Chapter 18

FOOTNOTES:[248]Tagebuch, p. 44.[249]Tagebuch, p. 45.[250]Acton, p. 73.[251]Tagebuch, p. 44.[252]Acta Sanctæ Sedis, v. 316. i.[253]Vol. v. p. 316.[254]Acton, pp. 74, 75, both in German and Latin.[255]Documenta, i. 247.[256]"Consultationem sicut decet haberi non posse."[257]Documenta, ii. 383; alsoFriedberg, 410-14.[258]Friedberg, xlv.;Cecconi, 483-89; andFrond, vii. p. 263.[259]Acta Sanctae Sedis. v. 317-18.[260]Ibid.319.[261]Civiltá, VII. ix. 358-9.[262]Valuable light has lately been thrown on the two trials of Galileo by Dr. Reusch, of Bonn; and Signor Berti, ex-Minister of Instruction in Italy, has published the original record of the trial. The last I have not seen.[263]Tagebuch, p. 63.[264]This tale of Friedrich may form a pendant to one of Theiner's own. He relates how, in seeking for Tridentine documents which ought to have been in the Vatican, but were not, and some of which were in the library of Lord Guildford, he proposed to make a journey all the way to England. His brother oratorian, Dr. Newman, applied to Lord Guildford requesting that Theiner might have access to them. This was refused. That nobleman could not see why the Prefect of the Vatican Archives should come so far to examine documents of which there must be abundance there! Poor Theiner had found poverty, not abundance. There had been removal, as well as concealment. His ill success in England did not prevent him from saying that the honour of first publishing the minutes of Paleotti was due to the Rev. Joseph Mendham, an Anglican presbyter,—"which, certainly, is not to our honour or glory" (vol. i. pp. vi. vii.).[265]Cologne Gazette, April 1, 1874.

FOOTNOTES:

[248]Tagebuch, p. 44.

[249]Tagebuch, p. 45.

[250]Acton, p. 73.

[251]Tagebuch, p. 44.

[252]Acta Sanctæ Sedis, v. 316. i.

[253]Vol. v. p. 316.

[254]Acton, pp. 74, 75, both in German and Latin.

[255]Documenta, i. 247.

[256]"Consultationem sicut decet haberi non posse."

[257]Documenta, ii. 383; alsoFriedberg, 410-14.

[258]Friedberg, xlv.;Cecconi, 483-89; andFrond, vii. p. 263.

[259]Acta Sanctae Sedis. v. 317-18.

[260]Ibid.319.

[261]Civiltá, VII. ix. 358-9.

[262]Valuable light has lately been thrown on the two trials of Galileo by Dr. Reusch, of Bonn; and Signor Berti, ex-Minister of Instruction in Italy, has published the original record of the trial. The last I have not seen.

[263]Tagebuch, p. 63.

[264]This tale of Friedrich may form a pendant to one of Theiner's own. He relates how, in seeking for Tridentine documents which ought to have been in the Vatican, but were not, and some of which were in the library of Lord Guildford, he proposed to make a journey all the way to England. His brother oratorian, Dr. Newman, applied to Lord Guildford requesting that Theiner might have access to them. This was refused. That nobleman could not see why the Prefect of the Vatican Archives should come so far to examine documents of which there must be abundance there! Poor Theiner had found poverty, not abundance. There had been removal, as well as concealment. His ill success in England did not prevent him from saying that the honour of first publishing the minutes of Paleotti was due to the Rev. Joseph Mendham, an Anglican presbyter,—"which, certainly, is not to our honour or glory" (vol. i. pp. vi. vii.).

[265]Cologne Gazette, April 1, 1874.

CHAPTER V

The Second Public Session—Swearing a Creed never before known in a General Council—Really an Oath including Feudal Obedience.

Thesame tone of disappointment in which theCiviltáhad said that as the discussion of the Draft was not concluded, no Decree would be promulged in the second session, pervaded the additional remark that the world would describe as a vain ceremony the recital of the creed with which it had been resolved to fill up the day. Writers of different shades, as if by concert, did describe it as a religious ceremony,—a mere ceremony, an empty ceremony, a vain ceremony, and a tedious ceremony.

So far from taking this session as a vain show, we take it for one of the most distinctive footmarks left in the deposits of history by the mammoth which we call the Papacy. Without contrivance of man—in contravention, indeed, of arrangements made with patient forethought—the Vatican Council was compelled, under guise of reciting a creed, to exhibit its bishops as if barons swearing allegiance to a prince in peril of losing his estates. The creed recited was one never before seen or heard of in any General Council. An apparent accident set the faith of the early Church, and the modern composite oath and creed, before the eye of history in a contrast sharper than any artist could have devised.

A cause similar to that which led to this day being employed in setting face to face the old creed and the new, had at Trent led to the act that formed the reverse of the medal. At Trent, on the day fixed for the third session, no Decree was ready for promulgation, just as none was ready at the Vatican on that fixed for the second.

Consequently, at Trent, after much reluctance, the Fathers,rather than let the day appointed pass without a session, consented to fill up the time in doing what many of them felt would expose them to ridicule—in reciting the creed. Thus did they create an example which the Curia now followed. Two unforeseen accidents, linked together only by the association of precedent, led to the placing of the Catholic creed as it existed up to the Council of Trent, and the Romish creed as framed after Trent, side by side in a framework so impressive as to ensure the exhibition of the two in contrast to all ages.

At Trent the Fathers said that they would set forth as the firm and sole foundation, against which the gates of hell should not prevail, the creed used by the Roman Church, which was theprincipium, wherein "all who confessed Christ" of necessity concurred,—an expression which seems as if it was the last breath of catholicity on the lips of the Papal society. Another slight reminiscence of catholicity appears when it is said that the creed is given in the exact words in which it is read "in all churches,"—a terminology proper to apostolic pens, or to the lips of our glorified Lord, speaking to His servant John, when the word "churches" was the Christian vernacular, and "church" as a collective was rarely used, and only in the very largest sense possible.

Led by a way which they knew not, the Fathers at Trent set up a memorial of the faith of the Christian Churches as they found it in the creed. Led also by a way which they knew not, the Fathers at the Vatican set up an everlasting remembrance of what their predecessors at Trent had done with the faith.

