Chapter 22

FOOTNOTES:[320]Friedberg, p. 112.[321]Friedberg, p. 114.[322]Friedberg, p. 138.[323]Vitelleschi, p. 81.[324]Quirinus, p. 267.[325]Friedberg, p. 415;Acta, p. 18; Freiburg ed., p. 163.[326]Friedrich, p. 198.[327]Doc. ad Ill., i. 164.[328]"In pluribus Patrum libertas inde minui, imo etiam tolli posse videatur."[329]Alioquin jam deputatio esset totum concilium et in pluribus solus judex.[330]Documenta, i. p. 263. Hereveritasseems to mean reality "quasi veritate et libertate caruerit."[331]Quirinus, p. 261.[332]Strangely enough, in April 1876, the papers spoke of the excitement caused in France by the fact that Bishop Freppel had positively excommunicated the zealous M. de Falloux for some breach of the ecclesiastical law, in a matter connected with Church property.[333]Tagebuch, p. 219.[334]See a very life-like sketch of Pio Nono in theManchester Examiner and Timesof December 17, 1874, which, in Rome, is ascribed to the pen of Mr. Montgomery Stuart.[335]Vitelleschi, p. 177.[336]Srrie II. x. 112.[337]Civiltá, VII. x. 118.

FOOTNOTES:

[320]Friedberg, p. 112.

[321]Friedberg, p. 114.

[322]Friedberg, p. 138.

[323]Vitelleschi, p. 81.

[324]Quirinus, p. 267.

[325]Friedberg, p. 415;Acta, p. 18; Freiburg ed., p. 163.

[326]Friedrich, p. 198.

[327]Doc. ad Ill., i. 164.

[328]"In pluribus Patrum libertas inde minui, imo etiam tolli posse videatur."

[329]Alioquin jam deputatio esset totum concilium et in pluribus solus judex.

[330]Documenta, i. p. 263. Hereveritasseems to mean reality "quasi veritate et libertate caruerit."

[331]Quirinus, p. 261.

[332]Strangely enough, in April 1876, the papers spoke of the excitement caused in France by the fact that Bishop Freppel had positively excommunicated the zealous M. de Falloux for some breach of the ecclesiastical law, in a matter connected with Church property.

[333]Tagebuch, p. 219.

[334]See a very life-like sketch of Pio Nono in theManchester Examiner and Timesof December 17, 1874, which, in Rome, is ascribed to the pen of Mr. Montgomery Stuart.

[335]Vitelleschi, p. 177.

[336]Srrie II. x. 112.

[337]Civiltá, VII. x. 118.

BOOK IV

FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF THE QUESTION OF INFALLIBILITY TO THE SUSPENSION OF THE COUNCIL

CHAPTER I

Joy of Don Margotti—New Feelers for an Acclamation—Suggested Model of the Scene—Its Political Import—A Pause—Case of the Jesuit Kleutgen—Schwarzenberg out of Favour—Politics of Poland—Döllinger on the New Rules—Last Protest of Montalembert—His Death—Consequent Proceedings in Rome.

"TheVicar of Jesus Christ for ever" was the title of the article in which Don Margotti announced the fact that the Pope had sent in the proposal of infallibility. Ollivier, said Don Margotti, once stated that he loved strong powers with confidence in themselves, and as the Pope always wished to be loved by ministers of Napoleon III, he had showed them that he was strong.[338]"It is a great spectacle, but it will be a still greater one when infallibility is proclaimed, and the Syllabus is proclaimed, in spite of the opposition of governments, of revolutions, and of all hell."

But the speedy closing of the question, now formally opened, was indispensable. The suggestion of an acclamation on the day of Mary in December had proved vain; but the day of Joseph was now approaching. The term allowed for sending in written observations on the Draft would expire on March 17, and theUnitá, in its number of the 11th, put up the following prayer: "O Blessed St. Joseph, grant us the grace that on the 18th of March may be discussed, and on the 19th, the day of thy Festival, may be proclaimed, the most pleasant andmost wise doctrine of the infallibility of the Vicar of Jesus Christ." The correspondent of theUnitáfrom Rome said, "We hope for the definition on the 19th, St. Joseph's Day"; and its correspondent at Paris stated that no doubt existed that the dogma would be proclaimed on that day. Two days before the one so anticipated, theUnitápublished suggestive accounts of the scenes in 1854, when the Immaculate Conception was acclaimed. It quoted Canon Audisio, a well-known writer, and one sometimes called a Liberal Catholic. Just after the noontide bell, when the two hundred bishops had knelt to repeat the Angelus, as soon as they resumed their seats, a cry speedily broke out from among them,Petre, doce nos: confirma fratres tuos: (Peter, teach us! strengthen thy brethren!) The teaching desired was a definition of the Immaculate Conception. The whole assembly wept. "It was a weeping so cordial and sublime that you cannot imagine it, and pen cannot describe it."

After this hint, as to what the scene—always a chief point—on the 19th should be, the principles of polity involved in the scene are indicated; for in Rome all acting is for the purpose of ruling. Some prelates, said theAraldo di Lucca, as quoted by theUnitá, had thought that the Bull announcing the dogma of the Immaculate Conception should make mention of the assembly of the bishops; but a prelate from France, risingin the spirit of Athanasius, said, "No; the episcopate should not decide, but only the chief Pontiff; he alone must speak." He went on to argue that, by showing obedience to the Pontiff, they would secure the obedience of the people, and strengthen the principle of authority. TheUnitásignificantly adds, "It appears to us, and it will appear to all, that not only the dogma of the Immaculate was defined on that memorable sitting of the 24th of November, 1854, but also that of Papal infallibility."

