FOOTNOTES:[309]Fromman, p. 91.[310]Friedberg, p. 547.[311]Friedberg, p. 549.[312]Friedberg, p. 563.[313]Friedberg, p. 533.[314]The expression is peculiar. It is,E nel senso della precellenza del Sacerdozio sull' Imperoa motive della superiorità del fine dell' uno sopra quello dell' altro; quindi l'autorità dell' Impero da quella del Sacerdozio dipende, come le cose umane dalle divine, le temporali dalle spirituali.[315]Friedberg, 538 ff.[316]Unitá, March 8 and 9.[317]Friedberg, p. 557.[318]Ibid., p. 567.[319]Vol. i. p. 239.
FOOTNOTES:
[309]Fromman, p. 91.
[309]Fromman, p. 91.
[310]Friedberg, p. 547.
[310]Friedberg, p. 547.
[311]Friedberg, p. 549.
[311]Friedberg, p. 549.
[312]Friedberg, p. 563.
[312]Friedberg, p. 563.
[313]Friedberg, p. 533.
[313]Friedberg, p. 533.
[314]The expression is peculiar. It is,E nel senso della precellenza del Sacerdozio sull' Imperoa motive della superiorità del fine dell' uno sopra quello dell' altro; quindi l'autorità dell' Impero da quella del Sacerdozio dipende, come le cose umane dalle divine, le temporali dalle spirituali.
[314]The expression is peculiar. It is,E nel senso della precellenza del Sacerdozio sull' Imperoa motive della superiorità del fine dell' uno sopra quello dell' altro; quindi l'autorità dell' Impero da quella del Sacerdozio dipende, come le cose umane dalle divine, le temporali dalle spirituali.
[315]Friedberg, 538 ff.
[315]Friedberg, 538 ff.
[316]Unitá, March 8 and 9.
[316]Unitá, March 8 and 9.
[317]Friedberg, p. 557.
[317]Friedberg, p. 557.
[318]Ibid., p. 567.
[318]Ibid., p. 567.
[319]Vol. i. p. 239.
[319]Vol. i. p. 239.
CHAPTER X
Personal Attack on Dupanloup—Attempts at a Compromise—Impossibility of now retreating—Daru Resigns—Ollivier's Policy—Feeling that the Proceedings must be Shortened—The Episode of the Patriarch of Babylon—Proposal for a New Catechism—Michaud on Changes in Catechism—The Rules revised—An Archbishop stopped—Protest of One Hundred Bishops—Movement of Sympathy with Döllinger—The Pope's Chat—Pope and M. de Falloux—Internal Struggle with Friedrich.
Personal Attack on Dupanloup—Attempts at a Compromise—Impossibility of now retreating—Daru Resigns—Ollivier's Policy—Feeling that the Proceedings must be Shortened—The Episode of the Patriarch of Babylon—Proposal for a New Catechism—Michaud on Changes in Catechism—The Rules revised—An Archbishop stopped—Protest of One Hundred Bishops—Movement of Sympathy with Döllinger—The Pope's Chat—Pope and M. de Falloux—Internal Struggle with Friedrich.
TheVilla Grazioli was one of the houses angrily pointed at by the zealots of infallibility. There resided Dupanloup, too much courted for the pride of those who thought that any man in Rome who opposed the Curia ought to be ostracised. We do not remember any public hint given to the police to watch the villa, such as theUnitá Cattolicabroadly gave as to the Palazzo Valentini, the residence of Cardinal Hohenlohe (February 26). But the amiabilities of the "good press" were not denied to the Villa Grazioli. Bishop Wicart, of Laval, wrote to his local organ, insisting that every word of his letter should be printed, and saying that the talk about Monseigneur Dupanloup in the diocese of Laval must be put an end to. "I declare, before God, and in readiness to appear at His judgment-seat, that I had rather die—fall dead on the spot—than follow the Bishop of Orleans in the course he is now taking."[320]
It was not to this attack exclusively that Dupanloup referred in a letter to the chapter of his cathedral:—
The spectacle will have been exhibited of a bishop who had, during a life already long, given strong proofs of devotion to the Church and to the Papacy, becoming all at once the butt for insult and for those indignities against which you protest, because on a capital question he said what he believed, and still believes, to be for the true interests of religion and of the Papacy.[321]
The spectacle will have been exhibited of a bishop who had, during a life already long, given strong proofs of devotion to the Church and to the Papacy, becoming all at once the butt for insult and for those indignities against which you protest, because on a capital question he said what he believed, and still believes, to be for the true interests of religion and of the Papacy.[321]
Ebullitions like this were but a sample of the increasing irritation on both sides. The majority naturally wanted to have done with the strife, the result of which was already certain. Vitelleschi says that the Curia desired that the Council should be merely a great ceremony for the solemn fulfilment of a pre-arranged program (p. 76). They bitterly accused the minority of egging on the governments to oppose the Council, to menace the Church, to insult the Holy Father, or even to dictate to the Holy Ghost. Every objection to the new dogma was denounced as rebellion against the Pontiff, hostility to the Council, disloyalty to Peter, and so forth. Documents such as those of Beust and Daru were a complete reversal of all that was right. At the moment when Rome was "officially taking the affairs of the world in hand," it was insufferable for people representing provinces such as Austria or France, to attempt to control the Mistress of the world. Strictly speaking, Beust and Daru did not represent those two provinces any more than Menabrea represented Italy. They represented only the carnal and inordinate jealousy of the supernatural order entertained by the natural order in those provinces. They must be made to learn the meaning of the commission, "Teach all nations."
