Letters From Rome on the Council

Not less remarkable is the coincidence of the decree with the publication of Count Daru's Letter. Its publication, which proclaims to the world the policy of the French Cabinet towards the Court of Rome, has excited the greater sensation in Rome, as it could not have emanated from any ordinary correspondent. The letter was only known to the English Government, and there was no copy in England except in the hands of the Ministry. It cannot be supposed that it would be offered for publication without the connivance of Count Daru himself, and this conjecture is confirmed by the tone of the Français, Count Daru's organ, on the subject. It was open to it to disavow the letters, which are addressed to a private individual, and not, as the Times incorrectly stated, to a French prelate. But instead of seizing on this loophole, the Français says that the private letters of the minister contain nothing different from his public despatches. What gives these things the greater weight is that they imply the probability of interpellations, in Paris as well as in Florence, and the ministry must be presumed to be determined to persist to the end in the path it has entered upon.

But the clearest light is thrown on the act of the Curia, when we look at its relation to the simultaneous movement among the minority.

The new order of business seemed to many calculated to bring the internal split in the Opposition to the surface. To accept it was equivalent to accepting the dogma itself. To reject it was to intimate the resolution not to surrender the rights of Bishops, of whom St. Thomas says, “Obtinent in Ecclesiâ summum potestatem,” and therefore not to recognise the Pope's infallibility. But it has just been explained in the most emphatic terms in Father Gratry's Letters, which are in the hands of all the Bishops, how difficult it is to coquet with the Jesuit dogmas without falling into the old Jesuit system of morality. However, this much desired division only occurred on a very limited scale.

The Opposition resolved to protest against the order of business. The Protest is said to have been drawn up by skilful French hands, and was subscribed on March 4 by thirty-four French Bishops, and another, signed by almost the same number of German Bishops, was presented to the Legates two days later. A very high estimate is formed of its importance here. According to the Roman view the majority of the Council has no better right than the minority to proclaim a new dogma, for the right belongs to the Pope alone, who can just as well elevate the teaching of the minority as of the majority into a dogma. And therefore, in maintaining that no dogma can be defined without the universal consent – the moral unanimity – of the Episcopate, and that a Council which receives a dogma without that consent is liable to be rejected as not free and Œcumenical, the Bishops are not only protesting against the threatened encroachments of the majority, but just as much against the claim of the Pope to define dogmas by his own authority. I have lately cited the words of Pius iv. on that point. In putting forward and defending their right and qualification to be witnesses of the faith and representatives of their Churches, the Bishops are not only vindicating a position very difficult to assail, but at the same time shaking the principal foundation of the present Council. In the first place the minority represent relatively far greater numbers of Catholics than their adversaries, and in the next place the bulk of the majority is artificially swelled by a crowd of prelates who really represent no Churches and only bear witness for themselves. That many of them have been simply created to give their services at this Council, is notorious. According to the official Roman register, fifty-one Bishops in partibus were named between June 1866 and August 1869. By every one of these creations the Pope has neutralized by his own plenary power the vote of an Archbishop of Paris or Vienna; in other words, he has put some favourite Roman monsignore on an equality, as regards the decisions of the Council, with a venerable Church containing more than a million of souls. The presence of such elements in the assembly gives grounds for doubting whether it can be regarded as a real representation of the whole Church, and so this declaration of the Bishops is like knocking a nail in the coffin of the Œcumenical Council.

I have mentioned that the Protest of the French Bishops was handed in on March 4. That day was the beginning of the decisive crisis for the Opposition. The adhesion of the Germans was next awaited; it followed on the 6th March, and their example is pretty sure to be followed by other nations. The prospect of this danger, combined with the news from France, brought the long preconcerted resolve of the other side to sudden and immediate maturity. A few days before they had not intended to come forward with the decree yet. But now the great object was to cut short any further development on the part of the Opposition, and, if possible, to hinder the German Protest. The existing situation seems even to have influenced the form of the decree. For a moment the French middle party – Bonnechose, Lavigerie, etc. – had fancied a professedly moderate formula would be carried, but now the counsels of the most determined infallibilists prevailed, and the Pope, in great visible excitement, gave his assent to the decree in the form in which it has been published. This took place on March 5. The decree is dated March 6. With the view of stopping the German Protest, they did not wait for the next sitting to distribute the printed copies to the Fathers in Council as usual, but sent them direct to their houses. This was the answer to the protesting movement.