While the party of movement was full of hope, the minority were in dismay. Their chosen ground of inopportuneness had been cut from under their feet. The Pope and five hundred bishops had decided that the question was opportune. Theynow felt that if the dogma should be suddenly defined, they must either submit or be outside of the Church. The new Rules permitted the discussion to be closed at the will of the majority. It was notorious that any discussion whatever, on a point so immediately affecting the authority of the Pope, not only in the Church, but also in the world, was hateful to every right-minded Curialist, and, in fact, that as taking place hard by the tomb of St. Peter, such a discussion was regarded as a thing all but intolerable. The suggestions in theUnitáfrom Rome, Paris, and Turin had not been put out without high sanction. Was it possible that, on St. Joseph's Day, all would be ended by an irresistible acclamation?

Some think that so deep a feeling was now produced in the minority, and that so clear did they make it that they would not acquiesce in an acclamation, that they impressed the Vatican for a time. Friedrich repeats, on the authority of one who was intimate with the Pope, a saying of the latter, "The Jesuits have set me on this road, and now I shall go on in it, and they must bear the responsibility." The personal position of members of the minority became more and more trying, owing to the increasingly active part taken by the Pontiff in the discussion. A second brief to the Jesuit Ramière[339]followed the one which ridiculed Maret, commending another publication of the same author, in which, alluding to the possibility that some now opposing the infallibility of the Pope would secede from the Church, Ramière said, "These form the secret enemy who impedes our march, and, in driving him from our ranks, the sacred army will obtain the most precious guarantee of its future success."[340]Friedrich adds, what agrees with much that is said, or hinted, by other Liberal Catholics, strange as it sounds in our ears, "Any one who knows the Jesuits can explain the closing words of the pamphlet, 'Then, truly will the Council have realized the most ardent desire of the Saviour, and established the conditions on which this divine Master makes the submission of the entire world to the yoke of the faith depend.'"

"That is," explains Friedrich, "the yoke of the Society of Jesus; for even under the name Jesus, 'we are only to understand the Society of Jesu.' At the Festival of St. Ignatius Loyola, priests must repeat the words, with great emphasis, 'At the name of Jesu every knee shall bow.' The former Confessor of the Pope, now replaced by a Jesuit, always felt scandalized by this, on the eve of the Festival, and earnestly wished to have those words removed from the Mass for Loyola's Day."

Archbishop Cardoni, being asked what had become of the Draft Decrees on Faith, said that the committee first examined them, after which Deschamps, Pie, and Martin, as a sub-committee, partly prepared a revised form, and finally the recasting of them was completed by Kleutgen, the Jesuit. What, it was asked, the Kleutgen who was condemned by the Inquisition? Yes, replied the Archbishop faintly. This Kleutgen had been a German political refugee, but joined the Jesuits, and became confessor to a nunnery. One of the nuns, a German princess, was dying. Her relations, through interest with the Pope, succeeded in procuring her release. It proved to be a case of poisoning. The Inquisitors took proceedings, and Kleutgen was somehow incriminated. The convent was closed, the nuns were dispersed into other establishments, and the confessor was sentenced to prison for six years. The imprisonment was changed into reclusion in one of the Jesuit houses, in a delightful neighbourhood near Rome. Kleutgen found means to regain favour, and was now remoulding the faith for the benefit of reconstituted society.[341]

Cardoni told how he, an Archbishop, had been received the preceding day by the Pope before Schwarzenberg, a Cardinal and a prince, and it was added that Schwarzenberg had been obliged to wait a fortnight for his audience, whereas a Cardinal was entitled to have one after two days. Cardinal De Angelis alleged that the Pope had seen Schwarzenberg behind the Vatican smoking a cigar, with a "small hat" on his head. To this the Germans replied that it was well known that Schwarzenberg did not smoke.[342]We cannot state whatwould be the penalty for a Cardinal convicted of wearing a small hat, but they are a class of "creatures" whose eternal salvation may, by the will of their lord, be declared to depend on matters the connexion of which with the Christian religion it takes a Pontiff to find out. Sixtus V decreed the penalty of excommunication against any Cardinal who should open a letter bearing the plain address "Cardinal," without the title "Most Illustrious and Most Reverend." They were to burn such letters. (Frond, ii., p. xiii.)

Archbishop Ledochowski, whose name has frequently been heard of since the Council, had been made Primate of Poland by the Pope. This office, in olden time, carried with it the regency of the country, in the interregnum between the death of one king and the election of another. As primate, the Archbishop put on the colours of a Cardinal. Count L—— told Friedrich that Ledochowski had said that he was right glad that he had so early joined the Infallibilists, for Rome was certain to carry through what she had taken in hand, and therefore the bishops of the Opposition would gradually come over to the right side, and would cut a poor figure at the last. Count L—— expressed himself as indignant at this morality. But, said Friedrich, scarcely had the Count ended, when I read in theUniversthat Ledochowski was mentioned for promotion as a Cardinal. We may here, as illustrating the bearing of titles and colours on very serious affairs, interject a statement of what happened later.[343]Ledochowski, after the Council, at once took up a new position. When the German bishops next met at Fulda, he would not join them. As Primate of Poland, he said, he belonged to the tomb of St. Adelbert rather than to that of St. Boniface. He would no longer admit Germans to his seminary for priests. In places where preaching had existed alternately in German and Polish, he suppressed the German. His organ, theTyotnick, related how, during the Council, the Pope had given him the title of Primate of Poland, but denied that heusedthe political powers attached to the title. Nevertheless, theCatholic Calendarfor1872, published in Thorn, placed the name of Ledochowski in the list of reigning princes, as Primate of Poland and representative of the King of Poland. So that, if the powers attached to the title were not used, the reasons were not far to seek.[344]

