Chapter 23

FOOTNOTES:[352]Doc., i. 176.[353]Ibid.i. 225.[354]Kenrick's words are: Dixit verbis clarioribus, per illud nullam omnino doctrinam edoceri; sed eam quatuor capitibus ex quibus istud decretum compositum est imponi tanquam cis coronidem convenientem; eamque disciplinarem magis quam doctrinalem charactererem habere. Aut deceptus est ipse, si vera dixit Westmonasteriensis; aut nos sciens in errorem induxit, quod de viro tam ingenuo minime supponere licet. Utcumque fuerit ejus declarationi fidentes, plures suffragia sua isti decreto haud deneganda censuerunt ob istam clausulam; aliis, inter quos egomet, dolos parari metuentibus et aliorum voluntati hac in re ægre cedentibus.[355]Vol. i. 389.[356]Vol. i. p. 398 ff.[357]Pet. Priv., iii. 27, 28.[358]Doc., i. p. 172.[359]Tagebuch, 277.[360]Lib. du Con., Doc. i., p. 172.[361]Tagebuch, 278.[362]Vitelleschi, 128.[363]Doc., i. p. 172.[364]Quirinus, 388.[365]Tagebuch, 278.[366]Ibid.278.[367]Ce Qui se Passe au Concile, 163.[368]Vol. i. p. 443.

FOOTNOTES:

[352]Doc., i. 176.

[353]Ibid.i. 225.

[354]Kenrick's words are: Dixit verbis clarioribus, per illud nullam omnino doctrinam edoceri; sed eam quatuor capitibus ex quibus istud decretum compositum est imponi tanquam cis coronidem convenientem; eamque disciplinarem magis quam doctrinalem charactererem habere. Aut deceptus est ipse, si vera dixit Westmonasteriensis; aut nos sciens in errorem induxit, quod de viro tam ingenuo minime supponere licet. Utcumque fuerit ejus declarationi fidentes, plures suffragia sua isti decreto haud deneganda censuerunt ob istam clausulam; aliis, inter quos egomet, dolos parari metuentibus et aliorum voluntati hac in re ægre cedentibus.

[355]Vol. i. 389.

[356]Vol. i. p. 398 ff.

[357]Pet. Priv., iii. 27, 28.

[358]Doc., i. p. 172.

[359]Tagebuch, 277.

[360]Lib. du Con., Doc. i., p. 172.

[361]Tagebuch, 278.

[362]Vitelleschi, 128.

[363]Doc., i. p. 172.

[364]Quirinus, 388.

[365]Tagebuch, 278.

[366]Ibid.278.

[367]Ce Qui se Passe au Concile, 163.

[368]Vol. i. p. 443.

CHAPTER III

Important Secret Petition of Rauscher and others—Clear Statement of Political Bearings of the Question—A Formal Demand that the Question whether Power over Kings and Nations was given to Peter shall be argued—Complaints of Manning—Dr. Newman's Letter—TheCiviltáexorcises Newman—Veuillot's Gibes at him—Conflicts with the Orientals—Armenians in Rome attacked by the Police—Priests arrested—Broil in the Streets—Convent placed under Interdict—Third Session—Forms—Decrees unanimously adopted—Their Extensive Practical Effects.

Thedangers opening in the future defined themselves more and more clearly to the eyes of the bishops as the import of the constitutional changes now in progress was more fully apprehended. Reflection, conversation, and reading had done much since they came to Rome to clear their views. Even if they read as little of Church history, or of the current Curial literature, as is intimated in the oft-repeated laments of Friedrich, and in the less frequent but equally strong hints of Quirinus and others, they must surely have read something of theUnitáif not of theCiviltá, or at least of the sprightlyUnivers. Any one of the three, in spite of that pious style of mystery which Vitelleschi speaks of, would soon have made a very dull bishop indeed conscious that the world was going to be transformed.

The sagacious Rauscher put the forecast of the time into the form of a petition, dated April 10, which states the case of the future position of Roman Catholic citizens more strongly than some statements of it in our country, which have been treated as the invention either of Mr. Gladstone, or at best of Lord Acton, or of some other Liberal Catholic.[369]The petition is headed as being from several prelates of France, Austria,Hungary, Italy, England, Ireland, and America. The editor of theDocumentasays that Germany should have been added. Among the prelates from that country who signed it he specifies the Archbishops of Munich and Bamberg, the Bishops of Augsburg, Trêves, Ermland, Breslau, Rottenburg, Maintz, Osnabrück, and the Prussian Military Bishop. According to this statement, the name of Ketteler was to this document. When the German bishops met again at Fulda, after the Council, they put forth the very interpretation of the BullUnam Sanctamwhich is here solemnly treated as both false and absurd. Of course they were confronted with their own words. Friedrich says, in a note (p. 349), that Ketteler in theReichstag, and in the well-knownGermaniaNo. 146, for 1872, asserted that no German bishop had signed the petition, and that, therefore, the word "Germany" was not found in the superscription:—

But all this is vain lying and cheating, such as we are well accustomed to in the Ultramontane press and its episcopal inspirers. In No. 242 of theGermaniaKetteler himself owns that two German bishops, not Prussian, signed it. In reference to this, a theologian, deeply initiated in the secrets of the minority, writes to me under date June 20, 1871, that there are many Germans among the signatories.

