Letters From Rome on the Council

9. The Pope can also give full authority to make slaves of a foreign nation merely because they are not Catholics. Thus Nicolas v. in 1454 authorized King Alfonso of Portugal to appropriate the property of all Mahometans and heathens of Western Africa, and to reduce them to perpetual slavery.115 Alexander vi. in 1493 gave similar rights to the Kings of Spain over all inhabitants of America, when bestowing on them that quarter of the world with all its peoples.116

10. According to papal teaching it is just and in consonance with the Gospel to rob innocent populations, cities, regions, or countries en masse, with the sole exception of the infants and the dying, of divine service and sacraments, by an interdict, merely because the Sovereign or Government of the country has violated a papal command or some right of the Church. Innocent iii., Innocent iv., Martin iv., Clement v., John xxiv., Clement vi., and others have done so.

11. The Popes as God's vicars on earth can make a present of whole countries inhabited by non-Christian peoples, and hand over all rights of sovereignty and property in them to any Christian prince they please. Alexander v. did this in his Bull addressed to Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella, as he declares, “auctoritate omnipotentis Dei nobis in B. Petro concessâ ac Vicariatûs Jesu Christi, quâ fungimur in terris.”117 Historically it may be said with perfect truth, that the peoples of the southern and middle regions of America have been made the victims of the theory of papal infallibility. The Spanish Church and nation, as well as the sovereigns, have willingly received and maintained this doctrine, because their claim both to Navarre and America rested solely upon it, primarily on the Bulls of Alexander vi. and Julius ii. With the Gallican doctrine both claims would fall through. Alexander had empowered the Spaniards to make the Indians slaves. All Spanish theologians appeal with Las Casas to “el divino poder del Papa,” as he calls it, as the basis of the Spanish dominion in America, and no one dared to call in question the divine right of the infallible vicar of God, by virtue whereof he had given over millions of Indians to slavery, and thereby to extermination; within eighty years whole countries were depopulated.

12. It is just and consonant with the Gospel to burn to death as heretics those who appeal from the sentence of the Pope to a General Council. So Leo x. declares in his Bull of 1517, Pastor Æternus (issued in the fifth Lateran Synod).

13. Leo x. declared in another Bull, Supernæ Dispositionis, also published in the Lateran Synod, that all clerics are wholly exempt by divine right from all civil jurisdiction, and therefore not bound in conscience by the civil law.118

14. According to the teaching of the Church, every Christian is bound before God to do penance for his sins by ascetic exercises of abstinence, self-denial and almsgiving. On Church principles no one can dispense from this obligation, because it rests on divine ordinance. But the Popes teach that it may be relaxed or superseded by means of plenary or particular indulgences granted by themselves. They teach that to take part in a war against enemies of the Holy See and in the extermination of heretics is an effectual means for gaining pardon of sins, and a complete substitute for all works of penance. Thus did Paschal ii. instruct Count Robert of Flanders in 1102, that for him and his warriors the surest means of obtaining forgiveness of sins and heaven was to make war upon the clergy of Liége and all adherents of the German Emperor, Henry iv.119 Innocent iii. charged King Philip Augustus of France with the conquest of England, after he had deposed King John, as a means for obtaining remission of sin.120 Martin iv. again impelled the French in 1283 to make war on the Aragonese by the promise of plenary remission of their sins.121 And whenever there was a war to be undertaken in the territorial interests of the Holy See, or for the extermination of heretics, the Popes urged men to take part in it as the surest and most effectual means for cleansing them from all their sins and attaining eternal happiness.

15. The Inquisition, both Spanish and Italian, is so pure a product of papal teaching on faith and morals, that there never was an Inquisitor who did not exercise his office by virtue of Papal authority and in the Pope's name, or whose power the Pope could not at any moment he chose have wholly or partially withdrawn. All essential laws and regulations of the Inquisition – the accused being deprived of any advocate to defend him, the admission of infamous and perjured witnesses, the frequent application of the torture, the obliging the civil magistrates to carry out capital sentences of the Inquisitors, the prohibition to spare the life of any lapsed heretic even on his conversion – all this emanates from the direct and personal legislation of the Popes, and has always been confirmed by their successors.