Considering that none of the former addresses of the minority – some twelve have been presented – have been taken the slightest notice of, there were of course the best reasons for anticipating no better fate for this last. But it has served another purpose. It was an intimation on the part of the signataries that their patience has reached its limits. The Protest did not indeed pledge them to any definite course of action. But it certainly imposes on them the duty of not tolerating anything further of the same kind, and not lending a hand to any decision affecting the whole future of the Church, under conditions they have themselves declared to imperil the authority and solidity of the Council. Either the Protest means nothing, and the signataries are as persuaded of its worthlessness and insincerity as their adversaries, or it means that they will not allow the great dogma to come on for discussion unless they obtain an assurance that no dogma shall be proclaimed by Pope or Council without a moral unanimity. The Curia have known how to give so emphatic an expression to their contempt for the Opposition, that even the sharpest and bitterest words would show less scorn and insolence than their act. By choosing the precise moment, when the minority declare that their conscience is troubled and in doubt about the legitimacy and result of the Council altogether, for bringing forward the very decree which has all along been the main cause of that doubt and trouble of conscience, they proclaim plainly and emphatically that they know the Opposition regards its own words as nothing but words, and that there is no earnest manly decision or religious conviction behind them. The conscientiousness of the Opposition, i. e. of the most distinguished French and German Bishops, could not be put to a prompter, a more crucial, or a more decisive test.

How will this test be borne? How will the doctrine of the Church and the honour of two nations be saved? The events of the next few days will decide.

Twenty-Ninth Letter

Rome, March 15.– Livy relates that, in the battle at the Thrasimene Lake, the combatants on either side, Romans and Carthaginians, felt nothing of the earthquake under their feet. Here in Rome it is not so much the heat of the contest that makes the great body of Bishops unconscious of the moral earthquake which has begun to shake the Church, for there is no strife in the ranks of the majority, and their intercourse with the other party is very small. But every one thinks first of his own home and diocese, and the Italians, Spaniards and South Americans – nearly 500 prelates in all – have abundant cause for reckoning on absolute indifference and ease, on a passive and generally willing assent. In those countries it is only money questions, the contest about Church property, that stirs men's minds. How much is to be left to the clergy or taken from them, that is the question here. And the Bishops hope that papal infallibility will give some added force to the papal decisions on the inviolability of Church property.

Among the Opposition Bishops many are still in good spirits and full of confidence. “We are too many, and we represent too considerable portions of the Christian world, for our resistance to be ignored and our votes thrust aside,” is what many of them still assert. But the dominant party don't admit this. Antonelli says: “As soon as the Pope promulgates a decree with the assent of a great number of Bishops, he is infallible, and therefore a minority of opposing votes need not be attended to.” Naturally – for he, like other Italians, moves in the circle of papal infallibility which he, as advocate and financier, considers to belong to the “grandes idées de l'Église.” He would certainly, if asked, agree with the view of Cardinal Jacobazzi, about 1530, that the Pope could hold an Œcumenical Council with one Bishop only and issue an infallible decree. The state of the case is this: if the decree is published by the Pope with the assent of the majority of the Council, it is ruled that the gift of infallibility has all along resided in the Popes alone, and that the supreme authority in dogmas has only been derived to General Councils from them, whether by their taking part in the proceedings or confirming them. On this theory, even a very considerable number of opposing Bishops have no rights; the Pope could issue a dogmatic decree with the minority against the votes of the majority, for he and he alone would always be the organ of the Holy Ghost. Either no reply will be given to the complaints of the Bishops about the new order of business, any more than to their previous memorials, or they will be told that it is reserved to the Pope to settle whether a decree or Schema voted by a majority only shall be promulgated, since he, being alone infallible, can do what he pleases. In this sense the silence of Section 14 may well be interpreted.