The Cardinals arrived on the morning of the Epiphany, dressed in red; but they changed to the white proper to the day. Patriarchs, primates, archbishops, bishops, abbots and generals of orders, were all in white, except the Orientals, who had never surrendered to the primacy of Rome on the sacred subject of vestments. The Pope entered the hall, as he had done at the first session, between Antonelli and Mertel.

After Mass, Dominicis-Tosti and Philip Ralli, the two Promoters of the Council; reverently drew nigh to the throne, and addressing the Pontiff, said:—

Inasmuch as, by ancient appointment of the Fathers, the sacred Councils of the Church have been wont to set the Confession of the Faith in the forefront of all their doings, as a buckler against every heresy, we, therefore, the Promoters of this Vatican Council, do humbly pray that profession of the Catholic faith in the form prescribed by thy predecessor of sacred memory, Pius IV, be made this day, in public session by all the Fathers of this Vatican Council.

The Pontiff replied, "We enjoin and command accordingly."

Then arose the sovereign from his throne, took off the sacred mitre, and, with loud and clear voice, recited for the first time in the history of man, as the belief of a General Council, the creed of Pius IV. Near the end of it, he came to the clause which swears obedience to the Roman Pontiff. This he omitted. The conclusion swears to maintain the faith just recited, and, as much as in the confessor lies, to enforce it "on all those committed to him." The Pope simply said to enforce it "upon all," and then he closed according to the regular form,—"I, Pius, promise, vow, and swear, so help me God, and these God's Holy Gospels."

Bishop Fessler, Secretary of the Council, and Bishop Valenziani, now came to the throne. The Pontiff handed to them the creed of Pius IV, just as he had handed his own Decrees at the first session. Valenziani, ascending the pulpit, recited it, in his own name and in that of all the Fathers. When he came to the portentous obedience clause, omitted by him who owes no account to man, tribunal, or nation, the bishop, read, "To the Roman Pontiff, successor of the blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ, I promise and swear true obedience,"—as if it was an installation in a feudal order. No wonder that Canon Pelletier, writing in Frond (vol. vii. p. 170), should say that this act of homage, "in the circumstances of which all are aware, had an immense importance." Valenziani then concluded the form as the Pope had done, only, instead of enforcing obedience "upon all," it was "on all committed to him."

Patrizi, the Senior Cardinal present,[266]now rose, came to the throne, knelt, laid his hand on the volume of the Gospels, and lifting up his voice, said, "I, Constantine, Bishop of Porto and Rufina, promise, vow, and swear according to the form now read, so help me God, and these God's Holy Gospels"; and he kissed the book.

Then Cardinals and Patriarchs, one by one, after them Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, and Generals of Orders, in regular gradation of rank, first two and two, and, later, four and four,[267]came successively to the throne, and during the space of two hours, knelt down, laid the hand on the book, repeated the above words, each inserting his own name, kissed the book, and so swore allegiance to the King of the Vatican, under the form of a profession of the simple and loving faith of Christ. The two creeds, recited at Trent and in St. Peter's, are below, in parallel columns—the one representing what the Council of Trent found, and the other representing what it left. Future epochs will have to mark subsequent innovations. We putthe clause forming the basis of the new dogmas initalics. The other italics are those given in Dr. Challoner's recension[268]:—

Among the seven hundred men who repeated this set of propositions, unknown to Holy Scripture, we may feel assured that there were not wanting some who as they approached the end of the old, thought, That was the faith as it was professed before Luther; and as they entered upon the new, thought Where was this religion before Luther?

What a contrast between the old and the new! If ever it was true, it is here true, that the old is better. Under the old creed, the conscience is not hampered by any question about the authority of traditions, either apostolic so-called, or such as were confessedly ecclesiastical. The conscience is not perplexedwith a fear of interpreting Holy Scripture differently from the unanimous opinion of the Fathers. It is not weighted with seven sacraments, not contracted with scruples about mere rites and modes of administration, not burdened by having to take for gospel every word which some past Council has said on some specified doctrine; not bewildered by a professed repetition ofttimes of the sacrifice once offered up forever, full, perfect, and sufficient; not materialized by transubstantiation of the substance of the bread and wine, not mystified by taking half a sacrament for a whole one, and by asserting that the deliberate evasion of Christ's sacramental command was a true performance of it; not secularized by the mercantile reckonings of purgatory; not let down from filial Christianity towards servile polytheism by the worship of saints, relics, and images; not demoralized by the traffic in indulgences; not narrowed by the domination of one municipal Church over all others; not cramped and degraded by identification with the sins and follies of one human head, much less by an allegiance to that head, as a lord of the faith and a sovereign of the conscience; not envenomed by anathematizing all who do not accept every article that we ourselves accept.

Trent diminished the comprehensiveness of the Papal Society by many new and some grotesque conditions. The present Pontiff has added others, and so far has the shrinking process been now carried that areductio ad absurdumcannot be logically far off. Believing too much, which comes to believing too little, ends in believing nothing. All these successive submissions of conscience to "authority," of spiritual inquiry and private judgment to priestly dictation, end in the paralysis of the believing faculty. They render a man capable of nothing but submitting.

The ordinary oath of the Papal bishops has often been shown to be in substance the oath of a feudal vassal to his liege lord. It has but a flavour of any evangelical office or work of the soul-winning ministry of Christ. The Emperor Joseph II clearly saw that any man bound to the Pope by that oath could not be reckoned as the subject of any other prince, except byone of those generous fictions which on behalf of the Pope, by way of exception, governments have admitted. But even that oath was not enough; the confession of faith in God must, for all the clergy, be turned into an oath of loyalty to the Bishop of Rome—an oath to a human head in a creed!

The process of taking the oath lasted, as we have said, two hours. The crowd was not great. The session did not raise enthusiasm in any one. Friedrich, who viewed the act of homage from the gallery for theologians, said that nothing could be more tedious. He did not feel flattered with his company in that gallery. Formerly, only doctors were known at Councils as theologians, and, as we have seen, they had real work to do. Now, he says, the chaplains and secretaries of bishops, and even the men who carry the red caps of the Cardinals, figure as theologians—"an edifying company." Even theStimmenhad only a few sentences for this session; and theCiviltá, though read principally by persons who may be supposed to have already seen the creed of Pius IV, filled up room by printing it at full. Quirinus wondered whether this "profusion of superfluous oaths was reconcilable with the scriptural prohibition of needless oaths." They had seven hundred and forty-seven oaths taken.