While early converts were joyful, Ketteler continued to be mysterious. In a meeting of German prelates he declared that, though all his life he had worked for infallibility, he could not do so now. This Draft Decree was a crime. But what was to be done? Send in another protest? All cried out at once, No! no! they have treated us like domestics, and not even given us an answer.[345]

On February 27 Don Margotti had said that even a Protestant or a Mohammedan, a Schismatic or a Jew, would see from the new Rules that no assembly could be freer. Döllinger, on the other hand, had published a letter on the new Rules. He took the ground indicated in the protest of the one hundred bishops. In matters of faith, as he contended, the Rules shifted the source of authority from tradition to majority. This he showed to be a direct departure from the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

The days which some had fixed upon for the triumph of an acclamation were passed in excitement of a different kind. A letter appeared in theGazette de Franceand theTimes, from Montalembert, addressed to some gentleman who had challenged his present opposition as inconsistent with his former championship of the Church. The dying man then delivered his last public utterance. He protested that, in his early days,the pretensions now put forth were unheard of. In language already cited he described the incredible change of the clergy after 1850, and their present shortsighted prostration before the idol they had set up. He showed that in his speech of 1847 there was not a word of the doctrine of Papal infallibility. He might have indicated also the still more celebrated speech on the restoration of Pius IX. He quoted that remarkable letter of Sibour, Archbishop of Paris, in which he depicted the difference between the old Ultramontanism and the new. Montalembert then declared that his whole regret was that illness prevented him from descending into the arena to join Dupanloup and Gratry, to contend on his own ground, that of history and of social consequences. "Then should I merit—and it is my sole remaining ambition—a share in thelitanies of insultdaily launched against my illustrious friends by a portion, too numerous, of the clergy—that poor clergy which is preparing for itself so sad a destiny, and which formerly I loved, defended, and honoured, as no one in modern France had done." TheUnitácried, "Better for Montalembert had he died a year ago; better indeed had he never been born."[346]While these words were ringing in the ears of all, came a telegram announcing that Montalembert was no more. That evening the Pope had one of those audiences in which he delights; a kind of public meeting, with three hundred persons present. Of course every one expected that the little member which in the days of Pius IX has done much to make the Pope an entertainment for Italians, would not be able to keep off the exciting topic. "A Catholic has just died," said his Holiness, "who rendered services to the Church. He wrote a letter which I have read. I know not what he said at the moment of death; but I know one thing—that man had a great enemy, pride. He was a Liberal Catholic—that is to say, a half-Catholic.... Yes, Liberal Catholics are half-Catholics."[347]

About the time when the Pope was thus speaking of him whose eloquence had been worth regiments to him, Father Combalot was crying from the pulpit of Notre Dame Della Valle—

"Satan has entered into Judas! There are men who were Christians, and who on the brink of the grave become enemies of the Pope, and speak of torrents of adulation, and accuse us of erecting him into an idol. To speak so is Satanic work. There are three academicians who do it" [Montalembert, Gratry, and Dupanloup].[348]

Archbishop De Mérode, brother-in-law of Montalembert, and almoner to the Pope, arranged that a High Mass should be celebrated in the Aracœli on the height of the Capitoline, that is, the church of the Roman municipality, in which Montalembert was entitled to the honour of such a solemnity because of the dignity of Roman citizen which had been conferred upon him for his distinguished services to the Church. On the 16th a notice was circulated, announcing the intended Mass, in publishing which theUniversstated that it was known that there would be no oration—a record which spoiled subsequent fables. Late that evening, in the great church of the French, a preacher dwelt upon the memory of Montalembert, inviting the audience to the solemn service at the Capitoline the next morning. At the same time the rooms of Archbishop Darboy were crowded. French prelates related what remarks they had written on the proposal for infallibility. Each one beheld in his own a great and heroic act. Landriot, Archbishop of Rheims, had employed a quotation from Bessarion against the curial system, and expected to be called Jansenist, Gallican, Febronian, and such like. Friedrich, we suspect, was making prelates understand that if once they allowed themselves to recommence deliberation under the new Rules, all hope of successful opposition would be idle, and hinting his belief thatunder such Rules the Council had no proper œcumenicity. Suddenly news came from Mérode. Something was wrong. It proved that the High Mass for Montalembert had been forbidden by the Pontiff. What! the departed spirit of the foremost Frenchman in the chivalry of the Church to be insulted on the Capitoline by the Pope in person! Among all those Frenchmen, many were old enough to remember the most brilliant of Montalembert's sallies, and all were old enough to have witnessed the public disgust when a Court chamberlain turned him out at the election of 1857, half of the clergy voting against him, and the other half staying at home. But this beat all. A Cardinal present could not restrain the confession, "Now I am well ashamed of being a Roman Cardinal."[349]

The announcement was too late to reach all, and when the hour for the service came, some twenty bishops and many French notables assembled. Father Beckx, the General of the Jesuits, had come from the neighbouringGesù, thinking, doubtless, of the splendid services to the Order which had been rendered by the confiding genius of the man for whose soul he was now to pray. Even Louis Veuillot came, trying to forget the irritations of recent years, perhaps hoping in part to make reparation for ingratitude and insolence, and unable now to see the opponent, seeing only as in old days the "son of the Crusaders," facing, provoking, and dominating a hostile Parliament, with his head back and his blue eye flashing, till at some turning-point in his theme the fountains of a great deep broke up, the deep of his mighty emotions, and then gushed out a flood which carried all before it. When they reached the steps of the Aracœli, an official, who was one of the subordinates of Mérode, cried out in a French phrase which he had learned on purpose, that they must go away, that the Mass was forbidden. It is evident that they were all overcome with mortification, not to use stronger language. Even M. Veuillot pushed by and said, "It can do no harm to repeat some paternosters for him."[350]