All the talk about “inopportuneness” is now quite at an end. I had predicted that from the first. Any Bishop who wanted to discuss now, whether it was the right time for making the new dogma, would be laughed at rather than listened to. It has been decided by 500 Bishops with the Pope that the decree is opportune, and in saying that the question is about the truth of articles of faith, not their convenience, they have reason and history on their side.

There are said to be 100 Opinions or Objections of the Bishops about or against the Schema on the Church, already in the hands of the Commission of Faith. Among them is the memorial of an eminent German Bishop, whose bosom two souls seem to inhabit, and who therefore occupies the singular position at once of a friend of papal infallibility and an opponent of the definition and member of the Opposition. He read his paper in the meeting of German Bishops, and it was received with general approval, in spite of the pungent comments it contained on the new order of business in connection with the publication of the Schema on infallibility a few days later, as being a disgrace to the Council and the Church.

Count Trautmansdorff and M. Beust have received from Antonelli one of those quieting and entirely conciliatory answers that clerical statesman is so fond of pouring forth in all directions.62 Its substance is as follows: in theory, and as regards what the scholastics called universals, where high and far-reaching principles have to be established, the Church is inexorable; there she cannot abandon an iota of her claims, and must draw and force home the sword of anathema. She must therefore necessarily pronounce modern civilisation, with its freedoms, a medley of soul-destroying errors, must raise the banner of coercion and forcible suppression, and accordingly condemn freedom of religious profession and of the press. But in practice – in Concordats and special Indults and concessions of graces – the Pope is not so strict and inexorable; there he is open to negotiations, and the separate Governments can obtain from him as a favour the actual toleration of what in theory he most solemnly condemns, of course only durante beneplacito, so long as it pleases him and the Governments behave well and don't deserve to be punished by the withdrawal of their indults and privileges. And that is so long as circumstances remain unaltered, for it is self-evident that, as soon as the temper of public opinion and the political situation become such as to offer any prospect of an ecclesiastical pretension being successfully urged, the indult will be abrogated and the practice conformed to the theory. Antonelli always has both pockets full of such distinctions between the strict and hard theory and the mild and indulgent pliability in practice, and no diplomatist leaves him without such consolation. De Banneville has always been satisfied with the fare thus set before him by the Secretary of State. Trautmansdorff has so far the advantage, that the doctrines of Church and State imposed by the Court of Rome on the Council give the Austrian Government a very convenient handle for declaring the legal abolition of the Concordat, which is practically torn to pieces already; for with a Pope who has become infallible and feels himself called to be the supreme judge of right and wrong, though there may indeed be an armistice, no real and genuine peace and no treaty is possible.

Moreover nothing can be more convenient and elastic than the theory Antonelli expounds with all the unction of priestly diplomacy to the representatives of the European Governments. It makes everything – persons and institutions, governments and peoples – ultimately dependent on the indulgence and favour of the Pope. By the higher and divine law, so runs this doctrine, everything in the world should properly be differently arranged; the censorship of the Holy Office, religious coercion and clerical immunities, in a word the whole system of canon law, should flourish everywhere in full vigour as in the States of the Church. But the Vicar of God is merciful; he condescends to the evil condition of States and of mankind, and does what is so easily done in Rome, he dispenses – for at Rome obsolete laws are maintained simply to supply matter for dispensations, – he declares his readiness to tolerate what in itself is to be condemned, out of regard for the unfavourable circumstances of the age, and thus all at last falls under the sceptre of the Pope, who rules at one time by favour and dispensations, at another by strict law. Constitutions and laws will be allowed to exist for awhile, and until further notice. This however is no recognition of them, but only an “indult,” for which sovereigns and statesmen and nations must be thankful while it lasts, but which may at any moment be revoked.