The members of the minority, trained by Rome to rush to statesmen and importune them for everything that could serve the Church, now that they believed her to be drifting to a terrible peril, did as they had been accustomed to do. Personally they were stung by hard words, not only from the Pope, but from all officials down to small diocesan editors, emulous of Don Margotti and M. Veuillot. Even priests in their own dioceses were set against them. As a party, the minority were irritated by restraint, suspicion, manœuvres, affronts, offers, and even byespionage. Their one solace was, they felt, a vain one. They could indeed speak, but they could not really debate. Their one refuge was vainer still. They could draw up petitions, but they might as well address them to Julius Cæsar for any answer that was ever vouchsafed. The air was full of complaints of long speeches. Some proposed that no more should be read, some that no more should be delivered in anyform; but that they should be written, printed, and distributed among the Fathers. Some combined the two propositions, suggesting that onlytheyshould deliver speeches who could do soextempore, and that the others should print theirs for those who liked to read them. TheUnitá Cattolicahailed the proposal to have no more speeches; it would shorten the Council.
Others, again, tried to form a third party, on the basis of some compromise which would satisfy the Court by giving it in substance all the concentration of power it wanted, and yet would save the minority from the difficulty of accepting Papal infallibility in express terms. Bishop Vitelleschi was named in connexion with this attempt. They who made it did not fully realize either the political or the theological bearing of the points at issue. The whole conduct of future operations must depend on the ability of the central authority to act at any moment and in any place, without the remotest fear of hesitation or delay on the part of the instruments; above all, without any possibility of that old bugbear, an appeal to a General Council, being raised up again.
The pretensions which Pius IX had set up under the veil of secrecy now began, through publicity, to drag Rome on to her doom. She would not have dared, at first, to face governments with her present claims. She had silently spread them in her schools, had excited her fancy with the echoes of them coming back mysteriously from provincial synods and from episcopal thrones, had shaped them into formulæ, one part of which her fears had cast away, and another part of which publicity had put to shame. Some now asked her to stop when the coach was at full swing down hill! The attempt to do so would be attended with extreme danger. She would lose, not only the new authority at which she had been grasping, but also a considerable part of the old authority, out of which that was to have been developed.
The Canons which had been the occasion of the protest from governments could indeed well be spared, if the supreme authority and infallible judgement of the sovereign were proclaimed but without that the Canons would be paper lawsin the hand of a discredited administration The Syllabus, cried M. Veuillot, had lighted a torch, five years beforehand, by which to study the objects of the Council (vol. i. p. 55). The Curia had studied the objects during the five years by that light. For it retreat on the main point was now an absolute impossibility. Had France really withdrawn her troops, the Curia could have broken up the Council under the justification of physical fear, and so would have escaped the dilemma by an intervention of Providence. But it was not to be. And we may as well here slightly anticipate our narrative, in order to complete the incident of the French note. Daru was one of the ministers who resigned on finding out that the Emperor's professions of setting up a responsible ministry were such as to remind one of themotattributed to Dupin, at the very height Napoleon's power: "It is really too bad: one cannot now believe even the opposite of what he says."
It was reported in Rome that, within twenty-four hours, two telegrams had arrived from Paris. The first read: "Decidedly Daru will not have infallibility. He announces that there will be a rupture." The second read: "Daru retires. Ollivier replaces him. The Council free." If it is true, cried M. Veuillot, it is glorious for M. Ollivier (vol. i. p. 462). The despatch of Ollivier, on taking over the office of Foreign Affairs from Daru, would have been thought straightforward if proceeding from any Court but such a one as that of the Tuileries then was. After stating that the Emperor had not sent an ambassador to the Council, and had scrupulously abstained from interfering with its proceedings, but that recently, when warned by the rumours in Europe of dangers menacing the cause of religion, he had for a moment stepped out of his reserve and offered counsel, Ollivier proceeds:—
The Holy Father has not seen it right to listen to our counsels, nor to accept our observations. We do not insist, and we resume our attitude of reserve and expectation.You will not seek or accept, henceforth, any conversation, either with the Pope or with Cardinal Antonelli, on the affairs of the Council.You will confine yourself to gaining information, and keeping yourself acquainted with facts, with the sentiments which have prepared them, and with the impressions which have followed them.[322]
The Holy Father has not seen it right to listen to our counsels, nor to accept our observations. We do not insist, and we resume our attitude of reserve and expectation.
You will not seek or accept, henceforth, any conversation, either with the Pope or with Cardinal Antonelli, on the affairs of the Council.
You will confine yourself to gaining information, and keeping yourself acquainted with facts, with the sentiments which have prepared them, and with the impressions which have followed them.[322]
So terminated an incident that caused, for a time, a considerable flutter, and seems to have offered to the Curia the only fair escape from the dilemma into which it had got. It was now felt that the legislation necessary to put the new constitution into working order, must be pressed into as small a space of time as possible. The restoration of ideas had not advanced satisfactorily since the meeting of the Council and the restoration of facts had made no progress at all. The voluminous Drafts had already brought Court theology into contempt.