16. Gregory ix., Innocent iv., and Alexander iv. teach that it is in accordance with the principles of morality and the Gospel to condemn a heretic seized by the Inquisition, who has recanted, to lifelong imprisonment.122

17. Alexander iv. teaches that it is lawful for the Pope to have the goods of those condemned for heresy sold by his inquisitors, and to take the proceeds for himself.123

18. Innocent iii., Alexander iv., and Boniface viii. teach that it is just and consonant with the Gospel to deprive the sons and daughters of heretics, though themselves Catholics, of their hereditary property. But if the sons themselves accuse their parents and get them burnt, then their inherited property, according to papal doctrine, is exempt from confiscation.

19. According to papal teaching torture is an institution thoroughly in harmony with morality and the spirit of the Gospel, and should be employed particularly against those accused of heresy. Thus Innocent Iv. and many later Popes have directed, and Paul iv. ordered the rack to be very extensively used.

20. It is especially just and Christian, according to the teaching and regulation of Pius v. in 1569, to torture persons who have confessed or been convicted of heresy, in order to make them give up their accomplices.124

21. This same canonized Pope has ordered in a Bull that even the sons of a man who has once offended an inquisitor should be punished with infamy and confiscation of their goods.

22. There is a whole string of papal decrees declaring it a duty of conscience for every Christian to denounce even his nearest relations to the Inquisition, and give them up to prison, torture and death, if he perceives any trace of heretical opinions or of anything forbidden by the Church in them.125

23. The same Popes have declared it to be just and evangelical, and have ordered, that a relapsed heretic, even if he recants, should be put to death.126 They have further declared it to be moral and Christian-like that in trials for heresy witnesses should be admitted to accuse or give evidence against the accused, whose testimony would not be admitted in any other court on account of their former crimes or their infamy.127

24. According to papal teaching it is just and Christian forcibly to deprive heretics of their children, in order to bring them up Catholics. Thus Innocent xii., by a sentence of the Holy Office at Rome, pronounced null and void the edict of Duke Victor Amadeus of Savoy in 1694 ordering their children, who had been forcibly taken from them, to be restored to the unfortunate and cruelly persecuted Waldenses under his government.128

25. The Popes teach that a sentence once pronounced for heresy can never be mitigated, nor pardon ever granted to any one sentenced to death or perpetual imprisonment for heresy. Thus Innocent iv. rules in his Bull Ad Exstirpanda.129

26. Up to 1555 it was the teaching of the Popes that only those should be burnt who persisted obstinately in maintaining a doctrine condemned by the Church, and those who had relapsed after recanting into the same or some other heresy. But in that year Paul iv. established the new principle that certain doctrines, if only just put forward and at once retracted, should be punished with death. Thus whoever rejected any ecclesiastical definition on the Trinity, or denied the perpetual virginity of Mary and maintained that the scriptural language about “brothers of Jesus” was to be taken literally of children of Mary, was to be classed with the “relapsed” and to be executed, even though he recanted.

27. Up to 1751, theologians, especially Italians, who defended trials for witchcraft and the reality of an express compact with Satan, together with the various preternatural crimes wrought thereby and the carnal intercourse of men and demons (incubi et succubi), used to appeal to the infallible authority of the Popes, the Bulls of Innocent viii., Sixtus v., Gregory xv. and several more besides, in which these things are affirmed and assumed and the due penalties prescribed for them.130

28. If an oath that has been taken is prejudicial to the interests of the Church (e. g., in money matters), it must be broken. So teaches Innocent iii.131

29. The Popes can dispense at their pleasure oaths of allegiance taken by a people to their King, as Gregory vii., Alexander iii., Innocent iii., and many others have done.