Quirinus says that probably it was De Banneville who represented to the Pope the serious effects that would be produced in France by this proceeding. So, on the evening of the 17th, instead of arranging for the acclamation of infallibility, the Pope was making the small amends of sending a private message to have a Mass celebrated, on the following morning, on behalf of a certain deceased Charles, in the Church of Santa Maria Traspontina. No public notice whatever was given of this service. The bishops were all shut up in a General Congregation. The Pope went privately, without any suite, sat hidden in a latticed "tribune," and then had it announced to the world that he had personally attended a Mass on behalf of Montalembert. When the exceedingly painful feeling he had caused began to appear, an attempt was made to turn the occasion to account by throwing the blame on Dupanloup. It was declared that it had been announced that he would deliver an oration, and indeed that the proposed function had been got up by him as a party demonstration. This gave Dupanloup the opportunity of writing[351]:—

This is an outrage at once upon the Holy Father, Monsignor De Mérode, the bishops, and myself. This entire tale, Sir, is false from the first word to the last. I did not appoint the service. I was not to officiate. I have had nothing whatever to do in distributing cards of invitation. Whatever may have been my profound and inviolable affection for M. De Montalembert, it belonged to the members of his family present in Rome, Monsignor De Mérode and the Count De Mérode, and not to me, to arrange the details of this religious ceremony. It is within my knowledge that in doing so they conformed to all the laws and formalities usual in Rome in similar cases.

The last statement was made to upset one of the excuses, that proper leave had not been asked for the service. So those false stories, at least, were stayed.

As the news spread in succession from place to place, the imaginations of Liberal Catholics all over Europe would restlessly wander up and down the Capitoline, seeing on that historical slope the signal given for their eternal disgrace in the Holy City. It was given too by an arrow shot from the Pontiff's own bow, and aimed at the shade of Montalembert. We do not profess to know what injury the imagination of such men might picture as having been done to the spirit that was gone, but those Christians who believe in a God who, not even in this world, much less in the great hereafter, trusts any child of man, though the least of all the little ones, to a Vicar—those who believe in a sacrifice which no man can repeat, prohibit, or buy, when they heard what had occurred, saw the spirit pass into the true temple,and outfly all the arrows of death. Oh, how benign is that light of immortality which shows us the spirits of the departed resting in the hands of their Father, altogether above dependence on the malice or the compassion, on the liberality or the avarice, on the devotion or the unbelief of living men; and which, with the same blessed beam, shows us the living protected from all possible malice, raised into independence of all possible goodwill of the dead, by a near and solicitous paternal Watcher. All the traffic of the markets of Purgatory, a traffic as low and demoralizing as any traffic can be, scarcely exposes the system which has sprung up around that invention so much as one broil like that which the traffickers raised around the soul of Montalembert—no, not around his soul, that was beyond their reach, only around his memory.

FOOTNOTES:[338]Unitá Cattolica, March 10.[339]Friedberg, p. 491.[340]Tagebuch, p. 221.[341]Tagebuch, p. 230.[342]Ibid., p. 231.[343]Menzel,Jesuitenumtriebe, p. 297.[344]The following passage in the speech made to the Pope by Ledochowski on his elevation to the purple, is taken from theEmancipatore Cattolico, April 22, 1876:—"And as the persecution was most bitter in that part of Poland which is now under Prussian occupation ... the honour of this sacred purple falls like a celestial dew upon my oppressed and agonised country, and seems silently to say to her, that if forgotten and abandoned of the world, she is still loved and blessed by God, of whom your Holiness is the Vicar." The very next paragraph in the same paper is headed,The Heresy of Love of Country.[345]Tagebuch, p. 236.[346]March 11.[347]This is the version quoted from theMoniteur UniverselinCe Qui se Passe au Concile, p. 154. M. Veuillot acknowledged that the "hard word" was in the speech, and the above version has not been denied.[348]Ce Qui se Passe au Concile, p. 155, quotingGazette de France, March 20. In theUniversof April 4, quoted on the same page, Combalot acknowledged the words, and said that he was preaching at the time "by the grace and the mission of the infallible Pontiff."[349]Tagebuch, p. 259.[350]This trait of kindly feeling is given by Friedrich.[351]The fullest account of the whole transaction is that inCe Qui se Passe au Concile. But Friedrich, Quirinus, Veuillot, and Fromman have all been consulted, and show that the main particulars admit of no doubt. Dupanloup's letter is both inCe Qui se Passe au Concile, and in German, inFriedberg, p. 110.

FOOTNOTES:

[338]Unitá Cattolica, March 10.

[339]Friedberg, p. 491.

[340]Tagebuch, p. 221.

[341]Tagebuch, p. 230.

[342]Ibid., p. 231.

[343]Menzel,Jesuitenumtriebe, p. 297.

[344]The following passage in the speech made to the Pope by Ledochowski on his elevation to the purple, is taken from theEmancipatore Cattolico, April 22, 1876:—"And as the persecution was most bitter in that part of Poland which is now under Prussian occupation ... the honour of this sacred purple falls like a celestial dew upon my oppressed and agonised country, and seems silently to say to her, that if forgotten and abandoned of the world, she is still loved and blessed by God, of whom your Holiness is the Vicar." The very next paragraph in the same paper is headed,The Heresy of Love of Country.

[345]Tagebuch, p. 236.

[346]March 11.

[347]This is the version quoted from theMoniteur UniverselinCe Qui se Passe au Concile, p. 154. M. Veuillot acknowledged that the "hard word" was in the speech, and the above version has not been denied.