Rauscher, and those who signed with him, alleged that the point about to be decided bore directly on the instruction to be given to the people, and on the relations of civil society to Catholic teaching. Disclaiming any thought of accusing the Popes of the middle ages of ambition, or of having disturbed civil society, and asserting their belief that what the Pontiffs then did was done by virtue of an existing state of international law, they go on to say that those Popes held that our Lord had committed two swords to the successors of Peter; one, spiritual, which they themselves wielded; the other material, which princes and soldiers ought to wield at their command. Then dealing with the attempt to represent this Bull as requiring only that all shall acknowledge the Pope as the head of the Church, they declare that gloss to be irreconcilable with love ofthe truth on the part of any one who is acquainted with the circumstances as between Boniface VIII and Philip le Bel; and that, moreover, it is a mode of treating the subject which puts weapons into the hands of the enemies of the Church to calumniate her. They add, "Popes, down to the seventeenth century, taught that power over temporal things was committed to them by God, and they condemn the opposite opinion." Mark, they do not say temporal authority, but power over temporal things. With them temporal authority is authority of temporal origin.

Now follows a historical statement of great importance. "We, with nearly all the bishops of the Catholic world, propound another doctrine to the Christian people as to the relation of the ecclesiastical power to the civil." They then make the stock comparison of the heavens and the earth, as indicating the relative dignity of the spiritual and temporal power, and say that each is supreme in its own sphere. The ambiguous phrase "supreme in its own sphere," means, in Ultramontane language, as we have seen, only that the temporal prince is not subject to any other temporal power. But these bishops evidently meant at the time to be clear of ambiguities. They added an explanation of immense significance—"Neither power in its office is dependent upon the other." This is a formal and total denial of what theCiviltáhad long been preaching, of what Phillips and Tarquini and all the accredited modern writers taught. The utmost they ever admit is, that in itsnature, and in itsorigin, temporal power is, or may be, independent of the spiritual. But in office all impersonated authorities must be dependent on the impersonated authority of the Vicar of God. The next stroke of the petitioners was still bolder. Admitting that princes, as members of the Church, are subordinate to her discipline, they affirm that she does not in any way hold a power of deposing them, or of releasing their subjects from their allegiance. Still more incisive was the stroke that followed, for it was aimed at the whole principle of Papal authority over the State. They declared that the power of judging things, whichthe Popes of the middle ages had exercised, came to them by a certain state of public law; and that, as the public institutions and even the private circumstances which then existed had changed, the power itself has with the foundation of it passed away. This was the language which might be used before the BullUnam Sanctamhad received the stamp of infallibility. It was language in which the claims founded on the text "Teach all nations," or "I have set thee this day over the nations, and over the kingdoms," are met with a downright denial. The fact that the Popes had at one time acted as supreme judges was accounted for by a state of political relations, not by a divine right, just, we may say, as the fact would have been accounted for that the kings of Persia were appealed to as arbiters by Greeks. Still further, the change which had taken place was not only admitted, but it was held to have annulled the former relation between the power of the Papacy and civil society. A careful consideration of the positions thus stated, and a comparison of them with matter in the Curial writings of the present pontificate with which we are already familiar, afford some measure of the distance separating the Ultramontanes north of the Alps, of the old type, like Rauscher among the clergy and Montalembert among the laity, from the new school formed by the development of the Jesuits into what had now become the Catholic party. We do not say that the old Ultramontanes did not give the Pope authority irreconcilable with Holy Scripture, and power dangerous to civil society. All we can say is that the authority and power which they did give to him was bounded by a frontier tolerably defined, and therefore capable of being defended.

The remark of the Pope, carried away from the Vatican by numbers of bishops and not a few laymen, and repeated in every form of gossip printed or spoken, to the effect that the bishops of the Opposition were only time-servers and Court ecclesiastics, is, in Rauscher's petition, repelled with dignity and force. Their opinions, as just stated, they declare are not new but ancient. They were those of all the Fathers, and ofall the Pontiffs down to Gregory VII. They believed them to be the true doctrines of the Catholic Church; for God forbid that, under stress of the times, they should adulterate revealed truth. But they must point out the dangers which would arise to the Church from a Decree irreconcilable with the doctrines that they have hitherto taught. No one, they affirm, can help seeing that it is impossible to reform (they do not say reconstruct) society according to the rule laid down in the BullUnam Sanctam. But any right which God has indeed given, and any obligation corresponding to such right, is incapable of being destroyed by the vicissitudes of human institutions and opinions. If then the Roman Pontiff had received the power of the two swords, as it is asserted in the BullEx Apostolatus Officio, he would, by divine right, hold plenary power over nations and kings; and it would not be allowable for the Church to conceal this from the faithful. But if this was the real form of Christianity as an institution, little would it avail for Catholics to assert that, as to the power of the Holy See over temporal things, that power would be restrained within the bounds of theory, and that it was of no importance in relation to actual affairs and events, seeing that Pius IX was far from thinking of deposing civil rulers.