Only the genius of M. Veuillot sufficed, so far as we remember, to cheer the gloom of the day. It was the Epiphany, and in the portions of Scripture included in the offices of the day, he saw the interpretation of the ceremony. The royally robed potentates who bowed before the enthroned priest-king werethe kings of the Gentilesprostrating themselves and worshipping the Church, presenting their gold, and frankincense and, myrrh. The words of Isaiah, "The nations shall come to Thy light, and the kings to the brightness of Thy rising," had the same grand meaning. So he cries (i. 79):—

Behold St. Peter's! The throne of the Pontiff and the Cardinal at the altar, and between throne and altar eight hundred bishops! Behold the prophecy and behold the fact!

M. Veuillot remarks that in the galleries were presentdiplomatists and princes who had fallen; but the Church abides! In the crowd, he says, was an Italian "revolutionist, Signor Minghetti, once a subject and minister of the Pope. He bowed with propriety under the benediction of his Father and his master, who was betrayed by him; but he abides!" The fallen princes represented those who, having supported the Papacy, both temporal and spiritual, had been brought to ruin by its bad teaching and worse example. Signor Minghetti and his bow represented those who, rejecting the temporal Papacy, wished to conserve at least the show of the spiritual Papacy. It is for future time to tell whether they to whom he will bequeath the tangled undertaking, will take their place with ex-kings, ex-dukes, ex-princes, and so forth, in the gallery of failures, or whether they will take their place among the wise men who, rejecting the spiritual as worse than the temporal Papacy, and risking all to found States on the principles of the Word of God, have built up great and happy realms. Italy not does think a principle worth running any risk for. She thinks it practical to say to the Papacy, We have found thee unfaithful in the unrighteous mammon, and therefore do we take it from thee, but we commit to thy trust the true riches.

TheActa Sanctæ Sedissay that no date was fixed for the next session. The confidence in the readiness of the Fathers to swallow a large pamphlet of creed in a few days was shaken. "No one," is it pensively added, "could foresee when Decrees would be in readiness, because many Fathers might probably be lengthy in their discourses."[269]The learned editor seems as if he would fain emulate the flight of M. Veuillot, but he soars with weighted wing. In a long apostrophe to Rome, he styles Pius IX "the captain who gloriously fills the place of thine ancient Caesars."[270]In one of his speeches made to Roman professors, Pius IX calls himself "the Cæsarwho now addresses you,[271]and to whom alone are obedience and fidelity due."

It is evident that the Curia left this session under the damping effects of a disappointment. It is also evident that some of the bishops felt that they had now performed two sessions, with a month between them, and that the only distinct impression left upon the mind was that they had been twice exhibited, before the whole world, at the feet of a man more richly robed than themselves, seated on a throne in the house of God, and calling himself Father of kings and princes, and Governor of the world. Canon Pelletier points out the great advantage which the Church had obtained by having the Creed of Pius IV "consecrated" in a General Council.

FOOTNOTES:[266]The Dean of the Sacred College, Cardinal Mattei, was unable to attend the sittings.[267]Acta Sanctæ Sedis.[268]The Grounds of the Catholic Faith, p. 3. The obedience clause in Challoner, not being meant for the clergy, does not contain the wordswear. For the same reason is the final clause, which implies authority, omitted. The translation of that clause given here is from Mr. Butler's version.[269]Acta S.S., v. 327.[270]"Sub co duce qui locum veturum tuorum Cæsarum gloriose occupat."—Ibid.324.[271]Discorsi, i. p. 255.

FOOTNOTES:

[266]The Dean of the Sacred College, Cardinal Mattei, was unable to attend the sittings.

[267]Acta Sanctæ Sedis.

[268]The Grounds of the Catholic Faith, p. 3. The obedience clause in Challoner, not being meant for the clergy, does not contain the wordswear. For the same reason is the final clause, which implies authority, omitted. The translation of that clause given here is from Mr. Butler's version.

[269]Acta S.S., v. 327.

[270]"Sub co duce qui locum veturum tuorum Cæsarum gloriose occupat."—Ibid.324.

[271]Discorsi, i. p. 255.

CHAPTER VI

Speech of the Pope against the Opposition—Future Policy set before France—Count Arnim's Views—Resumed Debate—Haynald—A New Mortal Sin—Count Daru and French Policy—Address calling for the New Dogma—Counter Petitions against the Principle as well as the Opportuneness.

Onthe Sunday following this disappointing session, the Pope received fifteen hundred persons in a public audience. Even the language of M. Veuillot does not exaggerate the effect of his speech upon that occasion. "What he said on the Council will loudly resound through the Catholic universe." What he said cut the bishops of the Opposition, and Liberal Catholics generally, to the heart. We quote from the version of M. Veuillot:—

Would-be wise men would have us treat certain questions charily, and not march against the ideas of the age, but I say that we must speak the truth, in order to establish liberty. We must never fear to proclaim the truth or to condemn error. I want to be free, and want the truth to be free. Pray then, weep, force the Holy Spirit, by your supplications, to support and enlighten the Fathers of the Council, that the truth may triumph and error may be condemned.

After his first version of the speech, M. Veuillot said that a word had been "unfortunately omitted." The Pope had said that those who opposed certain measures were

blind leaders of the blind. Well, if the leaders want not to lead any but the blind, and cannot see their game, the Church, preserving her own liberty, will know how to win without them or against them, the game which they obstinately set themselves to lose (i. pp. 86 and 100).