[348]Ce Qui se Passe au Concile, p. 155, quotingGazette de France, March 20. In theUniversof April 4, quoted on the same page, Combalot acknowledged the words, and said that he was preaching at the time "by the grace and the mission of the infallible Pontiff."

[349]Tagebuch, p. 259.

[350]This trait of kindly feeling is given by Friedrich.

[351]The fullest account of the whole transaction is that inCe Qui se Passe au Concile. But Friedrich, Quirinus, Veuillot, and Fromman have all been consulted, and show that the main particulars admit of no doubt. Dupanloup's letter is both inCe Qui se Passe au Concile, and in German, inFriedberg, p. 110.

CHAPTER II

Threat of American Prelates—Acclamation again fails—New Protest—Decrees on Dogma—Ingenious connexion of Creation with the Curia—Serious Allegations of Unfair and Irregular Proceedings of the Officials—Fears at the Opening of the New Session—The Three Devotions of Rome—More Hatred of Constitutions—Noisy Sitting; Strossmayer put down—The Pope's Comments—He compares the Opposition to Pilate and to the Freemasons—He is reconciled to Mérode—The Idea of Charlemagne—Secret Change of a Formula before the Vote.

"Thattook effect," wrote Quirinus, for once, in noting a step of members of the minority. The step so spoken of was a simple one. Four American prelates sent in a declaration that if any attempt was made to carry infallibility by acclamation, as had been suggested, they would leave the Council, go home, and publish their reasons for so doing.

Whether this proceeding alone, or this together with other indications, influenced the majority, certain it is that when the General Congregations were resumed, on March 18, there was no acclamation. St. Joseph did not avail more for his day than the Immaculate had done for hers. All that we hear of any attempt to provoke an acclamation is the statement of Vitelleschi that one prelate tried to get infallibility carried "by chance," but received countenance only from very few. The minority gave in their protest against the new Rules to the Presiding Cardinals. We need not say that neither then nor at any later time did they receive an answer. The business now placed before the Fathers was the Draft of Decrees on Dogma as revised. The eighteen chapters had, under the hands of the committee, the sub-committee, and Kleutgen, shrunk to four. Even as they now stood, the chapters had to undergo considerable alteration before taking the shapein which they appear upon theActa. As they stand there, they are not at first sight capable of interesting the theologian for their theology, or the politician for their bearing on politics. At the time, they led many to wonder why grave men should have spent years in formulating rudimentary principles, and that not very successfully. The alleged reason was that everything being wrong in the ideas of the age, the Church must commence by asserting the existence of a God, and the fact that He had created the world. An attempt was made to throw some dignity about this proceeding by quoting a prophecy of some saint, to the effect that an age would come when a General Council would have to do this. On the other hand, as Vitelleschi shows, Roman wit said that really, after sitting four months and a half, the Vatican Council would vote almost unanimously that God created the world. Friedrich, however, saw that the Curial system was insinuated in these Decrees, but it took a theologian to discern it, and one who was not a mere theologian. Yet when it was pointed out there could be no doubt of the fact. The simple headings, "God, the Creator of the World," "Revelation," "Faith," and "Faith and Reason," would to Protestant eyes seem very unlikely to cover any such purpose. Nevertheless, they are made to serve the purpose of laying a foundation for the dominion of the Church, over all science and knowledge, for the dominion of the Pope, ay, even that of the Roman Congregations, over the Church, and for the lifting of men out of civil control into the higher sphere of Christian liberty, or, as the world would call it, for placing them under the dominion of ecclesiastical law. The process by which this is done is simple, and had been clearly indicated in the officious expositions of those judgments of the Syllabus which condemned "naturalism." First, God, as a personal Being, exists, has created the world, and rules it. Secondly, He gives a revelation by which man is raised above natural knowledge and perfection to a higher knowledge and perfection. Thirdly, this revelation is a deposit committed to the Church, which holds in charge the Word of God,written and traditional; andall things are to be believed which she propounds as divinely revealed, whether they are propounded by solemn judgment, or by the ordinary teaching authority. Hence, naturally, all science must be held subject to this faith, and therefore subject to this Church; andall things condemned in the Decrees of the Holy Seeare to be held as anathema, even though not specified in the present Decrees.

The four chapters containing these principles would not fix the attention of any student if he took them up in a village of the Campagna or of Connaught as the work of the priest of the parish. He would be tempted to doubt whether the worthy man who faced Atheism and Pantheism with these weapons had ever really met with them face to face in either their ancient or modern forms. He might even be tempted to think that the intellectual life of the author had been passed within walls, and that so far as concerns the books and the minds which really sway contemporary thought in either of the directions indicated, he had scarcely ever felt their grip. But when we look at this document as the work of a great society, on the preparation of which had been employed the leisure of years by a few, and then the united counsels of a large yet elect number, it certainly does not exalt our idea of human gifts. But it is not well to let the critical contempt which German scholars especially have displayed for the Drafts while under discussion, and for the Decrees when ultimately framed, blind us to the practical success of this late but adroit creed. For the purpose of laying a colourable theological basis under a municipal arrangement for governing mind and knowledge, belief and morals, laws and institutions all over the world, by a college of Augurs called Christian priests, it was not a mere superfluity of the professors, as many seemed to think. Sambin, Guérin, and other writers, not to mention prelates in abundance, struck a note, which is now taken up in colleges, seminaries, and schools. These compact chapters, being once exalted to the level of the Word of God, formed a short and easy method for connecting the Creator and the creation of the world with the last edict of the Vatican.