This last statement was directly aimed at Antonelli's habitual mode of putting the case in conversation with diplomatists, and also as we have seen in his despatches. But our prelates contend that, in reply to such assertions,

"opponents would scornfully say, We do not fear the sentences of the Pontiffs; but after many and various dissimulations, it has become evident at last that"—(the italics are our own)—"every Catholic, whose actions are ruled by the faith he professes, is a born enemy of the State, since he finds himself bound in conscience to contribute, as far as in him lies, to the subjection of all nations and kings to the Roman Pontiff".

On these solemn grounds they formally demand that the question whether our Lord did or did not commit power over kings and nations to Peter and to his successors shall be directly proposed to the Council and examined in everyaspect. In order that the Fathers may not be called without adequate preparation to decide a question the consequences of which must profoundly affect the relations of the Church and civil society, they demand further that this point shall be brought on for discussion before that infallibility. Their petition was not addressed to the Pontiff in person, but to the Presiding Cardinals.

No efforts made since, or which may be made hereafter, can erase this record of the views of the bishops at the time in question. Their conduct since the Council proves that for themselves, as individuals, conviction is lost in submission. For the dogma has conquered history. With the German bishops submission passed beyond silence, and proceeded as far as deliberately certifying to the public as ancient views and sincere ones the very views which they had secretly shown to be innovations and pretences, alien to ancient teaching and to their own belief. God's two priceless jewels, conscience and conviction, are here sent to the bottom of the stagnant pool of submission to a human king. It is by contemplating such a course of conduct in men with a position to hold in the eye of the sun, that we learn the force of such words as those of Vitelleschi, when he says that the frequent collision in Catholic countries between a man's civil conscience and his ecclesiastical one is the reason why so often there is no conscience at all. And men such as these German bishops are the moral guides of millions! and out of millions so guided States have to be built up, and men have to be fitted for the judgment of Him who requireth truth in the inward parts! And Vitelleschi evidently thinks that, in a moral point of view, the German bishops were the best!

Gossip in Rome spoke of Dr. Manning as burning with impatience at the delays which had been interposed in the way of the forthcoming dogma. Baron Arnim told Freidrich how it was said that the Archbishop prophesied that the governments would be annihilated for their resistance to it.[370]Quirinus speaks of the Archbishop as expecting a wonderful dispensationof the Holy Ghost to follow the promulgation of the dogma, and to smooth the way of the Church in her regeneration of the nations. Whatever may have been the amount of correctness in these details, the fact remains that at that moment a mind which had attracted notice to itself as urging Englishmen to Rome for unity, was bitterly complained of by Liberal Catholics as being the very genius of contraction and division, urging their Church either to beat them down or to cast them out—to make herself too narrow for them, and to tell them that they should be endured only on new conditions.

At the same time a cry came from our own shores. It was the voice of one who had made himself conspicuous by alluring Englishmen towards Rome for certainty, and on whose spirit the shadow of a new and dark uncertainty was now settling down—uncertainty as to the future source of doctrinal truth; uncertainty as to the doctrinal authority of existing documents; uncertainty, in fine, as to what had been, and as to what was to be, the oracle; uncertainty as to the future work of God. At the same moment when Dr. Manning was accused by Roman Catholics of violating the old terms of unity, Dr. Newman was turned into a warning to Protestants as a victim of uncertainty. When describing how he and his party fared when first, after shifting from the rock of Holy Scripture, they settled on another foundation, which they called Anglicanism or theVia Media, Dr. Newman had said:—

There they found a haven of rest; thence they looked out on the troubled surge of human opinion and upon the crazy vessels which were labouring without chart or compass upon it. Judge, then, of their dismay when, according to the Arabian tale, on their striking their anchor into the supposed soil, lighting their fires on it, and fixing in it the poles of their tents, suddenly the island began to move, to heave, to splash, to frisk to and fro, to dive, and at the last to swim away, spouting out inhospitable jets of water upon the credulous mariners who had made it their home.[371]

We can hardly doubt that some English parson who in his youth had for a moment felt attracted by the notion of unityand certainty, by the charm of vestments, processions, and banners, thanked God on the morning after he had read the following letter, when he looked at the family Bible, that he had not left the solid ground and set up a tent on what Dr. Newman and his Anglicans told people was solid ground, but which proved to be the sporting and frisking monster that he himself described. Ay, and perhaps some Cornish miner, as he went down into his darkness, happy in his Saviour—a Saviour who seemed to come nearer to him as day and man, as home and the fair sky, went farther away—so happy that he hummed—

In darkest shades, if Thou appear,My dawning is begun:Thou art my soul's bright morning star,And Thou my rising sun—

perhaps this miner put up a prayer for the poor gentleman in Birmingham who was in such uncertainty about what might be his creed by next Christmas, and yet knew no better than to beg of Augustine and Ambrose to prevail upon the Almighty not to let His Church tell out all the truth about the Vicar whom the gentleman fancied that He had set over her, but to cause her to practise reserve, or to speak in non-natural senses.