The plan of acclamation, announced by the Jesuits as far back as February 1869, still counts many friends. There are 600 episcopal throats ready to shout, and these prelates had the rather get the affair settled in that summary fashion, because they would then be spared the hearing of things which bring a blush to many a face. For the Opposition Bishops could bring forward reasons and facts which, if once spoken in this place, would make a powerful echo and come unrefuted before the present and future generations. Of all possible questions that of infallibility is certainly the one which can least be discussed here and before 275 Italian prelates. What has happened in the last sittings, the exaltation of some and the bitterness of others, gives no hope of a quiet examination, but on the contrary leads us to expect that the majority will make the fullest use either of their physical preponderance or of the new rights given them by the Pope for reducing their adversaries to silence. Many who are resolved to gratify the Pope's desire by their Placet, are apprehensive that the objections of their opponents might leave the unpleasant taste of an unanswered argument in their mouths, and that the sting of a vote given without adequate knowledge and examination might remain fixed in the conscience of the Bishops. In this connection the answer of a North American Bishop of the infallibilist party is significant. He said that he remembered having heard, when in the theological class in his seminary, that the condemnation of Pope Honorius by the Sixth Council meant nothing, and now in his old age nobody could require him to study and examine the question for himself.

Since the appearance of Gratry's Letters, what is most especially dreaded is the mention and discussion of the forgeries and fictions that have been perpetrated for centuries past in the interest of the Papacy. Should they really come to be spoken of in the Council Hall, one may be quite prepared for Legate Capalti, even if he is not presiding, striking his bell till it bursts. The Italian and Spanish majority would sooner let a speaker teach Arianism and Pelagianism than touch on this sore. Cyprian, pseudo-Isidore, Anselm, Deusdedit, Gratian, Thomas Aquinas and Cyril – these are now terrible names, and hundreds here would fain stop their ears when they are uttered. “Is there then no balm in Gilead, no physician?” Just now a theologian or historian would be worth his weight in gold, who could produce evidence that all these forgeries and inventions are genuine monuments of Christian antiquity, and that the whole edifice of papal absolutism has been built up with the purest and most conscientious loyalty to truth. For this “horse” they would now, like Richard iii. of England, offer a kingdom. For the first time the world, with a free press in full possession, is to accept a new dogma with all its extensive belongings – to accept it in faith, at a time when historical criticism has attained a power against which Rome is impotent, and when its conclusions pass into the literature and the common consciousness of all thinking men with a rapidity hitherto unprecedented. The works will soon be counted not by hundreds but by thousands, which relate and make capital out of the fact that from the year 500 to 1600 deliberate fraud was at work in Rome and elsewhere for disseminating, supporting, and finding a basis for, the notion of infallibility. If they imagine in Rome that they can escape this power by means of the Index and similar fulminations, such as some French Bishops have hurled at Father Gratry, that is like sending a couple of old women with syringes to put out a palace on fire.

The leader and oracle of the infallibilists, Archbishop Manning, knows something of the contradictions of history to his pet dogma. He has heard something of the long chain of forgeries, but he demonstrates to his associates by a bold method of logic, that it is an article of faith that is at issue here, and that history and historical criticism can have nothing to say to it. “It is not, therefore, by criticism on past history, but by acts of faith in the living voice of the Church at this hour, that we can know the faith.”63 The faith which removes mountains will be equally ready – such is clearly his meaning – to make away with the facts of history. Whether any German Bishop will be found to offer his countrymen these stones to digest, time will show.