One of the startling statements in the secret memorandum,La Liberté du Concile, touches this Decree. A conclusion to it was proposed which to many appeared to include infallibility. This was strongly opposed. The committee withdrew it, saying that it would be reserved to the end of the final chapter on Faith. This step was applauded. The next day, or the next but one, however, the reporter announced that the vote upon it would be taken then and there. Eighty-three, in voting, demanded modifications; which, according to the Rules, compelled a consideration by the committee of the amendments they proposed. The committee finally resolved, with one dissentient, to substitute a new wording which would satisfy all. But when the moment came to vote, before the reporter mounted the pulpit, a communication was put into his hands. This attracted the attention of the Fathers. He mounted the pulpit, but did not report what the committee had adopted! He did report what it had set aside! The vote was instantly called for—no one could speak, the Rules did not allow it. The majority did its duty; and the wording, surreptitiously reported, was made "of Faith."[352]

Strong and circumstantial confirmation of this incredible statement is given in Kenrick's unspoken speech.[353]Incidentally he says, "The reporter, while we wondered what was the matter, suddenly recommended this conclusion, which had been first submitted and then withdrawn." This he says only on his way to tell Archbishop Manning that if the sense put by him upon this famous conclusion was the true one, the reporter was either himself deceived or had, knowingly, deceived the bishops. Deceiver or deceived, his declaration had won many votes. To get the clause passed, the reporter said it taught no doctrine, and was only a conclusion to round off the chapters. But when once passed, Manning cited it as concluding the question of infallibility, and making it improper for the bishops to discuss that question any longer.[354]Kenrick confesses that at the time he feared a trap. The writer ofLa Liberté du Conciledeclares that if the liberty of the Council was doubtful, this incident proved the liberty of the committees to be more doubtful still.

The sitting was opened with evident anxiety on both sides. The minority feared the threatened attempt at acclamation; the majority feared that the minority would formally refuse to enter on deliberation under the new Rules. When, however, instead of action, the paper protest was given in, and the reporter for the committee, Simor, Primate of Hungary, had mounted the pulpit, and things had resumed their course, the majority were evidently relieved. They knew that the minority had now committed themselves to the new Rules; and that, however they might recalcitrate hereafter, they would no more be able to shake off the meshes of the net than they had been in the past to shake off those of the old Rules. Five speakers had inscribed their names. They were supporters of the committee. It proved that the acoustics of the Hall had really been improved by a boarded partition which had been substituted for the curtain. When three had spoken the bell of the President rang, and the speaker then in possession was stopped. The Pope was descending to view the sacred relics, and the Fathers had to break up to form a procession in his train. Not one of them had been called to swell that train in the morning when he went, not to see and to be seen, but to the mass for "a certain Charles." At the close of this anxious sitting Bishop Pie congratulated Cardinal Bilio, "It has gone off well." So it had; the minority were now fairly enclosed in the net.

M. Veuillot cries, "There are three great devotions in Rome:the Holy Sacrament, the Holy Virgin, and the Pope. Rome is the city of the Real Presence, and the city of the Mother of God, and the city of the Vicar of Jesus Christ."[355]That saying sheds a clear light on the effect of materializing and localizing the idea of thedivine presenceby such notions as that of transubstantiation. The show of constitutional reforms just then being made in Paris by Napoleon III, contrasting as it did with what was being done in Rome, naturally disgusted M. Veuillot. He said that the title of Emperor now seemed grotesque. It was sad to witness the crown turned into a curiosity of the museum, or an accessory of the theatre. This was his idea of a constitutional crown. He consoled himself, however, by the thought that the tiara remained to us. Happily it was more solid than the crown. Pius IX., he said, would bequeath it to his successor more brilliant and more indestructible. Scandal of the world! kingdoms everywhere and no kings! Here is a king, but no kingdom! Let Liberals come to the Vatican and attempt to take liberties with the constitution. Let even universal suffrage attempt it; let it try to make any change here in which the guardian of the constitution does not concur.[356]

The noisy sitting of March 22 has had its echoes all over the world. The contradictions given by inspired writers to the uninspired ones appear to be even less definite than usual. We may content ourselves with giving that of Cardinal Manning as the sum of them all:—

Having from my earliest remembrance been a witness of public assemblies of all kinds, and especially of those among ourselves, which for gravity and dignity are supposed to exceed all others, I am able and bound to say that I have never seen such calmness, self-respect, mutual forbearance, courtesy, and self-control, as in the eighty-nine sessions of the Vatican Council. In a period of nine months the Cardinal President was compelled to recall the speakers to order perhaps twelve or fourteen times. In any other assembly they would have been inexorably recalled to the question sevenfold oftener and sooner. Nothing could exceed the consideration and respect with which this duty was discharged. Occasionallymurmurs of dissent were audible; now and then a comment may have been made aloud. In a very few instances, and those happily of an exceptional kind, expressions of strong disapproval and of exhausted patience at length escaped. But the descriptions of violence, outcries, menace, denunciation, and even of personal collisions, with which certain newspapers deceived the world, I can affirm to be calumnious falsehoods, fabricated to bring the Council into odium and contempt.[357]

La Liberté du Concileconfirms that portion of this statement which says that the speakers were often allowed to deliver irrelevant matter, when, in other assemblies, they would have been called back to the question. It says that no bishop of the majority could be named who was ever interrupted, although some of them strayed from the question so far that, in the first stages of the proceedings, they rushed into the question of infallibility.[358]

The first speaker in the celebrated sitting of March 22, was Schwarzenberg. He was not favourable to the Curia, their proceedings, or their plans. He had not felt an impression in the Congregations as if a Council was being held. At last the terrible bell was heard. It was faint, but it was certainly sounding. What! a Cardinal rung down?—and Schwarzenberg, with his princely rank, his historical name, his age, and his majestic presence! Even among the Cardinals, it is said, there was a slight murmur—a greater one among the bishops. But Schwarzenberg himself heard bravos for the President.[359]But the stately old man held his own.[360]After two other prelates had succeeded to the precarious honour in which the Prince Cardinal had been challenged, Strossmayer mounted the pulpit.