30. They can also absolve a sovereign from the treaties he has sworn to observe or from his oath to the Constitution of his country, or give full power to his confessor to absolve him from any oath he finds it inconvenient to keep. Such a plenary power Clement vi. gave to King John of France and his successors.132 Thus Clement vii. absolved the Emperor Charles v. from his oath restricting his absolutism over popular rights in Belgium, and again from his oath not to banish the Moriscos from their home. And Paul iv. announced to the Emperors Charles and Ferdinand that he dispensed their oath to observe the Augsburg religious peace.133

31. In 1648 a prospect of toleration was held out to the sorely oppressed Catholics of England and Ireland, if they would sign a renunciation of the following principles, (α) The Pope can dispense any one from obedience to the existing Government; (β) The Pope can absolve from an oath taken to a heretic; (γ) Those who have been condemned as heretics by the Pope may at his command, or with his dispensation, be put to death or otherwise injured. This renunciation was signed by fifty-nine English noblemen and several ecclesiastics, but Pope Innocent x. declared that all who had signed it had incurred the penalties denounced against those who deny papal authority, i. e., excommunication, etc. And so the penal laws against Catholics remained in force for another century. Paul v. had previously condemned the oath of allegiance prescribed by James i. for the English Catholics, and the execution of a considerable number of them was the result.134

32. The Popes teach that they can absolve men from any vow made to God or empower others to do so, and can even give them powers prospectively for dispensing vows to be made hereafter. And thus they have empowered royal confessors to absolve kings from any future vow they may find reason to repent of.135

33. The Popes have declared, by granting indulgences, that their jurisdiction extends over Purgatory also, and that it depends on them to deliver the dead who are there and transfer them into heaven. Thus Julius ii. bestowed on the Order of Knights of St. George, restored by the Emperor Maximilian, the privilege that, on assuming the habit of the Order, the Knights “confessi et contriti, a pœnâ et a culpâ et a carcere Purgatorii et pœnis ejusdem mox et penitus absoluti et quittandi esse debeant, planè et liberè Paradisum et regnum intraturi.”136 Then or shortly before (1500) the doctrine was first propounded in Rome, that the Popes could attach to certain altars by special privileges the power of delivering one or more souls from Purgatory.

34. The Pope can dissolve a marriage by placing one of the parties under the greater excommunication, and thus declaring him a heathen and infidel. Urban v. did this in 1363, when he excommunicated Bernabó Visconti, Duke of Milan, depriving him and all his children of all their rights and property and absolving his subjects from their allegiance to him, and at the same time pronouncing his wife free to marry again: “Uxorem ejus uti Christianam a vinculo matrimonii cum hæretico et infideli liberavit.”137

35. Innocent iii. had paved the way for this by establishing the doctrine that the bond between a Bishop and his diocese is stronger than the marriage bond between man and wife, and therefore as indissoluble by man as the latter, and that God alone could dissolve it, and the Pope as God's vicegerent.138 It followed that the Pope, and he alone, could also dissolve a validly contracted marriage.

36. According to papal teaching it is praiseworthy and Christian for a man, who has promised a woman with an oath to marry her, to deceive her by a sham marriage, and then break the bond and retire into a monastery. This recommendation (to commit an act of treachery at once and of sacrilege) was given by Alexander iii. in 1172, and it has been incorporated in the code of canon law drawn up by command of the Popes.139

37. The Popes teach that anyone attending a service celebrated by a married priest commits sacrilege, because the blessing he gives turns to a curse. So Gregory vii. teaches, in direct contradiction to the doctrine of the ancient Church, and even to modern theology.140 The notion has long since been exploded.141

38. The Popes teach that they have the power of rewarding services done to themselves with a higher degree of eternal beatitude. Thus Nicolas v. promised all who should take up arms against Amadeus of Savoy (the antipope Felix) and his adherents, not only remission of all their sins, but an increase of heavenly happiness, and gave his lands and property at the same time to the King of France.142

39. The Popes teach that it is false and damnable to maintain that a Christian ought not to abstain from doing his duty from fear of an unjust excommunication. Clement xi. declares the contrary to be true in his Bull Unigenitus, prop. 91.