This was treated, not as a mere gust of temper, but as a calculated appeal through the press to the clergy, and to thedevout generally, against the bishops of the Opposition. Yet the longing of the Pope for his liberty was natural. He had always believed himself to be infallible. The Jesuits told him that the full recognition of that attribute, and the free use of it, were the only remedies for the misfortunes of the Papacy, and for the troubles of mankind. He read in theCiviltáhow all nations were at this moment looking to him as the one saviour, capable of lifting them out of the Slough of Despond into which the Reformation first and the Revolution next had plunged them. He heard of faithful bishops, learned authors, able journalists, one after another, intimating in prophetic strains an era of glory to follow the recognition of his rights. All asked, how could the world do otherwise than stumble and fall so long as the divinely appointed guide was not recognized? All asserted that nothing could prevent the world from rising up, healed and created anew, when the Vicar of God, acknowledged by the Church, in the plentitude of this authority, should speak the word, Let there be light, at which chaos would flee away, and when he should follow it up with the supreme word to kings and nations alike, which all must learn to obey. Heretics would resist, but the faithful, under the banner of the Vicar of God, would certainly prevail. Nothing stood in the way of all this blessing and glory but a few bishops.

These bishops were represented as being partly calculating men, unwilling to get into trouble with their governments; partly cowards, who actually feared that the standard of his Holiness might fall in the struggle. Some were represented as jealous priests, paltering about the little prerogatives of their Sees, instead of merging all in the glories of the Holy See. If, in a matter so great, the Pope chafed at delay caused by such inconsiderable men, it was not more than might be expected from human nature so incensed, and so persuaded, even in the case of one less vehemently suspected of vanity and self-will than is Pius IX. He said that some thought that the Council was to set everything to rights, and some that it would accomplish nothing. "I am but a poor man, a poor feeble man, but I am Pope, Vicar of Jesus Christ, and head of the CatholicChurch, and I have assembled the Council, which will do its work."[272]

M. Veuillot also was becoming a little impatient. He apparently wanted to see the beginning of the "clearing away" of which he had spoken in 1867. The following passage, tracing out the policy that might save the Second Empire, is a specimen of skilled writing, clear to his clerical readers, dim to heedless Parisians. The new minister (Ollivier) must accept this program:—

To break with the Gallican, revolutionary, and Cæsarian prejudice (which are all one) by frankly recognizing the liberty of the Church; to assure all liberty by and through the assertion of this liberty, as mother and mistress; to prepare the accessions necessary to the honour and the conservation of peace; to permit men to be made against this perpetual plague of revolution which exudes only courtiers of the mob, or courtiers of Cæsar; this is the grand game he has to play. In the interest of the Emperor and the dynasty, I wish he may win it. Alas! during the last twenty years the game has been lost, more than once, by the fault of the chief player! But Providence is pleased to be obstinate, and to leave the game open, with favourable cards in the same hands (vol. i. p. 98).

In the gloaming of these January evenings, two men, might be seen walking somewhere between the Ripetta and the Via Condotti, and the tall figure of one of them was that of Count Harry von Arnim. A letter which he on one such occasion handed to the other was published, in 1874, by thePresse, of Vienna,[273]and bore the date of the day before the impatient speech of the Pope. To whom the letter was addressed is not stated. Alluding to the petition of the bishops, CountArnim says: "You see they are modest, and organization is as defective as courage." He feels the want of practical tact in the bishops. If they had meant to succeed in their opposition, they ought to have impugned the composition of the Council, and the Rules imposed upon it. Had they first of all rent the net which the Vatican and the Gesu [the Jesuit establishment] had cast over the wise but timid heads of the bishops, infallibility would have fallen through the meshes. The Count is not sure that the Curia will persevere with the dogma of infallibility; and does not see of what advantage it would be to them, when they can at any time call a Council and prescribe to it how and what it is to speak. Some of the Fathers feel as if they were in some sort the Pope's prisoners since they have entered on the course into which they had been drawn. They had allowed themselves to be led so far in a certain direction during the last twenty years, that it was only when they saw that it was to be turned to earnest, that they began to ask how they could make black white at home, and how the Catholic people would take it. That was the feeling that produced "Fulda." People belonging to the Curia say that the bishops need a couple of months in the air of Rome to inspire them with the grand conceptions of the place; and after that all will be of one mind. He cannot understand how the German Catholics are going to let five hundred Italians, and among them three hundred boarders of the Pope, dictate laws to them in spite of their own bishops. Under the pretence of Catholicity, exclusive Romish-Italian formulæ are imposed on the Catholic mind of all nations.

If Rome resented the obstinacy of the provincials, some of the provincials began to open their eyes at what they found in Rome. Friedrich quotes one well acquainted with the Curia, whose words may be matched out of Liverani. "The Cardinals," said this authority, "are red-stockinged ... not fit, with the exception of four or five, to be curates in a village church." Friedrich himself had begun to think that their principal function was "parading." But at that Court did not everything depend upon parading? Many of the Cardinalsmight be no better men than the tongue of Rome (not a scrupulous one) made them, and no greater theologians than Liverani and Friedrich said that they were, but some of them assuredly had great abilities, and all had shown themselves to be blessed with the faculty of getting on, which is generally some qualification for ruling. Disgusted by the low appearance of the monks and their mendicity, Friedrich yet confessed that, in present circumstances, such swarms of them had an advantage, as keeping a certain sort of population out of mischief. How different the view of M. Veuillot! To him the monks were the ideal of Christ's benefit to mankind. Free from the world, from the care even of a name or a tomb, the world "must allow their crushing sandals to pass over the poisons which its pride has sown" (i. p. 223). It remains to be seen whether the plants springing from seeds that quickly fall from a free Bible, a free soul, a free pulpit, and a free press, will die crushed as poison plants under the sandals of the monk, or whether they will yet flourish like grass of the earth, and the fruit of them shall shake like Lebanon, whenfakirand monk shall together be remembered among the things that fatally decay in the shade of a growth which, though at first the least of herbs, becomes afterwards the greatest of all trees.

In the street Friedrich met Graf A., doubtless one who then proudly filled a proud post, but who now unhappily lies under a heavy cloud. The Count told him that a petition in favour of bringing forward the question of infallibility, drawn up in Manning's sense was already signed by five hundred bishops. Another of Friedrich's touches is, thatJanusalways lay on Darboy's table, and Hergenröther'sAnti-Januson that of Ketteler. After calling the latter work very dishonest, he says "The upshot of this book is, that the Pope alone is invested with divine authority, and before this Baal of the Jesuits, the majority of the Council means to bow the knee. Will not that amount to decreeing the death of the Church? She may lay herself down crying, 'Jesuits, you have conquered me.'" As a specimen of what bishops even in Council assembled had come to, he quotes the memorable words of Hergenröther,"The bishops have nothing to do but to set the conciliar seal to a work which the Jesuit Schrader has prepared."