He attacked the statement contained in the Draft Decrees, that Protestantism was the source of the several forms of unbelief specified in that Draft. Strossmayer showed that the worst revolutions and the worst outbursts of infidelity had not been in Protestant countries, and that Catholics had notproduced better refutations of atheism, pantheism, and materialism than had Protestants, while all were indebted to such men as Leibnitz and Guizot. The Senior President, Cardinal De Angelis, cried, "This is not a place to praise the Protestants"; and having got so far in Latin, he declined into some other tongue.[361]No, says Quirinus, it was not the place, being within some few hundred paces of the Inquisition. The excitement had now become great. Strossmayer proceeded, amid partial clapping of hands and general murmurs of disapproval, to demand how they meant to apply the principles embodied in the new Rules, of making a dogma by a majority. When he cried "That alone can be imposed on the faithful which has in its favour a moral unanimity of bishops," up rose Cardinal Capalti, rang the bell, and, in a voice anything but courteous, as Vitelleschi says, ordered the speaker to stop. Strossmayer replied that he was tired of being called to order, and of being thwarted at every point; that such proceedings were incompatible with freedom of debate, and that he protested.[362]Then burst out an uproar that alarmed all who were outside in the church. Strossmayer stood, lifted up his hands, and thrice cried solemnly, "I protest! I protest! I protest!" Some one shouted, "You protest against us, and we protest against you." As the Archbishops of Rheims afterwards related, one of the majority stood up and shouted to Strossmayer, "We all condemn thee!" Bishop Place, of Marseilles, cried, "I do not condemn thee." Some one called Strossmayer a cursed heretic. Some shook their fists, some crowded round the pulpit, some cried "Pius IX. for ever!" some cried, "The Cardinal Legates for ever!" and others, as Vitelleschi adds, made noises equally serious and serene.La Liberté du Concilespeaks of the unheard of violence, of the cries which rang through the basilica outside, and of the menaces of a large number who rushed to the tribunal and surrounded it.[363]Friedrich speaks of clenched fists, and of fears lest the prelates should tear one another's hair.

The people in the church interpreted the commotion each man according to his own mind. Some—and that wild interpretation is laid to the door of the English—thought the Garibaldians had attacked the Fathers; some, that the long looked for dogma had at last sprung, full armed, out of the head of the assembly, and that all the uproar was caused by alarm at the portent. These raised cries of "Long live the Infallible Pope!" The crowd pressed round the door of the Hall, and there was danger of a tumult in the church. The servants of the bishops tried to enter the Council Chamber, fearing that their masters were being harmed in the disturbance. But thegendarme, whom Vitelleschi calls the most effective instrument of every sort of infallibility, cleared off the throng, resisted only by the servants, who clung to the door in the hope of rescuing their masters.

An American bishop said, with some patriotic pride, "Now I know of an assembly rougher than our own Congress."[364]Archbishop Landriot, of Rheims, said he was quite in despair.[365]Even Ketteler said, "It is too bad, the way they handle us here. I do not know how we shall go back to our dioceses and exist there."[366]Namszanowski, the Prussian military bishop, said to Friedrich that he had told an Italian prelate, "Things are more respectably done with us in a meeting of shoemakers, than here in the Council." Going on to express his impression that the only hope for the Church was in the fall of the temporal power, and the assumption of control over patronage and Church affairs by a temporal government, which would get rid of the excessive number of clergy, he continued, "The most humiliating thing for us German bishops is, that here we are forced to learn that it is the Freemason and Liberal papers that are correct, and that our Catholic ones, if we must call them Catholic,lie,lie."

The Pontiff soon made his voice heard as to the scene of this loud resounding Tuesday. On the following Friday he had the missionary bishops, numbering a hundred, assembled inthe Sala Regia. There the pictures of St. Bartholomew, of Barbarossa, and of the League against the Turks, had time to suggest hopes of future triumph before the Pontiff made his appearance. No sooner had he done so, than all fell on their knees. He had gathered them for a practical purpose. The Dorcases of the Church had been making, not coats and aprons for the widows, but raiment rich and rare for the prelates, and costly attire for altars and images. It was to distribute these goodly garments that his Holiness had now convoked them, but, of course, the great thing was the speech. Pointing clearly to the Opposition, he said, "We are surrounded by great difficulties, for some, like Pilate when terrified by the Jews, are afraid to do right. They fear the revolution. Though knowing the truth, they sacrifice all to Cæsar, even the rights of the Holy See, and their attachment to the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Wretches! what a fault they commit! The warfare of bishops," he went on to say, "is to defend the truth with the Vicar of Christ. My children, do not forsake me. Attach yourselves to me. Be with me. Unite yourselves to the Vicar of Jesus Christ."

We follow the version of M. Veuillot (vol. i. p. 372). Vitelleschi reports one of the Pope's expressions as "Be united to me, and not with the revolution" (p. 129), and asks, Who could have imagined that the good bishops who had been all their lives fighting the revolution should now be accused of revolution? He adds, "Rulers who endeavour to degrade Strossmayer to the level of a Rochefort, not unfrequently reverse the intended result, and raise a Rochefort to the height of a Strossmayer" (p. 130).