To avoid contamination by impure authorities we shall follow only theCiviltáin its narrative of the Newman incident.[372]TheStandardstated that Dr. Newman, in a letter to his bishop, then absent in Rome, had called the promoters of infallibility an insolent and aggressive faction, and had prayed to God to avert from His Church the threatening danger. TheWeekly Registerdeclared itself authorized by a personal friend of Dr. Newman to give the most absolute denial to this deliberate fiction. Dr. Newman himself wrote to theStandardto deny that he had written to his bishop and called the promoters of infallibility an insolent and aggressive faction. Yet, after Dr. Newman's method, there were words and words about it. Soon appeared in theStandarda second letter from him, confessing that he had been informed from London that several copies of his letter existed in that city, containing theaffirmation which he had denied. He now said that, before sending his contradiction, he had looked at the notes of the letter to his bishop, and had not found the words "insolent and aggressive faction." But he confessed that since learning that several people in London had those words in their possession, he had looked again and found them. He added that by the faction he did not mean that large number of bishops who had declared in favour of infallibility, nor yet the Jesuits. He meant a collection of persons of different countries, ranks, and conditions in the Church.

TheCiviltáwas careful to remark that Dr. Newman had not withdrawn his offensive words. Others no less remarked that he had never confessed to a single point in his own statement till compelled to do so. He had published a contradiction which to ordinary Englishmen would seem to carry an almost complete denial of the whole allegation. But theStandardon April 7 published the following letter, showing that not only the substance of the allegation was correct, but also its details:—

Rome ought to be a name to lighten the heart at all times, and a Council's proper office is, when some great heresy or other evil impends, to inspire hope and confidence in the faithful; but now we have the greatest meeting which ever has been, and that at Rome, infusing into us by the accredited organs of Rome and of its partisans (such as theCiviltá, [theArmonia], theUnivers, and theTablet) little else than fear and dismay. When we are all at rest, and have no doubts, and—at least practically, not to say doctrinally—hold the Holy Father to be infallible, suddenly there is thunder in the clearest sky, and we are told to prepare for something, we know not what, to try our faith, we know not how. No impending danger is to be averted, but a great difficulty is to be created. Is this the proper work of an Œumenical Council?As to myself personally, please God, I do not expect any trial at all; but I cannot help suffering with the many souls who are suffering, and I look with anxiety at the prospect of having to defend decisions which may not be difficult to my own private judgment, but may be most difficult to maintain logically in the face of historical facts.What have we done to be treated as the faithful never weretreated before? When has a definitionde fidebeen a luxury of devotion and not a stern, painful necessity? Why should an aggressive, insolent faction be allowed to "make the heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful"? Why cannot we be let alone when we have pursued peace and thought no evil?I assure you, my lord, some of the truest minds are driven one way and another, and do not know where to rest their feet—one day determining "to give up all theology as a bad job," and recklessly to believe henceforth almost that the Pope is impeccable, at another tempted to "believe all the worst which a book likeJanussays," others doubting about "the capacity possessed by bishops drawn from all corners of the earth to judge what is fitting for European society," and then, again, angry with the Holy See for listening to "the flattery of a clique of Jesuits, Redemptorists, and converts."Then, again, think of the store of pontifical scandals in the history of eighteen centuries, which have partly been poured forth and partly are still to come. What Murphy inflicted upon us in one way M. Veuillot is indirectly bringing on us in another. And then again the blight which is falling upon the multitude of Anglican Ritualists, etc., who themselves perhaps—at least their leaders—may never become Catholics, but who are leavening the various English denominations and parties (far beyond their own range) with principles and sentiments tending towards their ultimate absorption into the Catholic Church.With these thoughts ever before me, I am continually asking myself whether I ought not to make my feelings public; but all I do is to pray those early doctors of the Church, whose intercession would decide the matter (Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Basil), to avert this great calamity.If it is God's will that the Pope's infallibility be defined, then is it God's will to throw back "the times and moments" of that triumph which He has destined for His kingdom, and I shall feel I have but to bow my head to His adorable, inscrutable providence.You have not touched upon the subject yourself, but I think you will allow me to express to you feelings which, for the most part, I keep to myself....

As to myself personally, please God, I do not expect any trial at all; but I cannot help suffering with the many souls who are suffering, and I look with anxiety at the prospect of having to defend decisions which may not be difficult to my own private judgment, but may be most difficult to maintain logically in the face of historical facts.

What have we done to be treated as the faithful never weretreated before? When has a definitionde fidebeen a luxury of devotion and not a stern, painful necessity? Why should an aggressive, insolent faction be allowed to "make the heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful"? Why cannot we be let alone when we have pursued peace and thought no evil?

