Letters From Rome on the Council

Meanwhile the Pope is never weary of carrying on his personal solicitations for the votes of the Bishops; he has the right of being a persevering beggar. But one hears less of conversions to the majority than of men going over to the Opposition; and the effluences from the Tomb of the Apostles close to the Council Hall, of which such great expectations were formed, seem to act in the opposite direction.

A new system of tactics has been for some time adopted, in France principally, and is now to be introduced into Germany. The clergy in the dioceses of Opposition Bishops are to be seduced into signing addresses expressing strongly their belief in papal infallibility and desire for its speedy promulgation. This device has been pursued with great success through means of the Paris nunciature and the Univers. The French parish priests who, since the Concordat, have been removeable at the will of the Bishops and have suffered sufficiently from their arbitrary caprice in transferring or depriving them, see their only resource in the Curia, and the notion has lately been disseminated among them that the infallibilist dogma will procure their complete emancipation from episcopal authority. Accordingly almost every number of the Univers contains enthusiastic addresses, which might be tripled by making all the nuns subscribe, as they would do with the greatest pleasure.

The plan which has proved so successful in France is to be adopted now in Germany also. The nuncio at Munich reports that there is a swarm of red-hot infallibilists there, and that the clergy are eagerly awaiting the news of the definition; the diocesan organs of Munich and Augsburg, together with the clerico-political daily papers, are quoted as indubitable testimonies, and the Bishops of Cologne, Augsburg, Munich, Mayence, etc., are told on high authority that they have nobody behind them, and that their claim to represent the faith of their dioceses is in contradiction with facts. There are indeed no numerously signed addresses to show in Rome, but the daily papers give weighty evidence. Silence, it is thought here, implies consent, the women and the rustics are certainly for the Pope. The Pope says in his supreme self-satisfaction, “Scio omnia.” He knows the true state of things beyond the Alps far better than the Bishops; the Jesuits and their pupils and the nuncios take care of that. Hugo Grotius says, with reference to Richelieu, “Butillerius Pater et Josephus Capucinus negotia cruda accipiunt, cocta ad Cardinalem deferunt.” So it is here, the Jesuits do what the Fathers Boutillier and Joseph did in Paris. Pius receives only what is “cooked,” and twice cooked, first in the Cologne and Munich kitchen and then in the Roman. The German Bishops remember with some discomfort that they themselves sharply rejected and censured every declaration of adhesion, and violently suppressed the movement only just beginning.

The Cardinal General-Vicar has ordered public prayers for a fortnight by the Pope's command: the faithful are to invoke the Holy Ghost for the Council, since the whole world presents so wretched an appearance (miserabile aspetto dell' orbe), and the longer the conflict (of the Council) with the world increases, the more glorious will be the victory, and then, it is said, will all nations behold miracles – which appears from the context to mean that, considering the opposition of the world (and of so many Bishops), the erection of the new article of faith must be regarded as a miracle of divine omnipotence, but a miracle which will certainly be wrought. Many interpret this to mean that people must be prepared for a conciliar coup d'état. But as matters stand, it can hardly be supposed that the Court party will let matters come to a non placet of at least 120 Bishops, nor would anything be gained by cutting short the debate. In the last analysis the main ground of the dogma with the majority always resolves itself into this – that the present Pope and his predecessors for many years past have held themselves infallible. That is the only ground on which the Dominicans, Jesuits and Cardinals have interpolated it into the theology of the schools. Pius might certainly define it in a Bull to the entire satisfaction of the majority, and thereby put an end to the contention of the Bishops. An end? it may be asked. Well, yes – the end of the beginning.