Friedrich had spent an evening and morning in writing to Lord Acton on the Papal system as developed in the Draft Decree on the Church, and in expressing his fears that the bishops would not see through it, when a piece of news reached him, which though at ordinary times it would scarcely have been talked of in Rome, just then caused some excitement (p. 143). It was, as he relates, to the effect that Audu, Patriarch of Babylon, after having spoken in opposition to the Curia, had, as we have seen (page 107 ofthisedition), been sent for at night by the Pope, who allowed no witness of the interview but Valerga, the so-called Patriarch of Jerusalem, who, however, as Vitelleschi says, was, previous to his elevation, simply a Roman ecclesiastic. Valerga acted as interpreter. The Pope raged, commanded the weak old man to resign his patriarchate, forced a pen into his hand, and ceased not storming till it was done. Then, to give practical effect to the resignation, two bishops, not chosen by Audu, were appointed, and he must consecrate them.[323]Such was the tale. Friedrich took it as a sample of infallibility in practice even before the Council had sanctioned it in theory. In itself, the story would seem very improbable in London, but not at all so in Constantinople or Rome. In the latter city the reputation of Pius IX is high for fits of rage, in which his best friends are treated like lackeys. Liverani, who over and over again calls him an angel, tells nevertheless several stories of conduct to those about him which, if they could be told of an English squire, would not get him the name of angel from his stewards and bailiffs. Even the all but adoring editor of theSpeechesgives a specimen which evidently hammered a deep dint into his Neapolitan sensibilities. If the tales are true, the rage passes away, giving place to habitual jocoseness.
Vitelleschi says that an alternative was set before the Chaldean Patriarch—either he must submit to the Pope's authority as to certain appointments, or resign. Being reduced to this extremity by his imperious brother, the poor old man did resign, and the event "created a great sensation." To the Roman nobleman the scene presented no improbability. He does not even hint that it is a rare specimen of the tranquil waters which lie behind St. Peter's Rock. The noise made by the rumours forced even so great a person as M. Veuillot to take notice of them. His usual style of contradiction is very striking, and perhaps instructive. He will spend, it may be, pages in making somebody, who has said something, look extremely ridiculous; but, at the end, you wonder what he has contradicted. On the present occasion, however, M. Veuillot did stoop to particulars. First, he says that the Patriarch had himself chosen two bishops, but after the Pope had approved of them, he refused to consecrate them. This is in direct contradiction of a statement, on the other side, that the Propaganda had chosen the two bishops in question and that the Patriarch refused to consecrate them. The latter version gives a clear cause of dispute, whereas that of M. Veuillot leaves the resistance of the Patriarch, as he himself says, inexplicable. But as to what took place, his account is this:—
The Pope called the Patriarch into his cabinet, and told him to consecrate the two suffragans in twenty-four hours, or to sign his resignation. The Patriarch asked for a delay of three days, then of two days. The Pope was inflexible; he required that thePatriarch should forthwith sign the engagement to obey. The Patriarch took a pen, and began to write; but he stopped, saying that the pen would not go. The Pope presented him with a penknife. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, who acted as interpreter, mended the pen. The Chaldean Patriarch resisted no further. He wrote the engagement to consecrate the two bishops, or to abdicate in twenty-four hours, and pushed his precision so far as to affix the date—half-past seven in the evening. The next morning he performed the consecration.
The Pope called the Patriarch into his cabinet, and told him to consecrate the two suffragans in twenty-four hours, or to sign his resignation. The Patriarch asked for a delay of three days, then of two days. The Pope was inflexible; he required that thePatriarch should forthwith sign the engagement to obey. The Patriarch took a pen, and began to write; but he stopped, saying that the pen would not go. The Pope presented him with a penknife. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, who acted as interpreter, mended the pen. The Chaldean Patriarch resisted no further. He wrote the engagement to consecrate the two bishops, or to abdicate in twenty-four hours, and pushed his precision so far as to affix the date—half-past seven in the evening. The next morning he performed the consecration.
M. Veuillot vehemently denies that the Pope was in a rage, or that he broke pens with his fist, or that he played the part of a tyrant. He seems to take it for granted that good Catholics ought to be edified with his own account of this rehearsal of a scene in the forthcoming drama of "ordinary and immediate jurisdiction" in all dioceses of the world.
We have hinted that Vitelleschi expresses no feeling of improbability as to the tale of the Chaldean Patriarch. On the contrary, he immediately follows it up by alluding to rumours of proceedings contemplated by the Propaganda against certain bishops under its jurisdiction, who had manifested a want of docility in seconding its projects (p. 82). These rumours, he says, revived uncomfortable recollections of the Inquisition, adding that events of this nature are of common occurrence, and might happen a thousand times without attracting much notice. But the moment was exceptional.
The interest of the General Congregations, from the time when the movement for the definition of infallibility declared itself, centred in that impending question, and but faintly, and intermittently, swayed towards any other. The particular matter now on hand was a proposal to do away with the diocesan Catechisms throughout the world, and to adopt a uniform one for all. Outside the Church of Rome this would probably have seemed a natural point of uniformity, but, inside of it, the determination of the municipalcoterieto drive roughshod over all that was homely or ancient, all that was national or local, roused the spirit of opposition. It was clearly felt that taking away from the bishops the rightof approving their own Catechisms was a further blow at their authority. For many years past the Jesuits had been altering Catechisms, and so gradually naturalizing the doctrine of infallibility on soil hostile to it, especially through schools conducted by nuns.[324]They had made the Catechism a great financial success. A new one for the whole world would be an estate for the Curia.