"Happy bishops," cries the poor theologian, himself tormented by opinions, and unable to let others believe for him. "Happy bishops! you may give dinners, see works of art, take your siestas, parade in pluvial and mitre, for the Jesuit Father has taken care of all the rest; and, then, setting to the conciliar seal is not hard work! There is nothing to do but to sayPlacet, and all is over." Much depended on the interpretation men gave to their oath. Canon Pelletier (Frond, vii. p. 170) says, not unnaturally, that at the moment when the Fathers prostrated themselves at the feet of the Pope, the majority was formed. All who understood "obey" in the sense of the Court, would vote what the Pope told them to vote. But Ginoulhiac, of Grenoble, soon to be Primate of France, had taken care, beforehand, to protest against such an interpretation. Though expressing some fear in citing it, he did cite the language of Bellarmine, to the effect that so free must a Council be that the bishops, their oath notwithstanding, must not only say what they think, but must even proceed against the Pope should he be convicted of heresy.[274]Such language, in the mouth of Bellarmine, as contrasted with that of Deschamps, Manning, and the other zealots of infallibility, marks the progress made by the Papal claims in our day.

The General Congregations were resumed on January 8, when two new Drafts on discipline were distributed. The Congregation of the 10th was remarkable for striking speeches, and for an unforeseen turn of the debate. Haynald, Archbishop of Colocza, replied to the few who had defended the Draft, especially to Martin, and Räss of Strasburg. He charged them with having attempted to deprive the Fathers even of the liberty left to them by the Rules, for they had reproached them for discussing what was laid before them. Did not even the formula at the head of the Decree, for speaking on which Strossmayer had been called to order, say, "the Council approving"? which surely implied that it was open toit to disapprove. Martin had said, We shall say "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us;" But, rejoined Haynald, though Martin may know that we are to say so,wedo not know it. This speech was described as one of remarkable power, second in that respect only to the speech of Strossmayer. Cardinal Capalti, one of the Presidents, listened with outstretched neck, and both hands behind his ears; but so skilfully was the discourse constructed, that Haynald escaped being called to order. He was often applauded, especially at the conclusion. It is said that Cardinal Bilio, who was responsible for the Draft, being, for a Cardinal, strong in German, knew three words of it,—Deutsche(German), andfreie Wissenschaft(free science). He leaned back, often repeating, with an inward shudder,Deutsche, freie Wissenschaft.

Bishop Maignan, of Chalons, who followed Haynald, did not mount the pulpit, but stood before the Presidents. His speech was also spoken of as having been very striking. He attacked the Draft, especially its phraseology. What, he asked, was meant byanima est forma corporis(the soul is theformof the body)? The Greek Bishop of Grosswardein defended the Draft, saying that at first he had doubts, but that the more he studied it the more he was satisfied. As he had previously said, in the meeting of German and Hungarian prelates, "I do not like many dogmas,"[275]when he next appeared among them some one said, "Greek faith is no faith," and he appeared among them no more. A Chaldean prelate, Kajat, speaking with a fine, clear voice, said, "It was scarcely becoming for a General Council to be occupied with matters so local as the opinions of this or that German professor"; and repeated the unwelcome words, "Free science," as Haynald and Maignan had done. The debate now seemed as if it might prove verysearching. The minority had strong, if ill-grounded, hopes, but a new proof of the way in which the Rules played with deliberation was now sprung upon them. If a free assembly can close a discussion when it deems it already ample, it can also continue it so long as the conscience of its members cries out for a hearing. After the speech of the Bishop of Grosswardein, up rose the President, and said that, in pursuance of power given in the Rules, of Withdrawing a Draft Decree when disputed, the Draft should now be withdrawn from the Council, and should be remitted to the Committee, to be moulded by it. What! could not the Council go on with its investigation? Had it not control over a proposition once laid before it? No; the Twenty-four, with the theologians of the Court, were now in sole possession of the proposed measure!

Had the Council been free to form itself into a committee, or to select one from among its own members after this discussion, doubtless some of the men who had shown that they were capable of sifting the clauses would have been put upon the committee, beside the few who had defended the Draft. But that was the very danger which the Nine had foreseen, and against which they had provided by a permanent committee, elected before the question was argued. This provision was effective for its end, reducing the part left to the bishops to that of making Latin speeches in rows, according to rank and seniority. One other liberty they had—the momentous one of saying Ay or No. Had not the Council been weighted with creatures of the Court, that single liberty might have sufficed to stay the great organic change necessary to the scheme of reconstruction. We do not know whether the sitting we have just described[276]is the one of which Quirinus stated that Cardinal Antonelli withdrew from it much disgusted, saying to a diplomatist that if the Council went on so it would never have done.