Fifty-First Letter

Rome, June 2, 1870.– The debate drags on its weary length without any turning. Of real discussion there is none, for very few of the prelates can speak in Latin without preparation. As I have said before, academical discourses are delivered, almost always without any reference to what has immediately preceded. Only the majority have the right of reply allowed them. If a Bishop is attacked or calumniated, he cannot answer till his turn comes, which is often not for some weeks, as was Kenrick's case; and if he has spoken already, he cannot speak again in the same debate, and cannot therefore defend himself at all, as occurred with Hefele. But the members of the Deputation can speak whenever they choose; they interrupt the order and interpose as often as seems necessary to them for defending their proposals or weakening the force of an important speech on the other side. Very often they break in on the course of proceedings quite arbitrarily and without any connection with previous speakers. They have the stenographic reports before their eyes, and thus know the exact words of the speaker and can answer them while their opponents have no similar advantage. That all this implies an iniquitous injustice and want of freedom never occurs to the dominant party, who are on the contrary astonished at the kindness and patience of the Pope in allowing an opponent of his omnipotence and advocate of doctrines long since condemned to use St. Peter's as the theatre, and his Council as the occasion, of a persevering attack on his dearest wishes, ideas and acts. They ask themselves how long he will tolerate so strange a reversal of his plans and views. It is certain that his excitement has reached fever heat, but it has not yet been resolved to break off the debate, which is so far remarkable, inasmuch as according to the opinion of the Court it can neither have any practical results nor any character of sober reality. As they did not regard it from the first as a means for establishing the truth, it must now appear to them simply a hindrance in the way of the truth already ascertained. For those who attack infallibility, and thus utter error and blasphemy over the tomb of the Apostles, freedom of speech can be no right in the opinion of the majority, but simply a favour dependent on the pleasure of the deeply injured and offended chief. It is characteristic of the present stage of the affair, that during this debate there has been no disposition shown to interrupt the speakers of the minority. Signs of discontent have been frequent enough, but no further attempt to stop a speech by force.

There is still an immense and unprofitable number of speakers enrolled. Above a hundred have sent in their names since the beginning, who might easily have been debarred from doing so, and the tediousness of the discussion is aggravated by the members of the Deputation, who lengthen it out still further by their frequent and usually prolix interpositions.

The chief events of the last fortnight have been the speeches of Manning and Valerga for the dogma, and of Ketteler, Conolly and Strossmayer against it. The Bishop of Mayence spoke on Monday, May 23, when he expressed his opinion more forcibly and gave more offence than any previous speaker. He defended the constitution of the Church against the Roman conspiracy, citing the arguments contained in the pamphlet he had before distributed, and denounced against ecclesiastical centralization the same penalty of revolution, incident to a centralized State, which, he said, is already knocking at the doors. He gave his decisive adhesion to those who demand unanimous consent, and declared that he had always held the personal infallibility to be “opinio probabilissima,” but could find no necessary certainty in it, neither “certitudo dogmatica” nor “veritas dogmatizanda.”

One might think that a man who is so unclear about the logic of history and the principles of morals belongs to the majority. However the impression produced by Ketteler's speech was favourable to the minority, and all who have watched his attitude before the last four months, especially at Fulda, must have recognised the decided advance in the line taken by the Opposition. Many think the conversion is complete, and the great wound of the Opposition – its containing members ready sooner or later to turn renegades – finally closed. The Bishop of Mayence was at first believed to be the author of the pamphlet he has distributed, but it was not composed under his eye or under his influence, nor even at his suggestion, and bears no trace of his mind. The general line is Maret's, but his leading idea, that in case of a conflict a Council is superior to a Pope, does not occur in it. Ketteler must have acquired a great deal of Roman experience and non-Roman development before he would denounce a papal decree to his country and his diocese as uncatholic. But the advance which he, like others, and more than many others, has already made, is unquestionably a gain, and gives a peculiar force to his words. But it has damaged and discredited the minority that so many Bishops are more careful about the position and influence of the Church than about the purity of doctrine.