The book of the Abbé Michaud,De la Falsification du Catéchism, is a curious study. He expresses the sum of his researches by saying that Catholicism has been replaced by Popery. The old Paris Catechism did not use the expression "theRomanChurch." It always said, "the Catholic Church"; and in some Catechisms, in France, the word "Roman" first came in as late as 1839, and that only in a profession of faith at the end: "I acknowledge the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church." Noting the progressive change in definitions of the Church, Michaud gives examples, showing that the earliest do not even mention the Pope, and that the latest speak of nothing but the Pope (p. 23). The early Catechisms call Christ the Foundation of the Church; succeeding ones give this title to the Confession of St. Peter; next to the Apostles, then to Peter, and, finally, to the Pope; and some recent ones even say that the Church is founded on the Papacy (p. 34). The designation the "Head of the Church," is gradually withdrawn from Christ, to be bestowed upon the Pope. One Catechism, as early as 1756, said that the visible Head of the Church, being subordinate to the Invisible one, made only one Head with Him. On the question of the seat of authority in the Church, a precisely similar process has taken place; and infallibility has followed in the same track. Formerly, says the Abbé it was believed that the Pope had no authority or infallibility but through the Church. Now, it is declared that the Church has no authority or infallibility but through the Pope. We may remark that the terms of the Vatican Decrees do not go so far as the last assertion. The framers meant to do so,but their logic failed them, and they have left a dualism full of future perplexity. The Abbé shows that the Catechisms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and many down to the year 1843, always speak of the infallibility of the Church. Later, the term, "the infallibility of the Teaching Church," is introduced. That means, of the Pope and the bishops. Michaud does not quote any with this terminology earlier than 1786. But that could not suffice for the Romanists. The Abbé says that, at the present time they teach, not only that the Pope is infallible, but that he is the source of infallibility. "As the Church was replaced by the Teaching Church, the Teaching Church has been replaced by the Pope." A religious and political system shifting in this fashion does not well bear even that kind of check which is afforded by the existence of different Catechisms in neighbouring dioceses. It was not quite so easy to teach at Rouen that the Pope singly is infallible, when at Paris the Catechism said that the Church was infallible, and at Cologne it said plainly that the Pope was not infallible. And the fact of this tendency to change doctrine downward, and further downward, was a reason for a feeling against one Catechism stronger than could be understood in any community with a fixed rule of faith.
The changes made in the application to the Church of the word "believe," are equally curious. The old form of words as to believing in one Catholic Church was first changed into believing in the Teaching Church. Then "respect and obedience to the Pope" began to be inserted, from the end of the seventeenth century onward. In 1819 an Arras Catechism claimed "sovereign respect"; but so far there is no mention of belief in decisions of the Pope. It was in 1834 that the Catechisms of Avignon and Amiens prepared for the transition from "respect" to "belief," by teaching the necessity of inviolable attachment to all that the Pope teaches. The consummation so prepared for was not far off The St. Brieuc Catechism of 1835, and that of the Abbé Guillois of 1851, taught that it is necessary and Catholic to believe in the Pope as well as in the Church.
The transition from "belief" to "the faith" is very easy. Originally, thedépôtof the faith, which the Church had to guard, and to which no man could add, and from which no man could take away, was called The Doctrine of Christ. Then it began to be called The Doctrine of the Apostles; later, The Doctrine of the Successors of the Apostles; and, after that, The Doctrine of the Prince of the Successors of the Apostles; and, finally, of course, The Doctrine of the Pope (p. 76). The new and uniform shorter Catechism (De Parvo Catechismo) was to be modelled on that of Bellarmine, others being consulted. No hint was given as to how it was to be prepared, and the bishops raised many doubts. Should it not be submitted to the Council? Or, if that was not done, surely it would not be made obligatory, but only recommended. Others would have twelve bishops elected by the Council itself to prepare it. Some wished that, when prepared, three years should be given for the bishops to examine and test it; and then that only after having been approved by them should it be made binding. None of these guards against centralization found any favour.
The complaints about the Rules, and the desire of the majority for something to expedite business, were to produce some effect at last. When between two and three months had passed without a single one of the much-prepared Drafts being homologated, as the Scotch would say, by the Council, it was time to do something. The plan of shaping Rules for the Council without the bishops was resorted to once more. New Rules were given out as an edict, just as the original ones had been, and were headedA Decree, as if the Council itself had framed them. To allow the conclave to make rules for itself, or to amend those imposed upon it, would have been a dangerous approximation to ancient conciliar forms. It had become even clearer than had been foreseen, that a free Council would be a less docile instrument than the sort of Secret Consistory which had been so cleverly devised.