While, therefore, the Curia, disgusted with the bishops, had seen their perfect work torn to pieces day by day, now the bishops, astounded at the Curia, saw the future creed shut upin secret even from them! In its absence, they began on the fourteenth to discuss discipline. That was a notable day. It witnessed the creation of a new mortal sin. TheActado not contain the document by which this was done.[277]In Councils that were really general, a Christian bishop would have considered it a duty to tell his clergy and people what he said, and what he heard others say, about the faith of Christ. But on this day, Pope Pius IX turned this sacred duty of the bishop into a mortal sin. Secrecy, the genius of the Papacy, and publicity, the child of light, now closed for a life and death grapple. Any man of that assembly who should hereafter tell out of it what passed within it was to be guilty of mortal sin. The oath imposed before the opening upon the officers, and the injunctions of secrecy upon the bishops, had not availed. The step taken by the Pope was a loud acknowledgment that truth had leaked out. In a surly way this is admitted by theActa Sanctæ Sedis. Shameless journals—effrontes ephemerides—had reported, as having been spoken and done in the Council, things partly true and partly false. "This had probably arisen from some one or another, who lightly held thepontifical secret, having given information, so taking upon himself to ignore the dignity of the Apostolic See in treating ecclesiastical questions."[278]Vitelleschi, Roman as he is, asks,—If the Council is a supreme assembly, who is entitled to impose this penalty of mortal sin? Men of the Curia, accustomed to the making of innocent acts into sins, and of sins into licensed actions, would not scruple to read such a document in the face of such an assembly. Such is their state of conscience, that, far from feeling any shame, probably they would enjoy the idea of the shame and confusion of conscience which they were inflicting on the bishops. But men brought up in England and America could sit there, while this new yoke was fastened upon them, and say not a word! The bishops were really to be pitied. They were entangled in the creed. Their oath had shut them in. There isno hint of a protest having been raised by any one. To speak of these gentlemen in one aspect as citizens of free nations, and in another aspect as prefects of the Pope, is scarcely any longer accurate. It is but by a fiction of the frailest sort that men so tied and bound by the chain of the foreign potentate can be called citizens. We have seen that theCiviltáholds it as-beneath their dignity as ambassadors to the citizens elsewhere than in Rome. Still, professing to be citizens, they were to be pitied. And if they were to be pitied, still more was human society to be pitied that had to bear the influence of seven hundred masters of a multitude whose consciences had come to such a pass. "A bishop," says Quirinus, "who should show a theologian, whose advice he wanted, a passage from theschemaunder discussion, or who should repeat an expression used in one of the speeches, incurs everlasting damnation.... A Papal theologian whom I questioned on the subject appealed simply to the statement of Boniface VIII, that the Pope holds all rights in the shrine of his breast" (p. 164).

Count Daru, who now appears on the political stage in Paris, afforded some entertainment to Don Margotti, who is to Italy what M. Veuillot is to France, the leading Papal journalist, having, according to a saying of theFrançais, more power than all the bishops. According to Quirinus the redoubtable pair are "the two modern Fathers." Count Daru said, on January 11, that "our national maxims in matters of religion, the independence of the civil power, and liberty of conscience, cannot be menaced." This was child's play to Don Margotti. In his view, France needed the new Pope-Suzerain almost as much as Italy needed the restoration of the old Pope-King. Don Margotti[279]contends that the doctrine of modern parliaments is that they are themselves infallible. This he proves by a text from Emile Ollivier. That oracle on one occasion had said "We are justice!" but Don Margotti prefers an infallible Pope to an infallible people. Menabrea, Sella Minghetti, and such as they in Italy, accordingto him, represented God, the State. Margotti, therefore, looks on themotof Ollivier as

providential, for it proves the necessity of an infallible Pope The world absolutely needs a permanent and infallible authority; if the authority is not the Pope, up starts Ollivier, and ascribes it to himself. It is time that infallibility should be defined, that we may have no more such absurdities as Ollivier proclaiming "We are justice!" Oh, let the dogmatic definition of infallibility speedily sound from the heights of the Vatican, and free us from modern justice, which calls itself now Baroche, now Ollivier!

Freeing us from modern justice and from M. Emile Ollivier are two different matters, though it is natural for Don Margotti to hail as providential an opportunity of treating them as one. The assumption of infallibility by parliaments is rather a favourite notion of Jesuit writers. They seem to mean that any authority which will not acknowledge its subordination to the Vicar of God must claim to be itself infallible. Yet, we might deem our own Parliament wiser than the Pope and his Curia, and morally superior, and still not think them anything more than erring mortals, with infallibility some way off. An English member of Parliament, repeating the Jesuit oracles, says that our Parliament claims to be infallible.[280]It would seem that no assertion of the Jesuits is too ridiculous to be seriously repeated by their Oxford converts, though many are kept back, but for other reasons than their absurdity. The decree in which the Parliament does declare its acts irreformable would be a great curiosity. So would even such an expression as the following, quoted by Don Margotti (January 18) from the archbishops and bishops of the province of Vercelli:—

Most Blessed Father, now and always shall we be found, in obedience and reverence to your Holiness, approving, and disapproving, whatever you, from your apostolic chair, do approve and disapprove; from which chair Jesus Christ Himself speaks in the Holy Spirit to the bishops and people of the whole world.

The meeting of the Italian Parliament having been postponed, to give time to a new ministry to prepare measures, Don Margotti, viewing the paralysis of the Parliament as a moral effect of the presence of the Council, said (January 22):—

The word of Rome imposes silence at Florence, and the Council of the Vatican does just as our Lord once did when He closed the mouth of the Sadducees. Gentlemen, you have talked enough. Now stand still, and hear the great word of God. Your day is past, the day of the powers of darkness; and now the days of the Lord will dawn, the days of truth and light.

The Address in favour of a definition of the dogma of infallibility had now become the talk of all. Vitelleschi (p. 85) states that it was carried round by the Archbishop of Westminster, and the Fathers of theCiviltá Cattolica, as the Jesuits are called who form the editorial college of the great magazine. A letter, inviting adhesions, and signed by several bishops, chiefly belonging to the class who had not any national ties, was circulated with the address. The signatures to that document itself were headed by the names of Manning, Spalding of Baltimore, and Senestry. What had been felt from the first was now openly declared on all hands, although the utterance of it had often been charged as a great sin upon the Liberal Catholics. We mean, that the object of the Council was the definition of Papal infallibility, and that all the rest was manœuvring. Brief as are the historical notes in theActa Sanctæ Sedisthey state that we may almost say that the whole Council was convened for the sake of the fourth session.[281]

Vitelleschi notes the fact that the citations given in the Address to prove that earlier Councils had propounded Papal infallibility, were not apposite. Quirinus says that the Address "bristles with falsehood." Veuillot, on the other hand, finds its arguments cogent,—indeed, unanswerable. Vitelleschi remarks that the writers speak with indifference or contempt of schisms which might arise fromthe measures they demanded. Friedrich calls it a compound of untruth and slander. Veuillot urges that the contradictions to the doctrine had now reached such a head as rendered its definition absolutely necessary. Yet all this contradiction had arisen since the personal organ of the Pope gave the signal for an acclamation.