40. Those who die wearing the Carmelite scapular have papal assurance, resting on a revelation granted to John xxii., that they will be delivered on the next Saturday after their death by the Virgin Mary from Purgatory and conveyed straight to heaven. So says the Bull Sabbathina, confirmed by Alexander v., Clement vii., Pius v., Gregory xiii., and Paul v., by the last after long and careful examination, and with indulgences attached to it.143

41. According to papal decisions it is an excess of extravagance and folly, and a detestable innovation, to translate the Roman missal into the vernacular. It is to violate and trample under foot the majesty of the ritual composed in Latin words, to expose the dignity of the holy mysteries to the gaze of the rabble, to produce disobedience, audacity, insolence, sedition and many other evils. The authors of such translations are “sons of perdition.” Alexander iii. says this totidem verbis in his Brief of Jan. 12, 1661.144 Nevertheless the translated missal is in general circulation in France, England and Germany, and is daily used by all the most pious persons.

42. To receive interest on invested money is a grievous sin according to papal teaching, and any one who has done so is bound to make restitution. Papal legislation makes it, under the name of usury, an ecclesiastical offence to be judged by the spiritual tribunals. The principle established by the Popes was, that it is unlawful and sinful to ask for any compensation for the use of capital lent out. And under the head of usury, which was strictly forbidden, was included anything whatever received by the lender in compensation for his capital, every kind of interest, commercial business and the like. Thus Clement v. pronounced it heresy to defend taking interest, and liable to the penalties of the papal law against heresy.145 His successors, Pius v., Sixtus v., and especially Benedict xiv., adhered to this condemnation of all taking of interest. The results were that real usury was greatly advanced thereby, that all sorts of evasions and illusory contracts came into actual use, that the wealth of whole countries was damaged, and commercial greatness, banished from Catholic countries, became the monopoly of Protestant countries.146

Fifty-Seventh Letter

Rome, June 18, 1870.– The great merits of Cardoni are at length to receive their fitting reward. He has hitherto been only Archbishop of Nisibis, a city that has long ceased to exist; he has now become keeper of the archives of the Roman Church. He was the principal person intrusted last year with the grand mystery of the fabrication of the new dogma, which required for its success the strictest secrecy; the Bishops, with the exception of course of the initiated, were to be drawn to Rome unprepared and innocent of the design and then to be taken by surprise. Had the real object of the Council become known in the spring of 1869, it might easily have proved a complete failure. It was therefore intrusted to Cardoni's experienced hands, who managed matters so well in the Commission that the Bishops were kept in the dark, and his lucubrations on infallibility were first printed in April, – it is said after being considerably altered by the Jesuits. The reward of Cardoni is a punishment for Theiner, who has to suffer for his Life of Clement xiv. and for communicating to some of the Bishops a paper on the order of business at Trent. The archives are now closed to him, and he has had to surrender the keys to Cardoni, though he nominally retains his office. Every German scholar knows that Theiner, after coming to Rome, became extremely reserved in his communications and very cautious in his own publications, always suppressing whatever might excite displeasure there, and throw a slur on the Roman authorities. It was much easier under his predecessor Marini – as German and French scholars, such as Pertz, Raumer and Cherrier, and the British Museum can testify – to get a sight of documents or even transcripts, of course for a good remuneration. Theiner, who was inaccessible to bribery, knew that he had an abundance of enemies and jealous rivals watching him, and carefully guarded against giving them any handle against him. But the original sin of his German origin clung to him; he was not a Reisach and could not Italianize himself. There is great joy in the Gesù, the German College, and the offices of the Civiltà!

Theiner's great offence is his letting certain Bishops, viz., Hefele and Strossmayer, see the account of the order of business at the Council of Trent, showing the striking difference between that and the present regulations and the greater freedom of the Tridentine synod. But Hefele had seen the Tridentine Acts in the spring of 1869, and knew about it without Theiner's help.