The statement of Vitelleschi, that the Rules provided for the printing of the speeches and their distribution among theFathers, is not correct; and his further statement, that they gave the Presidents the right of cutting short any speaker, is inexact. All they give is the ordinary right of calling a speaker back to the question,ad propositam quæstionem ipsum revocare.[325]But it is a different question, whether the Presidents did not take this as containing the power of cutting a speaker short. Immediately after its promulgation, Haynald made a quotation to prove that a Pope had, at the time when the Breviary was being revised, expressed an opinion contrary to that now held by the majority, and the President immediately requested him, says Vitelleschi, to come down from the pulpit. That certainly is much more than calling him back to the question. Friedrich relates this scene as one in which signs of impatience, given both by voice and feet, were general among the majority, even Cardinals making demonstrations. So Cardinal Capalti seized the bell and called the speaker to the question. The Archbishop insisted that it was the duty of the majority to hear him; but Capalti told him that they evidently would not hear him, and he must stop.[326]
La Liberté du Concileadds an important particular.[327]Haynald had been attacked by a Belgian bishop for an opinion expressed by him in a speech. He immediately asked leave to reply; and, in order to observe the Rules to the letter, he went to thebureauof the Presidents, and requested leave to speak on a personal point—the false interpretation put upon his speech. Leave was refused, but the Presidents told him that he could take the opportunity of explaining when he should speak in another debate. He waited for weeks. On the day now in question, before commencing to speak, he told the President that, after his speech, he meant to reply to the attack which had long before been made upon him. He was authorized to do so. But no sooner had he begun to present his personal defence, than the majority interrupted him with violent clamour. Instead of enforcing respect for the dignityof the Council and the liberty of speech, one of the Presidents cried to the speaker, "You see that they will not hear you." And when Haynald represented that he had been authorized to defend himself, "Hold your peace and come down" (Taceas et descendas), cried Cardinal Capalti, who thus took the place of Cardinal De Angelis, the Senior President.
It was on February 22 that the new Rules were delivered, and on March 1 more than one hundred prelates, of all nations, sent in a solemn protest to the Presiding Cardinals. This was all they could do, short of leaving the Council. They begin by pointing out that the new Rules professed to preserve the liberty due to bishops of the Catholic Church; but that, in most respects, it seemed as if their liberty was diminished by them, and even exposed to abolition.[328]The Rules said that, when new Drafts of Decrees were distributed, the Fathers were to send in their remarks and suggestions in writing, and the Presidents would allow a suitable time for so doing. The petitioners represent that this might do for ordinary matters, but when grave questions of dogma were to be discussed, the time allowed should be very ample, and the wishes of those who wanted an extension of it should be met.
The Rules said that, after the committee had considered such remarks and suggestions as might have been sent in, they should present the Draft to the Council amended, and with it a summary report containing amentionof the remarks and suggestions which had been made. The hundred bishops say that a mention is not enough. That would leave the committee free to omit what it pleased. The remarks and suggestions ought to be given at full, else the committee would become the entire Council, and, in most things, the only judge.[329]Moreover, the reasons assigned by authors of remarks and suggestions should also be given. They request, further, that authors of suggestions should have the right of explaining them, and, if need be, of defending them before the committee. The idea of a right of reply, which the original Rules had completely ignored, had been, after a fashion, introduced into the new ones. That is, the members of the committee were to have the right of reply, either at once or on a later day, to any one speaker, or to a number of them. The hundred bishops do not challenge this immense power granted to the committee, but they demand that the speaker so replied to shall have his right of rejoinder.
The hundred strongly reclaim against a provision for closing a discussion by a rising and sitting vote. This, they say, is a mode of voting unknown in Councils, and is liable to haste, to error, and to the contagion of momentary feeling. It might be quite allowable in parliamentary proceedings, where a thing done this year may be undone the next. But it is not admissible in a case where the matters in hand are so awful and irrevocable as Decrees, which once adopted are never to be amended or discussed again. They demand that no question should be closed so long as any one who had not spoken claimed his right to do so as a witness and a judge of the faith. They demand also that speakers should be heard alternately, one for and one against any proposal under consideration; and, moreover, in matters affecting the faith, that no discussion should be closed so long as fifty Fathers objected. They strongly urge that, in a General Council, neither precedent nor propriety requires that many Decrees rashly adopted shall be preferred to a few thoroughly sifted.
They then come to the solemn point, as to how many votes suffice to make a dogma? The new Rules did not require a majority of two-thirds, as many political constitutions provide in a case of importance. They left the decision open to a simple majority. This the hundred bishops treat as a total and astounding novelty. In General Councils, moral unanimity in matters of dogma had been the rule. It was a rule accepted, and avowedly acted upon, at Trent, by Pius IV. No other rule would be consistent with the principle of Vincent of Lerins, "What has been believed always, everywhere, andby all." Catholic dogmas being formed by consent of the Churches, it followed that they could not be defined in a Council except by the consent, morally unanimous, of the bishops who represent those Churches. They assert that this condition is the pivot on which the whole Council turns. This condition, they proceed to say, seems to be the more urgent in the Vatican Council, because so many Fathers were admitted to vote, as to whom it was not clear whether they held their title to do so by ecclesiastical or by divine right.
Thus indicating the fact that, first, a majority had been made up largely of men who represented nothing, and that now that majority was to be used to change, not only the dogmas of the Church, but the very source and criterion of dogma, they proceed to a sorrowful declaration, that unless the point as to the numbers voting was conceded, their consciences would be burdened with an intolerable weight. They should have fears that the œcumenical character of the Council would be called in question; that a handle would be given to enemies for attacks on the Holy See and on the Council; and that thus the authority of the Council would be undermined among the Christian people, as though it had been lacking in truth and liberty; and in these troublous times that would be a calamity so great that a worse could not be imagined.[330]
"Thus," criesLa Liberté du Concile, "you have a hundred bishops who say, Oppression is couched in these Rules. We have liberty indeed, but liberty restrained, garrotted; which can be choked whenever they like.Imo etiam tolli posse videatur.They say more. They say that these Rules contain a grave menace, a flagrant violation of Catholic tradition, an intolerable oppression of their conscience, pregnant with the greatest perils for the future, capable of striking the Council to the heart and of inducing incalculable misfortunes. That is said by one hundred bishops."