I must return once more to Manning's speech of May 25, as it was very interesting and important. He asserted roundly that infallibility was already really a doctrine of the Church, which could not be denied without sin (sine publico peccato mortali) or proximate heresy (proximâ hæresi), and therefore they did not want to make a new dogma but simply to proclaim an existing one. In these bold but highly significant words Manning pointed to what many better men choose to be blind to. He no longer acknowledges the opponents of the doctrine as brothers in faith, as members of one and the same Church, since they do not satisfy his conditions of orthodoxy; his faith and theirs are not the same. He has been the first to proclaim this great truth in Council, and it is time for the minority to ask themselves, whether unity still really survives in the sense hitherto maintained against Protestants, whether the foe is really still outside and has not penetrated into the inmost sanctuary of the Church, for the temple must be cleansed before the nations are converted. The minority can no longer live in peace with Manning and his like, or imagine that the contest does not threaten the very existence of the Church. Manning has indeed said that he does not think the decree strong enough. The Spaniards agree with him, and an open difference on this point has arisen in the Deputation. The great majority would be glad to find a formula less offensive to the Opposition, but Manning has the Pope on his side, and gets him worked upon by certain sacristan-like natures, like the Bishops of Carcassonne and Belley, who have won the special confidence of Pius ix. through having a certain mental affinity with him. Manning's whole speech was an attempt to hinder concessions, and keep the Curia to the point of forcibly suppressing the minority. And it counts also for a sign that the Pope is resolved to go all lengths. The fanatics would prefer the Church being exposed to the danger of schism to modifying their theory in the least particular, for the latter would be a humiliation for themselves, while the other kindles a contest the end of which they feel no doubt about. It is reckoned certain that of the Bishops who will vote against the dogma, not all have the courage for a protest, and that of those who do protest some will rather resign their sees than undertake the contest with the Curia under excommunication.

Manning's argument for infallibility from the condition of England was remarkable. It is unquestionably his chief motive, and what gives the stamp of sincerity to his position, to make Catholicism more compact and closely united in Protestant England. He hopes by means of the dogma to suppress those differences of opinion which are a source of disturbance and weakness, so that all will re-echo his words, uphold his theology in the face of a disintegrating Protestantism, and his policy in the face of political parties with the combined strength of five million men. He conceives that the Christian element is more and more disappearing from the Established Church and the sects of England, and sees a general dissolution of belief which offers a future to Catholicism as the one definite authority. But he maintained in the Council that the English Catholics were in favour of infallibility, and that even Protestants testified that it would strengthen his hands. That the leading English theologian, Newman, has spoken so strongly against the definition he of course did not say. It was only consistent with the bitter enmity between the two to ignore it. Nor did he say that the English Bishops present at the Council are equally divided – himself, Ullathorne, Chadwick and Cornthwaite being infallibilists, against Errington, Clifford, Amherst, and Vaughan, who are fallibilists. He read extracts from Protestant papers, stating that papal infallibility is the logical outcome of Catholicism; to such miserable weapons was he driven for defending his cause. Clifford, who followed him, had an easy task in exposing these misrepresentations and falsehoods. One point in his speech his hearers missed: he said that the mischief the definition threatened the Church and the mischief it had already done to the interests of religion in England, might be gathered from the letter of an illustrious English statesman, for the authority of which he could appeal to an Archbishop there present. This Archbishop was Manning himself, and the allusion was to a letter addressed to him by an English minister, saying in substance that in England it was the most vehement Protestants, and those most notorious for their hostility to the Catholic Church, who eagerly desired to see infallibility and the Syllabus made into dogmas, and that the present policy of Rome had so greatly increased the anti-Catholic feeling of the country that every step taken by the Government to extend the rights of Catholics and improve the social condition of Catholic Ireland met with the most persistent opposition.

The Italian Valerga, titular Patriarch of Jerusalem, delivered on Tuesday, May 31, a more spirited, piquant and insolent speech, which I will give a report of in my next letter.

The great debate may last till the middle of June, when it is hoped that the chapter on the primacy may be carried without difficulty, and the special debate on infallibility be brought to a successful end before the middle of July. But there is sure to be a lively and protracted discussion on the primacy, which may easily exhaust the patience of the majority, for the continuance of the present situation is a deep humiliation for the Pope and Curia. The Opposition, whose existence at first was so boldly denied, and of which there was originally only a germ in the Episcopate, subsequently developed in Council through the clumsy tactics of Rome, places the Roman See in an unwonted and what is thought an intolerable light. What Pius ix. and the Jesuits reckoned on accomplishing, first in three weeks, then in four months, at Easter, at Pentecost, on the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, by acclamation, by unanimous consent, is not done yet and seems to recede further and further. The Roman people are losing their reverence for the Pope, though they await the doctrine with equanimity. They say, “Si cambia la Religione,” and laugh good-humouredly. But I heard the words from the mouth of a Roman priest, “L'idola restera al Vaticano, ma l'altare serà deserto.”