Of what French infallibilists are capable has been evidenced in the case of Bishop Pie of Poictiers, who is, next to Plantier of Nîmes, the leader of this faction. He introduces into his Lenten Pastoral the history of Uzza, who wanted, with a good object, to support the tottering Ark, and was punished by being burned to death. The Ark, he says, is the Church and its doctrine, and whoever touches it with the best intentions, be he layman or priest, commits a grievous crime and audacious sacrilege, which must bring down on his head the most terrible wrath of God. The animals, which draw the waggon containing the Ark, are the Bishops. If then, proceeds Pie, any of these oxen swerve from the road and kick (regimbent), there are plenty more at hand to bring back the cart into the right track, for – and here the oxen suddenly become horses (coursiers) – all the steeds of the sacred cart do not stumble at the same time. Thus does this prelate expound to his flock the position of the majority and minority at the Council, and for their full consolation he adds: “Moreover there is one supreme and divinely enlightened driver of the cart, who is liable to no error, and he will know how to deal with the shying and stumbling of the horses.” According to Bishop Pie therefore, the waggon of the Church is sometimes drawn by horses – the Opposition who make sou-bresaut and écarts; sometimes by steady-going oxen – the great majority, – and among these last the Bishop of Poictiers with amiable modesty reckons himself. If the readers of the Allgemeine Zeitung doubt whether a highly respected leader of the majority and member of the Commission on Faith has really written such nonsense, I can only refer them to the document itself, which will no doubt be reprinted in the Univers or Monde.64

There are many indications that the wishes of the clique of zealots, who wanted to get the infallible Pope made out of hand on St. Joseph's day, will not be realized, but that a longer interval will have to be allowed. The Schema “on Faith” prepared by the Commission, viz., by the above-named Bishop Pie, and containing the philosophical and theological matter for the Council, was to have been distributed last week, and even Bishops of the minority had received professedly confidential notice of it; but no such distribution took place. So the Session of this week too will fall through, and it is not easy to see how this first fruit of the Council can well be imparted to the expectant world before Easter. And here I constantly come across the view that the postponement of the discussion on the grand Schema de Ecclesiâ, with the article on infallibility, is done with a purpose. The Opposition is still too strong and compact; it is hoped that some members will be detached from it every week, and that several will leave Rome; some Austrians are gone already. Everything depends on making the Opposition so small and weak, that they may be walked over, and may seem only to exist as a captive band of German Barbarians to grace the triumphal procession of the Latins, and then to be surrendered to those “exécuteurs des hautes œuvres de la justice de Rome,” MM. Veuillot and Maguelonne, the editors of the Univers and the Correspondance de Rome.65 This delay is of course a severe trial of patience for the majority who are hungering after the new bread of faith.

I will not conceal that even among the highest Roman dignitaries the infallibilist dogma provokes expressions of discontent. Are they honestly and sincerely meant? The voting will show. The mot d'ordre has gone forth to correspondents of foreign journals, to say that the whole Opposition is thoroughly broken up, and that some are deserting and the rest running away. But as yet these are wishes rather than facts. As far as I can see, the French and German Bishops, who wish to maintain the ancient doctrine of the Church and reject the new dogma, hold firmly together. Some Bishops said, directly after the publication of the supplementary Schema on infallibility, that their only choice lay between a schism or a false doctrine; nothing else was left them except to resign their Sees. And your readers would be astonished if I could venture to mention their names – names of the highest repute.

The war of extermination against the Theological Faculties of the German Universities is to be energetically carried on. The Bishop of Ratisbon's measure is only a premonitory feeler. Some particular exceptions however might be made, as long as the chairs were filled by pupils of the Jesuits. The German College is now to be the nursery for professors of theology and philosophy at German Seminaries and High Schools. This reminds one of the Alexandrian Psaphon, who kept a whole aviary of parrots, and taught them to scream, “Great is the God, Psaphon,” and then let them fly, so that they carried over land and sea the fame of his godhead. In Rome there is fortunately an abundance of such aviaries. There are colleges here for England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany and Hungary, Belgium, Poland, and North and South America, and thousands of their inmates have already been indoctrinated in Psaphon's fashion.