"Thus," criesLa Liberté du Concile, "you have a hundred bishops who say, Oppression is couched in these Rules. We have liberty indeed, but liberty restrained, garrotted; which can be choked whenever they like.Imo etiam tolli posse videatur.They say more. They say that these Rules contain a grave menace, a flagrant violation of Catholic tradition, an intolerable oppression of their conscience, pregnant with the greatest perils for the future, capable of striking the Council to the heart and of inducing incalculable misfortunes. That is said by one hundred bishops."
The foundation formed by such a rule of faith as the consent of the Churches seemed solid as long as streams were shut off,but now that the waters were rising the bishops began to feel symptoms of a shaking. They did not, however, yet know that one rush from a sluice, to be suddenly opened by the Pope himself, was, ere they rose, to bear that sand clean away, and to drop them down on to a rotten rock of Roman infallibility. Even the consent of the Church was to be dispensed with.
In the meantime, learned bodies in Germany had hastened to support Döllinger. Public addresses came to him from the universities of Bonn, Prague, and Breslau, and from colleges in other places, bearing the best names of German Catholics in letters and science. The towns, emulating the colleges, joined in the movement; Cologne, Kempten, Freiburg-in-Brisgau, and other places sending in addresses. Munich voted to the venerable scholar an honorary citizenship, which he modestly declined. It was evident that the German people would have followed in large numbers in the movement thus begun, but the bishops who, in Rome seemed to be earnest in opposing the Curia, suppressed all attempts to discourage it on the part of their clergy or people. They had woven a tangled web at Fulda, and were getting deeper and deeper into its meshes. On the other side, the Pope, the Curia, and the Infallibilist bishops did everything possible to bring pressure to bear upon the bishops of the Opposition, both from the clergy and from the people. As with Hildebrand, so now, all authority which did not move at the beck of "Peter," was overturned or overmatched by raising subordinates at the call of the higher power. Döllinger had said, in reply to an address, that he had done no more than maintain views in which, as to the substance, he was at one with the majority of the German prelates. This was in Rome skilfully turned into a reason for demands upon those prelates. Signor Aloysi, evidently by commission of the Pope, proposed to the Archbishop of Munich to disavow Döllinger, and to procure a collective disavowal from the German bishops. This the Archbishop declined to do.
It is hardly fair to conclude that the German bishops made a show of opposition merely to be able to say to the people,We resisted till the word was spoken, as you did; but now that it is spoken, we submit, and so must you. In addition to calculations of this kind there was probably a consciousness that a mortal struggle was rising between Rome and all the religion, freedom and light in the outside world, and that it would go hard with Rome. The only possible counterpoise to their fear of the Pope would have been a movement on the part of governments to separate the Church from the State. But the politicians were as little prepared for that as the bishops were for schism. So, both the one and the other, however involuntarily, concurred in helping Rome on towards the catastrophe. Ketteler proposed that the German bishops should disavow Döllinger, but could not carry his point.[331]He disavowed him on his own account. Senestrey forbade theological students of his diocese to attend the classes of Döllinger; but Scherr, Archbishop of Munich, refused to do even this. The press, however, made amends for the slackness of the Ordinary. M. Veuillot told how Döllinger's father had said that the devil of a boy had two heads and no heart, and how, in his Cathedral stall, he did not know how to handle his breviary, and sometimes read, instead of it, proofs of his books. Quirinus might, indeed, say, "It is no longer possible to conceal by any periphrasis the fact that the spirit the Opposition has to combat is no other than the spirit of lying" (p. 260). But the writers of the Curia charged upon all Opposition writers, not only hatred, malice and all uncharitableness, but especially lying, with the loving and making of lies.
The Pope, whose jokes and outbursts alternately supplied gossip, is reported by Friedrich as saying that Döllinger was a heretic, or very near it, and that Günther was much more respectable, as he had been quiet for a long time (dead). Some one observing to him that Döllinger was a harmless old man, he replied, Pretty kind of old man that receives addresses from every quarter. He made no secret that he took the Opposition bishops generally for "softheads," but thought they must have some one behind them. He knewwho nodded approval while Strossmayer spoke, and who pressed his hand when he came down. He said that Cardinal Schwarzenberg played the part of the sub-deacon in the manger; that is, the part of the ass in the scene of the Nativity. Schwarzenberg, he said, had been the only person who declared that the definition of the Immaculate Conception would draw bad consequences after it. But "the definition took place on a morning when the sun shone so wonderfully that I recognized in it the confirmation of my design." Much more chat of the same quality is given.
Friedrich has one short paragraph to the effect that it was confidently asserted that Veuillot had a seat behind the scenes in the Council Hall. A man deeply initiated in the secrets of the Council did not deny it (p. 165). If this was the case, it would be curious to compare it with M. Veuillot's account of his being on the Pincio, instead of in the Cathedral, on the opening day. That meditation in the rain seemed rather eccentric.