It is certain attempts will soon be made either to cut short the debate or adjourn it and overcome the opposition by some compromise. Such an attempt was made before by a Cardinal, but the Bishop of the minority to whom he applied would not even look at the formula. Then the Dominicans conceived a similar idea, but were answered that there were strong reasons not only against the wording of particular forms, but against any reference to the question. Such proposals are sure to be repeated in spite of Manning and the fanatics. But the Opposition Bishops cannot entertain them separately without breach of word to their colleagues, though it is always possible that some formula or other may find friends and advocates among them.

The rupture with France is a decisive one. In the first place a Bishop from the North of France has repeated here a conversation he had with a leading statesman in Paris, who said that the attitude of Rome was equivalent to a declaration of war against France, and that the Government had done everything to withhold the Curia from its perilous course, but in vain. He himself opposed Count Daru's policy, as he did not wish to prevent what might lead to the separation of Church and State, but now he thought they were free to carry out the separation, as Rome had made it inevitable. The reciprocal obligations of the two Courts would cease, and therefore the occupation of the Roman States by French troops, for the spiritual power the Pope was aiming at was incompatible with secular power. At the same time the French ambassador uttered similar warnings here, and informed the Cardinal Secretary of State that he was ordered to do nothing more to restrain the course of events. Antonelli is said to have replied that he took the same view, but had not influence enough to do anything. It is of course believed here that the present administration in Paris is not strong or firm enough to carry out a policy which would be more after the mind of Prince Napoleon than of the Emperor. But the Curia underrates the offence given to France by the quiet contempt with which both Daru's notes were treated.

Meanwhile the incense is being constantly swung before Pius, so that the clouds of homage conceal the abyss to which he is drawing on the Church. There is great agitation going on among the French as well as the Italian clergy, with a view to securing their votes for infallibility and also presents of money. Their expressions not seldom exceed in devotion to Pius everything of the kind ever heard of before; and it seems as if the old canon law sycophants had come back to life, who made no scruple of designating the Pope God and Vice-God. Let us give two examples. One of these true sons of the Church in Italy submits by anticipation to whatever Pius chooses to define, whether with the approval of the Council or by his own sole authority. Seven priests from Cuneo bring these verses —

Parla, O Gran Pio,Cio che sona il tuo labbro,Non è voce mortal, voce è di Dio.

The international Committee of the minority thought it necessary that a treatise should be expressly composed to discuss the weighty question of moral unanimity being required for dogmatic decrees, and Dupanloup has undertaken the task. He had a pamphlet on the subject printed at Naples and laid before the Fathers. He first proves from history that this condition was never wanting in any Councils which count as œcumenical, and was distinctly recognised and maintained at Trent by the Pope himself. He then examines the opinions of the chief theologians of all ages, including St. Vincent of Lerins and St. Augustine, and Popes Leo i., Vigilius and Gregory the Great, who all agree in making moral unanimity an indispensable condition for a decree on faith. He proceeds to observe that in matters of discipline and canon law a numerical majority is enough, as decisions of that kind may be altered afterwards, but for a dogma there must be moral unanimity of the Council and the Churches to whose faith it bears witness, or else Catholicism would be annihilated. But great theologians and theological schools of former ages opposed papal infallibility, and it is opposed now by a large number of Bishops at the Vatican Council representing great Churches and Catholic nations. A Council is only then infallible when the assembled Bishops of the whole Church bear witness to the faith inherited from the beginning. The majority must therefore either convert the minority to their views by free discussion or give up their design; were they to suppress the minority by mere brute force of numbers, that would be unconciliar and unprecedented in Church history. It is not mere probability but unquestionable certainty that is required for defining a dogma, and a considerable number of distinguished members of the Council have no such firm belief in papal infallibility. To define it in spite of this would be to act as judges and masters of faith, not as its depositaries and witnesses. A minority denying a dogma which had been the perpetual belief of the Church would be in the wrong, but not a minority repudiating the definition of a doctrine which had never been held an article of faith. Even the Pope cannot by his authority raise the decision of a mere majority to the dignity of a dogma, for he only promulgates decrees on faith “sacro approbante Concilio,” and without moral unanimity the Council has not approved. The words of the Bishop of Orleans are directed principally against the Civiltà, which has notoriously laboured to establish the opposite hypothesis, and he asks, “Are we at a Council or not? If we are, the rules of Councils must be observed, or else a great assembly of Bishops is reduced simply to playing the part of a theatrical exhibition.”