I assure you, my lord, some of the truest minds are driven one way and another, and do not know where to rest their feet—one day determining "to give up all theology as a bad job," and recklessly to believe henceforth almost that the Pope is impeccable, at another tempted to "believe all the worst which a book likeJanussays," others doubting about "the capacity possessed by bishops drawn from all corners of the earth to judge what is fitting for European society," and then, again, angry with the Holy See for listening to "the flattery of a clique of Jesuits, Redemptorists, and converts."

Then, again, think of the store of pontifical scandals in the history of eighteen centuries, which have partly been poured forth and partly are still to come. What Murphy inflicted upon us in one way M. Veuillot is indirectly bringing on us in another. And then again the blight which is falling upon the multitude of Anglican Ritualists, etc., who themselves perhaps—at least their leaders—may never become Catholics, but who are leavening the various English denominations and parties (far beyond their own range) with principles and sentiments tending towards their ultimate absorption into the Catholic Church.

With these thoughts ever before me, I am continually asking myself whether I ought not to make my feelings public; but all I do is to pray those early doctors of the Church, whose intercession would decide the matter (Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Basil), to avert this great calamity.

If it is God's will that the Pope's infallibility be defined, then is it God's will to throw back "the times and moments" of that triumph which He has destined for His kingdom, and I shall feel I have but to bow my head to His adorable, inscrutable providence.

You have not touched upon the subject yourself, but I think you will allow me to express to you feelings which, for the most part, I keep to myself....

This letter could not, because of Dr. Newman's reputation, be passed over in silence. TheCiviltáwell knew how to utilize that reputation, yet it indicates by its mode of dealing with him that it does not set Dr. Newman so high, either intellectually or morally, as his own countrymen do. It treated the whole affair as a temptation of one of a piousimagination but a sickly judgment. The temptation was one peculiar to Englishmen—it was low spirits. An Englishman labouring under that temptation would read theCiviltá, theArmonia, theUnivers, etc., with sombre-coloured spectacles. It was a disease in the eyes. Those affected by it looked upon the definition of a verity as a scourge of God, an affliction not merited! Still, as Dr. Newman did not for himself fear it, he would be able to explain it to others. But the definition of a truth was to prove a blight for the poor Anglican Ritualists:—

Do you not perceive that it is only temptation that makes you see everything black?... If the holy doctors whom you invoke, Ambrose, Jerome, etc., do not decide the controversy in your way, it is not, as the ProtestantPall Mall Gazettefancies, because they will not or cannot interpose, but because they agree with St. Peter and with the petition of the majority.... Would you have us make processions in sackcloth and ashes to avert this scourge of the definition of a verity? And if it is defined, when the Fathers chantTe Deumwill some of you intone theMiserere? On the contrary, you too will applaud it.... Dupanloup will not merely be resigned, he will be a champion of infallibility, and we shall all together say, Amen, hallelujah! and it also will be a hymn like the song in the Apocalypse.... Get rid of this ugly melancholy temptation. It makes you lose your logic and your English good sense. Even the Protestant journals teach you better, and as one devil cast out another, a Protestant article may serve to cast out a temptation.

The compassionate Jesuits of theCiviltáthen proceed to cast the one devil out of Dr. Newman by the aid of two others, which are respectively thePall Mall Gazetteand theManchester Examiner and Times—the former in an appearance of April 8, the latter in an appearance of April 9. Lest this exorcism should not suffice, it calls to its aid seven other spirits equally evil—theTimes, theSaturday Review, theTelegraph, theDaily News, theSpectator, theStandard, and theEcho. All these, fallen angels though they were, had agreed in the opinion that a religious truth had better be told than hidden, and that a Church which had an infallible head ought to knowit. Though on this one point right, these Protestant journals had, however, held up the letter of Dr. Newman as a proof of internal division underlying a vaunted unity. But in this they were illogical. With this boast theCiviltáfitly couples a declaration of Dr. Newman, in which the tortured spirit, whose piercing cry had reached the ear of the world through thick walls, and had been identified in spite of artful windings, puts on, in presence of Protestants, another voice, wishing them to become partakers of its satisfaction and repose! M. Veuillot was not the man tamely to find himself coupled with Mr. Murphy by one like Dr. Newman, whom, if repute in England set extravagantly high, certainly he did not. He told how theUnivershad begged four thousand pounds for Dr. Newman and sent it to him, on the occasion when he was cast in damages for a libel on Achilli, an ex-censor of the press, at Viterbo, who had become a Protestant:—

"The respectable convict," says Veuillot, "received it and was pleased, but he gave no thanks and showed no courtesy. Father Newman ought to be more careful in what he says; everything that is comely demands it of him. But, at any rate, if his Liberal passion carries him away till he forgets what he owes to us and to himself, what answer must one give him, but that he had better go on as he set out, silently ungrateful?"[373]

Such were the inhospitable jets spouted out upon Dr. Newman by the floundering creature on the back of which the twice "credulous mariner" had pitched his tent. Englishmen may smile at finding Dr. Newman aspersed with the reproach of Liberalism. His puerile spite at the very name of it, as shown in his writings, thus found its Nemesis. M. Veuillot, by a link of connexion which is not obvious, confesses that he too, in youth and inexperience, indulged in dreams of peace. But his mature ideas were ruled by a manlier spirit. "I dream of a long war—long, hot, inexorable, and one that will change the face of the world."