The Pope had arranged for an exhibition of Catholic art, and opened it in person with a speech. The passage which made the greatest impression was that in which he alluded to a recent saying of M. de Falloux, a zealous French Catholic politician, and the actual author of the Education Bill which embodied Montalembert's policy, to the effect that the Church had never had her '89, and she needed one. The Pope declared, "I say that is blasphemy." There were many versions of the utterance, but M. Veuillot, evidently by authority, stuck to this one. M. de Falloux, after a considerable time, wrote to Bishop Freppel, saying that he had not used the phrase alleged. Bishop Freppel told the Pope that M. de Falloux wrote that he had not used it. The Pope replied that if M. de Falloux had not used it, he had not condemned M. de Falloux. There the tale is left by Veuillot (i. p. 360).[332]
A case like this indicates the struggles between old opinion and the new light of unforeseen circumstances, through which many must, at this time, have been passing. In the case of Hyacinth and Gratry, the struggle had come to the surface; in that of Döllinger, it put on the solemnity of age; in that of Montalembert, the awe of death. From the oratory at Birmingham to the chambers of the Quirinal, from under the roof of the Vatican to lone stations in some mission wild, were men moaning with a conscience-ache. The coming on of an eclipse could hardly be more awful to a meditative Magus than the advancing shadow of heresy on the Church herself to one who had believed her infallible. The dread images of doubt and uncertainty not only haunted, but threatened many a brave spirit. If the infallibility of the Church was to be reduced to the level of that of the Popes, in the doctrines and morals they had solemnly taught; to the level, for instance, of Pius IX and his Syllabus—alas, alas for the great ideas of the past! And was it so clear that it had been innocent to lay those under anathema who, looking away from man to Christ, from Councils to the Bible, had meekly said, The only infallible guide over life's broad sea is not the church steeples, but the stars.
The veil is partly lifted off from one such struggle. Friedrich's stay in Rome had been harassing. Suspected of being the correspondent of theAugsburg Gazette, he had been denounced in the papers, treated rudely by bishops, jeered at by the Pope, reported as being banished, and dogged by police spies even in the house of Cardinal Hohenlohe. All this would intensify his perception of the moral corruption of the city, of which many a priest before him had spoken, from Luther to Liverani, or Lammenais. It would also give a keener edge to the theological debates which were going on in his own mind. After an interval of five days in his diary, he writes, under date of February 25 (p. 195)—
At last I must once more take up the pen. If the last few days have been important for the history of the Council, still more important have they been for my own life-history. A mentalstruggle within me has reached its close, one which was hard to undergo, and which shook my entire mental and physical being. Now all stands clear before my eyes. I know the end toward which I am to steer. The Lord has once more led me a stage further in my life-path. It was truly a melancholy thought for me when, finding for a moment a point of rest in the midst of this struggle, I looked back upon my peculiar course. From that decision to become a Jesuit, onwards to this journey to Rome, an unseen hand has so perceptibly led me, almost always without design of mine, that even here, in the midst of the new storms, I have been able to take fresh courage. I stand here in Rome only through the unseen guidance of the Lord; for it was not I that ever took a step to come here; indeed, all was done without me. But I see clearly that even that dispensation was to purify my views and intentions, and to lead me on towards the sole prescribed end of my life.At one time, how much was Rome for me! How did I, in a sense, worship all that came from it! Now I see that here reign not only the most horrid ignorance, but, still more, pride, lies, and sin. Henceforth my life has its task marked out for two ends. Henceforth it is devoted to the struggle against the Curia (not primacy), and to that against the Jesuits. If I fall in it, I shall believe that the Lord has so willed, and that there can be, and that there is, a martyrdom for Christ, and for His Church, among the faithful. If I have had to learn here that the Curialists and the Jesuits are enemies not less furious than the heathen, I shall openly show the world that they do not scruple to devise the death of their enemies. TheUniversmay erroneously write, "The scandal in Rome is great," because I am here and am betraying the secrets of Rome; but one may say with full right, "The scandal in Christendom is great."
At last I must once more take up the pen. If the last few days have been important for the history of the Council, still more important have they been for my own life-history. A mentalstruggle within me has reached its close, one which was hard to undergo, and which shook my entire mental and physical being. Now all stands clear before my eyes. I know the end toward which I am to steer. The Lord has once more led me a stage further in my life-path. It was truly a melancholy thought for me when, finding for a moment a point of rest in the midst of this struggle, I looked back upon my peculiar course. From that decision to become a Jesuit, onwards to this journey to Rome, an unseen hand has so perceptibly led me, almost always without design of mine, that even here, in the midst of the new storms, I have been able to take fresh courage. I stand here in Rome only through the unseen guidance of the Lord; for it was not I that ever took a step to come here; indeed, all was done without me. But I see clearly that even that dispensation was to purify my views and intentions, and to lead me on towards the sole prescribed end of my life.
At one time, how much was Rome for me! How did I, in a sense, worship all that came from it! Now I see that here reign not only the most horrid ignorance, but, still more, pride, lies, and sin. Henceforth my life has its task marked out for two ends. Henceforth it is devoted to the struggle against the Curia (not primacy), and to that against the Jesuits. If I fall in it, I shall believe that the Lord has so willed, and that there can be, and that there is, a martyrdom for Christ, and for His Church, among the faithful. If I have had to learn here that the Curialists and the Jesuits are enemies not less furious than the heathen, I shall openly show the world that they do not scruple to devise the death of their enemies. TheUniversmay erroneously write, "The scandal in Rome is great," because I am here and am betraying the secrets of Rome; but one may say with full right, "The scandal in Christendom is great."