That liberty of the Church which existed nowhere else upon this sinful earth, except in Ecuador, did exist in Rome; and, therefore, all other liberties were secured; that is, the liberty of doing everything not forbidden by divine authority. But printing in Rome, except by licence, was forbidden by the authority that never can be in contradiction to evangelical law. The Address for making that authority into an infallible one was, however, circulated in print, withoutimprimaturof any sort. This sign was understood on all hands. It was not to be mistaken. The divine authority asked for signatures. The canvass for them was keen.

Vitelleschi relates that the promotors of the Address were charged with dragging a question forward prematurely, which in the natural course of things, would have come on for discussion when the prerogatives of the See of Rome should be considered. To defend themselves, they said that the step they had taken was sanctioned by the Cardinal Presidents. This "indiscretion," he proceeds to say, "exposed the Roman Curia to the reproach of itself begging for its own apotheosis, devoid of feelings of the simplest propriety." Even the clergy, he thinks, were disconcerted at this proceeding, except the Jesuits. These were urged on by a fatality to proclaim "the infallibility of Clement XIV, who abolished them, and that of Pius IX, who had almost done so too, while they must find a formula to interpret the judgment of the next Pope who shall abolish them once more."

This Roman noble accounts for the strange vehemence of Manning on the ground that he had been a Protestant:—

He had seen his own religion from within, and not from without; and had seen the Catholic religion from without, and not fromwithin. In Protestantism he had seen only the infinite internal divisions and subdivisions; and in Catholicism he had admired only the magnificent effect of its unity. He had not appreciated the good results produced by the former, through moderate liberty and the constant exercise of private reason and conscience; and he had not felt the dangers which, in the latter, flow from excessive authority. He is enamoured of authority, as much as the slave is of liberty. This want of equilibrium, and of a just Catholic feeling in his dealings respecting the Council, was charged against him, even by the most faithful and devoted of the clergy in Rome (p. 89; Eng. ver., 60).

A counter Address was sent in from German and Hungarian prelates; one from French, one from Italians, one from Americans, and one from Orientals. But these, not being in the interest of the Court could not be printed without a licence, and could not hope to obtain one. Even Cardinal Rauscher had failed to attain leave to print a short treatise on the Papal infallibility in Latin, and had to send it to Vienna.[282]So the Opposition had to dispense with type. Then, what were they to do with their Address, when complete? The course of their opponents was clear—they had only to send in theirs to the Commission on Proposals; and some, in their bitterness, said that that Commission had been formed for no other purpose than that of receiving and forwarding it. But these Opposition addresses did not propose anything to be done, but simply requested the Pope not to have a certain thing proposed. The bishops had no power to move in the House that the subject should not be considered, or to move that it should be deferred till the meeting of the next General Council. Care had been taken that they should not have "the negative right of proposition" any more than the positive. Then, what could they do? Nothing whatever, but what they had done already, namely, petition the Pope. Their former petition, indeed, had received no answer. Still, that was a request for the recalling of afait accompli, or, at least, for its modification. This, on the other hand, was onlya request that a thing suggested should not be done. "Can any more singular relative position be imagined," says Vitelleschi,[283]"than that of a man who receives a number of people into his house, with a design of proclaiming his apotheosis, and at the same time receives from them a pressing supplication to renounce that honour?"

None of these various Addresses stated that the signers opposed the new dogma only on the ground of opportuneness. This ought to be carefully noted. The opposite is now almost always either asserted or assumed; but the documents have not perished.[284]Such a position was skilfully avoided. It is quite true that the only grounds, formally stated in all the Addressesbut one, are grounds which might be concurred in by men who objected to making the opinion of Papal infallibility into a dogma, though they did not object to it as an opinion. But the German Address was clearly distinguished from the others. It plainly and forcibly demurred to the principle, though couching its objections in terms of great courtesy. After alluding to questions of opportuneness, the German and Hungarian bishops proceed:—

We cannot pass in silence over the fact that other grave difficulties exist, arising out of thedictaand the acts of the Fathers of the Church, out of genuine historical documents, and out of Catholic doctrine itself, which, unless they can be entirely removed, it would be impossible that the doctrine commended in the above named address should be propounded to the Christian people as being revealed of God. Our spirit recoils from the discussion of these difficulties; and, confiding in Thy benevolence, we implore that the necessity of such deliberations may not be imposed upon us.

This is signed by men who speak of themselves as "prostrate at thy feet." This passage, however, stood in the German Address alone. The others wished to get as many signatures as they could, and perhaps fancied that they gained ground with the Curia by omitting plain objections to theprinciple. The American Address indicated the existence of differences on the point of principle, by alleging as its first reason against raising a discussion on infallibility, that such a discussion would "clearly show a want of union, and especially of unanimity among the bishops." The German, French, and Italian Addresses put forward another point, namely, that the dignitaries belonging as they did tothe most important Catholic nations, and knowing the probable effects of the proposed measures, felt that those effects, even with the best men, would be damaging to the cause of the Church, and would supply unfriendly ones with occasion for new invasions of her rights.[285]The German address, as printed in theDocumenta, has forty-six signatures, including two Cardinals and the Primate of Hungary; one American prelate Mrak, of Sault Sainte Marie, in Michigan, closed the list. The French Address has thirty-eight names, and among these are three Portuguese prelates and four Orientals. The Italian Address has seven names, the American twenty-seven—among which two Irish Sees, Kerry and Dromore, are represented, and a single English one, Clifton. The Oriental Address has seventeen.[286]

M. Veuillot, speaking of the Opposition Addresses as one whole, said that of all who had signed it, not two, perhaps not one, was opposed to infallibility in principle (i. p. 149). Later he had the candour to attack the bishops for having impugned not only the opportuneness of the definition, but the doctrine itself (i. p. 180). Archbishop Manning, however, even after the close of the Council, said, "I have never been able to hear of five bishops who denied the doctrine of Papal infallibility."[287]This particular statement is advanced as evidence of a general one, that the question raised among the bishops "was a question of prudence, policy, expediency;not of doctrine or truth." A question not of doctrine or of truth! Forty-six prelates in a petition expressly directed against Dr. Manning's own Address had put the question as one not only of prudence, but of revealed truth, alleging against any attempt to define the dogma three classes of obstacles—those arising out of Catholic doctrine, out of thedictaand acts of the Fathers, and out of historical documents. Perhaps we ought, with the forty-six prelates, to saygenuinehistorical documents. But Englishmen must be forgiven if in their limited intercourse with the Papacy they have not yet found it necessary to put labels on such words. The Donations of Constantine, and the Decretals of the Pseudo-Isidore, are historical documents, and also genuine as specimens of forgeries.