For some time past the Orientals had been receiving and giving cause for solicitude. The incident already related ofthe Chaldean Patriarch was but a symptom of general uneasiness. The Pontiff had resolved on abrogating the old right of electing bishops, under which the communities nominated three persons, of whom the Patriarch instituted the one whom he preferred. We have seen how the Chaldean Patriarch was overcome. Jussef, the Melchite Patriarch, refused to surrender his rights, and it is said that, in an audience before other Orientals, the Pope went so far as to seize him by the shoulders.[374]The Syrian Patriarch, on receiving the Pope's command, had taken to his bed, and had not yet answered. The Maronite Patriarch had refused his consent, and had, notwithstanding repeated invitations, stayed in Antioch, instead of coming on to the Council.

The Armenians, however, excited more attention than all the others. Their Patriarch, Hassun, had, some time before, surrendered his rights, and while, in consequence, rising high in favour with the Curia, had incurred ill-will among his own people. Rome, taking advantage of his concessions, had made new and exorbitant claims, on which the yoke of the Papacy was thrown off. Imperative orders to submit were disregarded. A special commissioner was sent from Rome to allay the disturbance, but his success was very limited.

For some time rumours had been floating about the city that two Oriental bishops had been thrown into prison. These changed to rumours of an arrest, and an escape. At last theUnivers[375]published an account, stating that the theologian attached to an Armenian bishop had used such language respecting the authorities, that Cardinal Barnabò, Prefect of the Propaganda, had ordered him to the Convent of the Passionists. But he refused to go in such terms that the Cardinal Vicar was obliged to employ force. The theologian was then taken from the residence of the bishop, and put into a vehicle. He was, however, so violent that the "agents" let him escape into the house again, and though they there attempted a second time to take him, they finally gave way before the opposition of the bishop.

At the same time theUniversmentions "a much graver fact." The Pontiff had ordered an apostolic visitation of the convent of the Armenians, which stands just behind the Colonnade of St. Peter's. The twelve who once walked among men with the humble name of apostles would have little thought that an apostolic visitation should come to mean an inspection by an officer of the King and Pontiff of Rome. The Bishop Ksagian (sic) refused to receive the visitor. The Pope ordered the bishop to the Convent of St. Sabina. The bishop, however, refused to go, and appealed to Bishop Place, of Marseilles, to procure French protection for him.

Ce Qui se Passe au Concile(p. 144) says that Bahtiarian, an Armenian Archbishop, had his Vicar-General with him, against whom some one informed, as having spoken with hostility of Hassun, the Romanized Patriarch whom we have just mentioned, and of Valerga, the so-called Patriarch of Jerusalem. Cardinal Barnabò ordered the Vicar-General to a Jesuit convent, but the Archbishop insisted that he would not allow him to go, except upon a written order from the Pope himself. We are not sure whether this represents the first scene in the account of theUnivers.

Some days afterwards, proceedsCe Qui se Passe au Concile, as Bahtiarian was going to say Mass, his Vicar-General followed him, carrying the missal, accompanied by another Armenian priest. In the street the Archbishop passed through a group of police, headed by an officer. They seized the two priests who were walking behind him, and dragged them to a vehicle. The Orientals valiantly defended themselves, and a struggle ensued. Hearing cries, the Archbishop turned back, and saw his Vicar-General down, and the missal on the ground being trampled upon. He rushed forward, pointing to the book, and crying, "It is the Gospel: it is the Gospel of Christ! Do you treat the Gospel like that?" The officer did not dare to do violence to the Archbishop, who managed to carry off his Vicar-General, and that day both of them took refuge in the Armenian Convent. It would seem that now followed the order for a visitation of the convent, which ArchbishopCasangian (as this account correctly gives the name and title) resisted; and he, in turn, received an order to go to a convent for "retirement." It is even said that leave to quit Rome was refused by the police to all the Armenians, not excepting a bishop who was furnished with a medical certificate that it was necessary for his health.

TheCiviltáand theActa Sanctæ Sedisdo not mention the arrests. The one says that Kasangian, as they spell his name, was Abbot-General by arbitrary election, the other that he was so by tolerance of the Pope. The visitation was first attempted by a Passionist Father, delegated by Pluym, a bishopin partibus, who had been by the Pope appointed Visitor-General of the Order. The attempt was resisted. The document which gives to Pluym his powers calmly says that "power divinely conferred resides in the Pope of loosing, by his sentence, the things bound by sentence of any judges whomsoever."[376]The disobedient Archbishop and the local Abbot were both ordered to another convent,for spiritual exercises, as long as the Pope should appoint. They both refused to go. Fresh letters gave the powers of visitor to no less a person than Valenziani, the bishop who in the Council read the Decrees. These letters declared Archbishop Kasangian deposed from the office of Abbot-General of the Order; declared the office of the Abbot of the monastery vacant, and all other offices within it whatsoever; declared that no authority existed in that house but what flowed from Valenziani, and declared that all pains and penalties he might impose should be ratified.