The bishops of the minority still declared their determination to resist every attempt to concentrate infallibility in the Pope; but Darboy said to a diplomatist, What use is it to send in protests that never receive an answer?[333]The last protest, however, contained the grave matter in which a hundred bishops pledged themselves to language casting doubt upon the œcumenicity of the Council. Of no use for its immediate purpose, that document will always be of real use in judging of the value of much that has been said by its signers sincethe Council. Prominent Infallibilists intimated that the dogma would not be so defined as to declare the opposite opinion a heresy. Yes, says Friedrich, they would leave it as Trent left the Immaculate Conception—in such a position that some day, when the sun shines fair upon a Pope, it may be promulged as a dogma. Then he adds, what many may have heard stated in Rome, It is strongly asserted that the very reason why the Council Hall has been placed where it stands, is that there at a certain hour the sunbeams fall upon the Papal throne (p. 219).
Vitelleschi says that the visitors to the Exhibition of Church Art did not generally exceed the number of thegendarmes, and expresses an opinion that the real Christian arts are better represented in such international exhibitions as might be seen elsewhere. Anything less like Christianity than many of the objects which in Rome are called objects of Christian art, is hard to conceive, or anything more fitted to turn men into triflers, if once they give themselves up to such baubles as the great concern of life, either social or religious. In this exhibition, Friedrich was struck with a statue of the Pope defining the Immaculate Conception, and with pictures of the same event, "with the inevitable sunbeams." He was also arrested by a group of the Risen Christ, with Pius standing before Him in a flowing pluvial. He says that when one looks at the humble figure of our Lord, and then at the self-conscious Pius, one is inclined to surmise that the latter is thinking, "I am not only what Thou art, but much more. I command all; Thou didst serve all" (p. 220). Quirinus quotes, without translating it, a saying of an Italian noble, which might have suggested the very thought: "Other Popes believed that they were Vicars of Christ; but this Pope believes that our Lord is his Vicar in heaven" (p. 326). These are the things which the worshippers of Pius IX call blasphemy, while most Italians smile if you doubt their legitimacy. Friedrich tells how the auditor of Cardinal Hohenlohe, an ecclesiastic, expressed the horror that had been caused in Rome by Friedrich's articles on Manning in theLiteraturblatt. He added that Hohenlohewould have been a great Cardinal but for two blunders, that of visiting Cardinal Andrea when he returned to Rome, and that of bringing Professor Friedrich to the Council (p. 220).
The ministry of Prince Hohenlohe, in Bavaria, had fallen under the hostile influences of the Church party. On the other hand, the recent action of France and Austria had shown that possibly the Curia, if not prompt, might meet with more formidable checks than any that could arise from Bavaria. As to France, the Curia would seem, rightly or wrongly, to have felt that if Napoleon dared them to the worst, they could shake him out of his place, if not as easily, yet as surely as the bearers of the Pope's portative throne could upset a Pontiff. Daru's demands were officially made known by the reluctant, indeed the all but recalcitrant M. de Banneville, no earlier than March 1. At this very time Dupanloup was drawing up, and the French bishops were preparing to sign, the protest against the new Rules. The adhesion of the German and Hungarian bishops to this protest was to be foreseen. The Curia, therefore, took the decision to face both Bonapartes and bishops, and to throw down the gauntlet.
The meetings of General Congregations had been suspended to give the Fathers time for study. On the evening of March 7 a short notice was sent round to their houses, saying that an additional chapter, to be called the Eleventh, would be inserted in the Draft of Decrees on the Church. This new chapter was simply that declaration of Papal infallibility which had been asked for by the famous Address. So the die was cast. All uncertainty as to the designs of the Curia was at an end. Not only was the dogma to be defined, but all who should deny it were to be excluded from the unity of the Church. Quirinus says that the Pope gave his sanction to this critical act under great personal excitement. For four-and-twenty years had he sought the crown of infallibility, believing himself to be wrongfully deprived of it by the error and unbelief of mankind. In 1848, when Count Mamiani, after ceasing to be the Prime Minister of the new Pontiff, met his friends in Florence, he said, "It is utterly impossible to act as the constitutionalminister of a Pope who is stark mad on the subject of his own personal infallibility."[334]
The bishops found that they had only ten days allowed them to send in their written comments upon the fundamental change now impending in the constitution of the Church, in their creed, and in their standard of faith. Vitelleschi remarks that the brevity of the time given will remain as a testimony to the pressure exercised, and will lower the impression of the wisdom of men who hurried the Church through such a transformation.[335]TheCiviltástates that the time was afterwards extended by a week.[336]If it was proposed to give to Orders of the Queen in Council all the scope and effect of Acts of Parliament, our Lords and Commons would expect at least one week beyond ten days' notice before meeting the Court party in the lists, and more particularly if the right of moving that the Bill should be read that day six months had been for ever snatched away from them.
A visit of the ex-Grand Duke of Tuscany, or, as theCiviltátakes care to call him, the Grand Duke, is formally recorded, as if to show the proper relations between princes and the Pontiff. On his arrival, the Grand Duke was waited upon by the majordomo and chamberlain of the Pope; and next day by Antonelli, as Secretary of State. The day following, the Grand Duke "went to the apostolic palace to do homage to the Holy Father." This is the true language of vassalage. To make it plainer, the Pope, on the same day, "admitted the Archduke Charles of Tuscany to an audience."[337]It was, however, not encouraging for the projectors of "a new world" that the only princes who came with suitable reverence to the door which formed the entrance to it were princes who represented a world that had waxed old, had decayed, and indeed had vanished away.