The fate of the Opposition petition is wrapped in mystery. Who presented it? how was it received? what became of it? are questions to which the satisfactory answer must be left to time. Some asserted that the Pope refused to receive it. Quirinus says that he returned it (p. 174). M. Veuillot told how it was delivered at the Vatican by an ordinary messenger, and that a monsignore received it with ordinary papers. This public affront to two Cardinals and nearly a hundred and forty bishops was aggravated a few days later by the remark that it was not yet known whether the monsignore had ever thought well to deliver the Address. Still later it was said that the Pope being consulted as to what was to be done with it, said that it might go to the Commission on Proposals, he intending, personally, to ignore it (i. p. 202). At a yet later date, January 28, Friedrich learned that every one being afraid to present it. Cardinal Schwarzenberg sent it by his chamberlain, who delivered it to Monsignor Ricci, the Pope's chamberlain. The Pope was excessively angry, and ordered it to be sent to the Commission.

When M. Veuillot trumpeted forth this example of how to deal with cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, did he mean to suggest that other Courts might treat them with like neglect,—Courts to which these officials hold themselvesrelated as citizens only in an inferior order, an order which "obliges" them only when the higher order does not contravene? The documents in question bore the signatures of the Sees of Prague, Vienna, Munich, Cologne, Mainz; those of Milan and Turin; those of Paris, Rheims, Orleans, and the principal Sees of Portugal; those of New York, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Halifax, and St. John; those of Kerry and Dromore, and of Clifton; and from ancient countries the signatures of Antioch, Babylon, Tyre, Sidon, and Seleucia. Not often in the history of manners have titles representing so many ancient claims and such considerable modern station been treated with equal discourtesy.

TheUniversof January 30[288]said that when the minority thought that the majority were about to come to a decisive vote, they sent Bishop Freppel, or some one else, to propose conciliation; but when reassured, they began their opposition afresh. It further said that Cardinal Hohenlohe acted in Rome in the interests of his brother, the Minister, and that his theologian, Friedrich, who had been chosen by Döllinger, was the writer of the letters in theAugsburg Gazette; that Cardinal Hohenlohe, with Schwarzenberg and Haynald, had succeeded in making an impression at certain embassies; and that the Austrian ambassador put the petition against infallibility before bishops, and asked if they had signed it.

Not content with the far-reaching policy which aimed ultimately at a cosmopolitan counter-revolution, the party of movement desired to begin forthwith by a local counter-revolution. Italy was to be reconstituted as a confederation of four States—the Papal States, Naples, Tuscany, and Piedmont. This, cries Friedrich, is a new task for a Council,—a Council called to make a revolution![289]But the bishops knew more of the world than the Curia.

Party spirit now ran high. Those who had adopted the tactics of opposing infallibility only on the ground of opportuneness, while they really objected on principle, found that they had gained nothing in point of conciliation, and had lostalmost everything in point of moral power. How could ordinary consciences understand a man who admitted, or seemed to admit, that a doctrine, affecting the representative of God on earth, was true, and yet denied that it ought to be proclaimed? Compared with this position, that of the Pope was bold sensible and Christian. "We must never fear to proclaim the truth or to condemn error." Many, as well as Dupanloup, who first departed from the false line that he had seemed to mark out, found that they must object to the principle. Even if they had not previously studied the question at all, the glaring attempts now made to palm off admissions of primacy for assertions of infallibility opened their eyes. An ex-Anglican like Manning might easily accept that or grosser fallacies, but others had been taught to distinguish. The party of movement, on the other hand, raised a cry for action, which swelled higher at every sign of opposition. Their allegations are briefly expressed by Sambin (p. 105):—

Pontifical infallibility is the sign to be spoken against. If it is defined, the question is near to its settlement. The Catholic social Liberalism of France, and the scientific Liberalism of Germany, are indeed menaced. It is, therefore, a question of life or death for Liberalism, as for Gallicanism and Febronianism.

The opposition to "the divine prerogatives of the Pontiff," says this author,[290]"had now become so pronounced that it was necessary to act."[291]Saviours of society always come to that point on the eve of thecoup d'état.

M. Veuillot, who had long endeavoured to smother the opposition by asserting that no opposition existed, now declared that the opposition was so grave that it made the proposed definition a necessity. Quirinus says that the Address in favour of infallibility owes its preponderance of signatures principally to the three hundredboardersand the South Americans, while the counter-address represents "the overwhelming predominance in numbers of souls, in intelligence,and in national importance" (p. 173). One topic of constant complaint on the part of the Opposition was the disproportionate number of bishops to people in Italy as compared with other nations. For the seven hundred thousand people then in the Papal States there were sixty-two bishops, while for the twelve million Catholics of Germany there were fourteen. One million seven hundred thousand in the diocese of Breslau had but a single prelate, and he was not placed on any committee whatever. The nine millions of ignorant and superstitious people in Naples and Sicily had no less than sixty-eight bishops. On the other side of this question, M. Veuillot played off the name of London. If Paris and Vienna, Munich and Lyons, Milan and Turin, were on the wrong side, the Archbishop of London was on the right one.

Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore, issued a project for a decree which, without formally defining the dogma of infallibility, should bind all to an interior assent to the infallibility of Papal decrees in faith or morals. He pointed out the evils attendant on a formal definition, and that in a manner which afterwards enlivened the controversy between Dupanloup, Deschamps, and himself. The work wherewith Deschamps regaled his Christmas Day was that of proposing no less than tenanathemas;[292]for if the Fathers could not propose things in Council, they could send a suggestion to the committee. Ten new anathemas dated expressly on the Nativity of our Lord by a Christian bishop! That day Reisach died.

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