alter it for them and their children, it was such matters as the above which weighed upon the minds of the Jesuits, and justified outcry against men who strove to get and give some little information.

The first article of professed intelligence in theCiviltáafter the Council had really got to work, spoke of giving only theexternalnews, which was what all the "good Press" professed to give. What it gave was indeed external. A person turning to these official pages in hope of learning what he would have to believe by-and-by, found paragraphs about "clothes" (VII. ix. 99). "We have told our readers of the vestments worn by the Fathers in the public session. They will be pleased to have a translation of the notice appointing the ceremony to be observed in the Congregations"—the ceremony meaning the ceremonial garments. The men who were undertaking to change for the priests and people the conditions of their membership in the Church, to revolutionize their relations with their neighbours and even with their nations, were yet persuaded that while all this was going on, priests and people must be thinking of how the gowns of the Fates were dyed, and not of what threads they were spinning. So,with conscientious exactness, the faithful were informed that the Most Reverend and Most Eminent Lords the Cardinals would wear the red and violet mozzetta and mantelletta over the rochet; and the Most Reverend Patriarchs the violet mozzetta and rochet, etc., etc., etc.

A touching incident of private life came to soften the feelings of the Fathers on the eve of the struggle. The son of De Maistre, the champion of the pen, and the daughter of Lamoricière, the champion of the sword, had, four months previously, been married. "Two such fair names," exclaims M. Veuillot—yes, two stately figures, bending in vain to stay a falling oak. The young wife was smitten with death, and the widow of the hero could only reach Rome in time to close her daughter's eyes. The whole city united in sorrowing over the mingled tears of the houses of De Maistre and Lamoricière. Noble Lamoricière! During the four dreadful days of June, 1848, in Paris, his chivalrous sword formed a shield behind which thousands sat in safety. None who were of the number, as we were, can ever without gratitude think of him, or of the stainless Cavaignac.

Back to Index Next