So armed, Valenziani presented himself with consummate address and admirable suavity. Even according to theActa Sanctæ Sedis, he declared that his visitation had no object but to lead the Armenians to fulfil their duty. But the Orientals knew the double tongue. In his own words, they lent no obedient ear. Others say that they would not allow the Pope's brief to be read. Defied and defeated in the very "street of the Holy Office," Valenziani had the once terribleinterdict fastened to the door of the rebellious convent. It was owing, says theActa Sanctæ Sedis, to the clemency of the Holy See that theseverest punishment, such as was due to the offence, was not inflicted.[377]Others told of different causes.

The protection of France being refused to the Armenians, the strange spectacle was seen, as Vitelleschi puts it, of brethren in Christ being forced to seek protection against His Vicar from a Turk (p. 130). Rustum Bey, the Ottoman ambassador, came from Florence, and, it is said, was not well received, by Antonelli, who gave him to understand that, in Rome, all priests were subjects of the Pope. But the ambassador would not waive the rights of the Porte, which, he alleged, was obliged to show favour to the Armenians, to prevent them from throwing themselves into the arms of Russia. The day of unity had not yet dawned. The poor world had still to suffer from more heads than one. Finally, after specious attempts of the authorities to get the Armenians into their power, and wonderful wariness and dexterity on the part of the Orientals, one morning the convent behind the colonnades of St. Peter's was found empty—not the first time that a convent had been left empty in Rome. The monks had somehow managed to take their flight from a spot only a few yards from the Inquisition and within rifle shot of scores of convents—in which "retirement" for "religious exercises" might have been, for them, a very serious matter. It is said that, before the flight, Rustum Bey told the monks, in case of need, to hoist the Turkish flag, and threatened that, if any harm was done to them, reprisals should be taken on Romish convents in Turkey. Indeed, M. Veuillot goes so far as to assert that they actually did hoist the Turkish flag, and also the French. He says that they executed the sentence of excommunication upon themselves (ii. 87). If they did hoist the Turkish flag, it would have been a curious sight to see the two emblems of religion and physical force which still survive in Europe—the crescent, and the keys and tiara—floating side by side, close by the prisons of the Inquisition and thecircus where Nero gave to unity by physical force, his pontifical sanction. It was asserted that attempts were made to put the Armenian Archbishop of Tarsis also into "retirement."[378]

The exaggerated rumours afloat regarding espionage would be stimulated by anecdotes like the above. It seems to have been agreed, on all hands, that during the Council the force detailed for that important duty had been increased manifold. Friedrich mentions one Papal officer who said that out of every fifty persons fifteen were spies. He gave examples of people now living handsomely who were known to have nothing. One Marchese had set up his carriage. Why, Friedrich says, even the train-bearer of a Cardinal will give a dinner to the train-bearers of the other Cardinals in order to spy them out. He naturally enough remarks that a historian learns a good deal by finding himself amidst such a state of things. It enables him to understand many things in history. But, strangest of all, reflects the Professor, is it to find people looking on this worn-out system as the model for the whole earth. It is, however, just the fact that such a state of things was looked upon as the model for the whole earth, that gives a deep interest to every trait showing what that state of things really was.

Friedrich, remarking that the Count De Chambord, as a dispossessed prince who expected his throne back from the infallible Pope, very naturally was an Infallibilist, goes on to say that only dispossessed princes are papistically minded. They were nearly all waiting in Rome, and he had reason to know that they expected that the declaration of infallibility, and the things connected therewith, would lead to their restoration, as the Pope certainly expected that it would lead to the recovery of his own States.[379]

April 24 was the day fixed for the third public session. The first had been devoted to the opening ceremony, the second to the swearing of the Creed; but this was one forthe promulgation of Decrees. Up to the last it was doubtful whether all the bishops of the minority would adopt the policy recommended by the leaders, not to cause any division into majority and minority till the struggle on infallibility itself came on. Some say that Kenrick and Strossmayer held out so far as to stay away. But Kenrick voted, although, as we have seen, he expressed regret at having yielded to others instead of following his own judgment. The robes for the day were red. The doors of the house were thrown open, and non-members who had a place in the galleries were not required to withdraw at the time when the Rules prescribed that they should do so. When the Decrees were handed from the throne, Valenziani read them out from the pulpit. Jacobini, the Sub-Secretary, then ascended it, and called out the name of Cardinal Mattei. "Absent!" cried a voice from near the throne. "Absent!" cried a voice from near the door, at the other end of the Hall. Jacobini then called out, "Constantine, Bishop of Porto"; and Patrizi, rising, said "Placet." "Placet," cried the voice from near the throne. "Placet," cried the voice from near the door, and the scrutineers and officers registered the vote. It was not long before a test name was called—that of Schwarzenberg, one of the few Cardinals older than the present pontificate. He had already advised the policy of concession for to-day, saying, "We must not blow our powder away." But this was not known to all the majority, and when the magnificent prince pronounced hisPlacet, there was a manifest expression of relief. When the Cardinals had all been called the names were no longer repeated—only the title of the See.