Meanwhile there is no abatement of the bitter exasperation in the highest circles. The three chief organs of the Court – the Civiltà, the Unità and the Univers– have evidently received orders to vie with each other in their descriptions of the “Liberal Catholics” as the most abandoned and dangerous of men. For the moment nobody is more abominated than a Catholic who is opposed to infallibility and unwilling to see the teaching of the Church brought into contradiction with the laws of his country, which is what they mean by a Liberal Catholic; such persons are worse than Freemasons. The Civiltà says they are more dangerous to “the cause of God” than atheists, and have already proved so. We know how his confessors, La Chaise and Le Tellier, explained to Louis xiv. that a Jansenist is worse and more dangerous than an atheist.

In convents and girls' schools the new article of faith is already strong enough to work miracles. The Univers relates “a miraculous cure wrought through an act of faith in the infallibility of the Vicar of Christ,” at Vienna on May 24. But that is little in comparison with the greater and more difficult miracles which the dogma will have to accomplish. If the English proverb is true, there is nothing more stubborn than facts; to remove them from history or change their nature will be harder than to move mountains. Here in Rome we are daily assured that the dogma has conquered history, but these anticipated conquests will have to be fought out, at least everywhere north of the Alps, and cannot be won without great miracles. But the Jesuits have never of course been without their thaumaturgists, and they have been able to accomplish the impossible even in the historical domain.

The Pope seems peculiarly annoyed at some of the English Bishops opposing infallibility, probably because Manning had told him that the English above all others reverenced him as the organ of the Holy Ghost. He lately broke out into most bitter reproaches against Bishop Clifford of Clifton, before an assemblage of Frenchmen, most of whom did not even know him by name, and accused him of low ambition, saying that he knew “ex certâ scientiâ” the only reason why Clifford would not believe in his infallibility was because he had not made him Archbishop of Westminster. Yet there is perhaps no member of the Council whom every one credits with so entire an absence of any ambitious thought. The spectacle of such conduct on the part of the man, who for twenty-four years has held the highest earthly dignity, produces a painful feeling in some, and contempt in others.

It is indeed disgusting to see the Court party compelling men, most of them aged, to remain here to the great injury of their health at a season when all who are able to do so leave Rome, although many of them are accustomed to a different climate and feel sick and exhausted. They are treated like prisoners, and not even allowed a holiday without special leave. No such egotistic and unscrupulous absolutism, as what now prevails here, has been seen in the Christian world since the days of the first Napoleon. If there were any persons here besides courtiers who could advise the Pope, as friends, they would have to tell him that his credit before the world demanded that an end should be put to this state of torture, and the Bishops be allowed to depart, many of whom are already dead. But, as was observed before, even Antonelli does not conceal his impotence as regards the Council, and as to others, it may suffice to acquaint Transalpine readers with one detail of Roman Court etiquette. If the Pope sneezes, the attendant prelate must immediately fall on his knees, and cry “Evviva!” in that position. Every man is at last what his entourage has made him, and Pius has for twenty-four years had every one kneeling before him, and has been daily overwhelmed with adorations and acts of homage, the effect of which may be read in Suetonius' biographies of the Emperors.

The affair of the Prince Bishop of Breslau, who was not allowed to leave Rome, has been arranged, by Cardinal Antonelli ordering an apology to be made. The regulations about refusing visas were only meant for the Orientals, who are certainly detained in Rome against their will, but in extending the same treatment to German prelates the police had exceeded their instructions and must be severely punished. Förster answered that he did not wish this, and that Cardinal de Angelis in his note had fully approved their conduct. Meanwhile the same thing has been repeated: the visa was refused to the suffragan Bishop of Erlau in Hungary, who wanted to go to Naples, because he had received no permission from the Secretary, Bishop Fessler.

The Franciscan, Hötzl, has made an explanation satisfactory to the authorities, and is now again received into favour, but he is to stay here for the festival of June 29, on which day, as Pius was at least convinced a week ago, the proclamation of the new dogma with all imaginable pomp will take place. We live in very humane times, and so the good Father from Munich has suffered no worse martyrdom than the heat. He has been instructed, the genius loci has done its work, his Spanish General has simply reminded him of certain rules of the Order – and so his conversion has been very quickly, easily and happily accomplished. He was not even threatened, I believe, with the Inquisition, and even there he would not have fared as ill as Galileo in 1633.