Dupanloup goes on to remark on the storms and incalculable evils which the definition of papal infallibility would bring on the Church and the Papacy. He concludes with these words: “If ever moral unanimity was requisite for a dogmatic decision, it is so at a Council like the Vatican, where there are 276 Italian Bishops, of whom 143 belong to the States of the Church; 43 Cardinals, of whom 23 are not Bishops or have no Sees; 120 Archbishops or Bishops in partibus, and 51 Abbots or Generals of Orders – while the Bishops present from all Catholic countries of Europe, exclusive of Italy, only number 265, so that the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and diocesan Bishops of the whole world are outnumbered by the diocesan Bishops of Italy alone.104 At a Council so composed a mere majority can never decide; and the less so when the personal intervention of the Pope makes itself felt, when the freedom of the Bishops is so seriously hampered, and in so many ways, when the question of infallibility has been so unscrupulously and violently brought forward for discussion by a mere sovereign act – a sort of coup d'état– when consciences are tormented and a number of writings are issued which have created a great sensation and give evidence of the anxiety of the faithful, and when lastly the Bishops themselves let a cry escape from their tortured hearts which the whole press re-echoes. Under such circumstances it is impossible to settle the matter by a mere coup of the majority; and if it is done all kinds of mischief must be feared. Nor is it I alone who say so; there are 100 Bishops who say, ‘An intolerable burden would be laid on our consciences. We should fear that the œcumenical character of the Council would be called in question, and abundant materials supplied to the enemies of religion for assailing the Holy See and the Council, and that it would be without authority in the eyes of the Christian world, as having been no true and no free Council. And in these troubled times no greater evil can well be conceived.’ ”

Fifty-Second Letter

Rome, June 3, 1870.– Valerga attacked the “Gallicans,” drawing a parallel between the Pope and Christ, and between the Fallibilists and Monothelites. As in Christ the human will co-existed with the divine, so in the Pope may personal infallibility co-exist with moral sinfulness, and to conclude from the former against the latter – to draw an argument from scandals in papal history against the privilegium inerrantiæ– is analogous to the error of the Monothelites, who denied the possibility of a human will subject to sin co-existing with the divine will in the same person. Never has the well-known spirit of the Roman Curia shown itself so openly and with such technical adroitness as in this carefully elaborated and minute accusation against the Opposition. As Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati expressed it, it was “exemplum sophismatum artis ad instar congestorum,” and great expectations might be formed of its salutary effect on the French. Purcell answered shortly and pointedly that the charge applied equally to the Council of Trent and the sixth, seventh, and eighth Œcumenical Councils, and that he and his colleagues were content to endure the patriarch's anathema in such good company. Even Bellarmine quotes a whole cloud of witnesses against infallibilism, and neither he nor later writers had refuted them. It is a matter of thankfulness to God that he has never suffered this opinion to gain dogmatic authority. Purcell then cited clenching proofs of the public erroneous teaching of Popes, and among them the history of the ordinations and reordinations of Formosus and Sergius. The standpoint which he took as a republican was interesting. He said that the Church was the freest society in the world, and was loved as such by its American sons, for the Americans abhorred every doctrine opposed to civil and spiritual freedom. As kings existed for the good of the peoples, so Popes for the good of the Church, and not vice versâ. Perhaps he was thinking of the words of the absolutist Louis xiv., “La nation ne fait pas corps en France, elle réside tout entière dans la personne du roi.” For “nation” put “Église,” and the words describe precisely the papal system, as it is now intended to be made exclusively dominant by means of the Council.