"And you, my dear Orientals," said the Pope, "I have ornaments also for you, but not enough of them. I give you what I have." Then he tried to calm their fears, excited by recent collisions. He concluded by the supreme disclosure, "We have in the Council the organs of the Liberal party, whose word of command is to gain time by opposing everything, and to wear out the patience of the majority." The allusion of the Pope was understood. Bitter, indeed, was it for thebishops of the minority to find themselves thus stigmatized before all men by the sovereign. But the effect was practical. The day following, ten Orientals announced their adhesion to the denunciation of Gratry by the Archbishop of Strasburg. Presently, forty-three missionary bishops published their concurrence in the profound discovery of Bonjean, of Ceylon, that the dogma of infallibility would conduce to the conversion of Buddhists, Brahmans, Protestants,and other difficult religionists of the East.[367]

As the Pope went to St. Cross of Jerusalem for theAgnus Dei, M. Veuillot heard cries of "The Infallible Pope for ever!" and said that this was a reply to the objections raised about the heresy of Pope Honorius. Hefele had unpleasantly brought this heresy into notice in a Latin pamphlet, which he had been obliged to print at Naples. Of inopportune things, few had been more inopportune of late than the appearance in Paris of a new edition of theLiber Diurnus, by Rozière. This ancient monument, with its simple formula? and infallible evidence, enabled every one to lay his finger on the fact that for centuries Popes had on oath abjured the heresy of Pope Honorius. But M. Veuillot heard an answer to all this in the cries of "The Infallible Pope for ever!"

But of all that the Pope passed on his route to Holy Cross, that which most excited the imagination of M. Veuillot was the Holy Stair and thetriclinium, where Charlemagne received the sword kneeling. Charlemagne, he says, ruled only long enough to indicate the place and form which he wished to give to his throne; but now, after a thousand years, his conception is one of the victorious apparitions.

When the world merits to re-enter on the path of unity, God will raise up a man, or a people, which will be Charlemagne. This Charlemagne, man or nation, will be seen here, at the Lateran, kneeling before the Pope, returned from dungeons or from exile; and the Pope will take the sceptre of the world off the altar, and put it into his hands.[368]

M. Veuillot knows better than he here seems to know. Charlemagne's conception was that of Constantine over again—a State Church; and over a State Church Charlemagne reigned. The conception of Hildebrand, now to be acted out, was that of a Church State, for which any Charlemagne might conquer, but over which no second head should reign. Unity, as M. Veuillot well knew, was now to comprehend not only onefold, but also oneshepherd. No more dualism! no more two-headed monsters! We had come to the dispensation of the spiritual David, Shepherd and King in one. It is, however, clear that the vision revealed to M. Veuillot, as in 1867, still disclosed a struggle to come before the victory; for his Pope, on taking his place as disposing of the sceptre of the world, comes back from dungeons or from exile. Moreover, Veuillot still smothers the poor kings in ambiguity. The new and final Charlemagne is to be a manor a nation.

The sittings which followed the stormy one were remarkably still; and it is said that Haynald and Whelan from Wheeling were allowed to say very strong things without interruption. It might be supposed that a short chapter on God the Creator of the World, could hardly give rise to a discussion on the Curial system; but when Rome set out to speak about the Creator, she first of all made mention of herself. The opening words of the chapter were, "The Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church." To this form exception was taken. One proposed that the word "Roman" should be omitted, which was, of course, offensive to the Curia, the municipal spirit always forcing into view the shibboleth, quite unconscious that it marred the show of universality. Indeed, it is asserted by many that the extreme Curialists wanted the words "Roman Church" alone, without Catholic. Others proposed that the word "Catholic" should stand before "Roman," or at least that a comma should be inserted between the two. It is a singular fact that a vote of the Council was actually taken on this question of the comma. On this great question of the comma the committee for once did not tell the majority how to vote.La Liberté du Concilethinks that the majority votedfor the comma. The numbers, however, were not reported in that sitting; and when the next one was opened, and all waited to hear on which side was the majority, lo! the reporter gets up, and, contrary to all rule, usage, and decency, quietly sets aside the vote as if it had never taken place; does not, indeed, mention it! He simply says that the committee has rejected the comma! Now the majority, knowing how it ought to vote, did its duty faithfully. So even about a tittle, in the literal sense, the writer ofLa Liberté du Concilewas highly incensed, contending that the rights of deliberation were ridden over roughshod. Finally, the phrase came out as "The Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church." Friedrich thinks that this phraseology compromises the claim to represent the Universal Church, and must be taken as only professing to represent the Roman Patriarchate.

Meantime the minority held anxious deliberations. They doubted whether they should not require a positive promise that no Decree touching faith should be carried by a majority, and whether if this was denied they should not refuse to take part in voting. They finally resolved that they would reserve their opposition, as completely as possible, for the all-important question of infallibility. They hoped by this means to secure the double end of showing a conciliatory disposition in everything in which they could give way with a good conscience, and of preventing a precedent from being established for carrying articles of faith by majorities. The last piece of strategy seemed specious. It, however, obviously laboured under the infirmity that they were all the time giving strength to the Rules which established the principle of majorities.

The preamble to the revised Draft of Decrees on Dogma contained not only the passage about Protestantism which Strossmayer had criticized, but also a clause suggested by the Bishop of Moulins, which virtually contained the doctrine of infallibility. This was strongly resisted by the minority, but all attempts to get it withdrawn had proved vain. In the sitting of the 26th, the order and method of voting, which was now for the first time to be put in practice, was fully read out.But before the vote was taken, a paper was sent in to the Presiding Cardinals, said to proceed from Bishop Clifford of Clifton. The Presidents left the Hall, and on their return to the surprise of all, the preamble, instead of being put to the vote, was withdrawn. When it reappeared, the objectionable passage about infallibility was removed, and the phrase as to Protestantism was moderated; and so the impending collision was averted. But the way of doing this showed that majority and minority were equally far from possessing the guarantees of legislative freedom. What would a powerful majority in our Parliament say if, after the clauses in a Bill had been settled in Committee, the Ministers should retire and decide on altering them, and without a word present them in a new form to the House for the final vote when no one could speak?

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