Cardinal Manning relates how diplomatists, who had hoped to see division, were struck as they looked from their galleries, and saw the leaders of the Opposition, one after another, stand up and pronounce theirPlacet. Friedrich says that the countenances of the Jesuits changed from gloom to delight, when Schwarzenberg, Hohenlohe, Darboy, and others, gave in their votes, and that they manifested a particular interest in that of Hefele. He also says that the gentlemen whowere with him in the tribune figuring as theologians, but whom he calls train-bearers, were intensely anxious about the indispensable sunbeams, which, however, he adds, were for that day cut off from the Hall. Just as the Pope entered the assembly, the sunbeams did pass the threshold; and the gentlemen around him cried out, "The sun, the sun!" their eyes dancing for joy. After the Decrees had been passed, the Pope pronounced a short allocution, rejoicing in their unity, and saying, "Our Lord Jesus Christ gave peace to His apostles, and I also, who am His unworthy Vicar, in His name give peace to you." Friedrich says that some French bishops hailed this with clapping of hands, but that, instead of this being general, there were signs of dissatisfaction, and particularly from the galleries. The first statement is confirmed by theActa Sanctæ Sedis.

Friedrich could hardly catch the formula in which the Pope announced his passing of the Decrees; but it struck him that it was not the same as that prescribed in the Rules; and on receiving the text as passed, he found that a change had been made without any intimation whatever having been given of it. To him the change was nothing, as the new form only said what he knew the previous one meant, although bishops had seriously differed with him for saying so. The Rules prescribe the formula, "We decree, enact, and sanction"; and this was now changed to the more compact and expressive Papistical formula, "We define, and, by apostolic authority confirm." The word "sanction" had a flavour of historic dualism.

The Curialists boasted, after this session, that they had gained three points, and the statement of them shows a clear conception of their own strategy and of the positions to be won:[380]first, the Pope had, for the first time in three hundred and fifty years, proclaimed Decrees in a Council in his own name only, merely mentioning the Council as approving; secondly, the new Rules had been accepted; thirdly, the final clause of the Decrees carried the conclusion that theformer dogmatic Decrees of the Popes were accepted as of authority. This last point alone was of prodigious consequence, and vindicates Friedrich's discernment in tracing the Curial system at first sight in these apparently elementary and rather feeble chapters. Only one fortnight earlier, as we have seen, Cardinals and prelates declared that they and the majority of bishops in great nations had taught in direct contradiction to the BullUnam Sanctam. But from to-day both that Bull and, among others, theEx Apostolatus Officioof Paul IV, the father of the Roman Inquisition, were of Divine authority! Or, as Quirinus puts it, "Rules of faith for the whole Catholic world, and thus it will be taught universally in Europe and America, henceforth, that the Pope is absolute master in temporal affairs also; that he can order war or peace, and that every monarch or bishop who does not submit to him, or helps any one separated from him, ought to be deprived of his throne, if not of his life" (p. 471).

The Decrees contain eighteen anathemas! Vitelleschi says, that of those in the cathedral who paid any attention to the proceedings, none seemed ever to reflect that, as Catholics, they would lie down that night with new articles of faith and new declarations (anathemas) weighing on their intellect and conscience. "Authority" teaches men to admit new creeds with awful facility, and to utter anathemas almost as readily as a primitive Christian would have said, God bless you! The Curialists did not exaggerate the substantial victory which had been won, or the practical importance of the three points already specified. The legislative effect of those points upon what little of constitutional arrangements had still been left in the Romish communion was very great. They linked all the past dogmatic Decrees of the Popes to the authority of the Creator of the world. The unfailing interpreter of the view taken by the Court of the position of affairs, M. Veuillot, says (i. 472), "The last paragraph confirms all the Constitutions, and apostolical Decrees, which condemn the errors of the times. Thus have the condemnations pronounced in the Syllabus received the official stamp."[381]

Even the anathemas were pleasant to M. Veuillot's cultured taste. "You have read the eighteen anathemas against errors pronounced in the old form of the sovereignty of the Church." Some had said that there would be no more anathemas, some that they did not want any more. "But there they are, and there they are for eternity. In my view, the work of revolt accomplished during a hundred years falls smitten with old age" (ii. 45, 46).

Not long afterwards, chiding theFigaro, theGaulois, and other journals, for asking what the Council was doing, he replied, "The Council is making a wide and deep furrow like the grave of a world. You will go down into that furrow, and you will not spring up" (ii. 58). As to theplébiscitethen about to be taken in France, he said that he could not vote Yes, because that would be permanently handing oneself over to princes who would not take any engagement to the Church; and he would not say No, for he did not wish to precipitate disasters (ii. 66).

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