Letters From Rome on the Council

You must allow me, before relating the events of the last few days in the Council Hall, to recur to the occurrences of June 3, which I am now better acquainted with, and which have proved to be sufficiently important and eventful to deserve more detailed mention.

On the motion of Cardinal Bonnechose, who belongs to the middle party, Cardinal de Angelis had asked the Pope, directly after the session of June 2, whether he would not permit the prorogation of the Council, in view of the intolerable heat and the too long absence already of so many Bishops from their dioceses. The reply was a decided negative; there should be no adjournment till the infallibilist Schema was disposed of. That was a hint to the majority, which they used next day, as the wish to cut short the debates had been loudly expressed for some days previously.

On the same day the Bishop of Pittsburg in North America spoke against infallibility and defended the Catholics of his country, who had hitherto known nothing of this doctrine, but were yet genuine Catholics in life and practice and not in name only, like the Italians. Capalti immediately attacked him and imposed silence. Bishop Dinkel of Augsburg followed. Senestrey, Bishop of Ratisbon, in the previous sitting had assured the prelates, who listened eagerly, that all Germany, so far as it was Catholic, thought as he did, and that every one was deeply penetrated with reverence for the infallible Pope, while it was a mere invention of certain evil-minded persons that there were those in Germany who doubted this divine prerogative of the Vicar of God. The astonishment was great; they had heard so often that the aversion to the new dogma was most deeply rooted and most widely spread in Germany. Dinkel pointedly contradicted his colleague, and warned them against being misled by such tricks. He won great commendation, and his Biblical comments were also found to be well grounded and to the purpose.

Bishop Maret of Sura next ascended the tribune. He like others has made advances since being in the Roman school. If he had to write his work on the Pope and Council now, he would take a far more decided and bolder line. It was not without reason that he pointedly distinguished the two things, papal infallibility based and dependent on episcopal consent, and the personal infallibility of the Pope deciding alone, as the real subject of the controversy; for during the last few days there have been Bishops who excused their adhesion to the majority on the pretext that they only found the former kind of infallibility in the Schema. Maret then showed in what a labyrinth the majority was on the point of involving the Council. Either the Council was to give the Pope an infallibility he did not yet possess, in which case the donor was higher than the receiver by divine and therefore inalienable rights; or the Pope was to give himself an infallibility he had not hitherto possessed, in which case he could change the divine constitution of the Church by his own plenary power; and if so why summon a Council and ask its vote? There Bilio angrily interrupted him, exclaiming to one of the most learned and respected men of the French clergy, the president of the Paris Theological Faculty, “Tu non nôsti prima rudimenta fidei.” And then he gave the explanation I mentioned before, that it did not belong to the Council to bear witness, to judge and to decide, but only to acknowledge the truth and give its vote, and then to leave the Pope to define what he chose by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. There could be no talk here of majority or minority, but only of the Council. The majority applauded. Maret remained quiet, and asked without changing countenance, after this effusion of Bilio's was at an end, “Licitumne est ac liberum continuare sermonem.” Then all was silence, and he was able to finish his speech without further interruption.

Hereupon followed the violent closing of the discussion by a decree of the majority. The euphemistic language in which the Giornale di Roma announced it next day was remarkable: – “Fù terminata la discussione generale intorno alla materia di fede, che cominciata con la Congregazione del 14 Maggio, era stata proseguita per tutte le adunanze tenute nel suddetto spazio di tempo, nelle quali ebbero parlato in proposito 65 padri,” etc. – such an obituary announcement as those which used to be put into the Russian newspapers on the death of a Czar, and which led Talleyrand to say, “Il serait enfin temps que les Empereurs de Russie changeassent de maladie.”

At the international meeting at Cardinal Rauscher's on the 4th, when about 100 Bishops were present, some of the bolder and more vigorous of them thought they ought to show by observing complete silence that there was no freedom at the Council. This view, as was said before, did not prevail; and the alternative of a protest was again adopted. On June 6, when the special debate began, Bishop Verot of Savannah in Georgia was the speaker who incurred the peculiar displeasure of the Court party, and was maltreated by Bilio. He objected to the words of the preamble “juxta communem et universalem doctrinam,” as not being true, because the doctrine referred to was not universal or everywhere received, but was only the doctrine of the so-called ultramontane school. At this murmurs arose, and Verot remarked that a previous speaker – Valerga – had been quietly listened to while he talked for an hour and a half about the Gallican school, and compared them with the Monothelite heretics; it was only fair therefore to let him call the other school by its name. Hereupon Bilio, who has assumed the rôle of ex officio blusterer and terrorist, interposed in his manner of a brawling monk, saying this topic had nothing to do with the preamble, and could be introduced afterwards in the discussion on the four chapters.

Bishop Pie of Poitiers had proposed to his colleagues on the Commission de Fide to put the article on infallibility, which was too crudely worded, into a shape which all could accept, to which Manning and Dechamps replied that it could not be improved upon, and they would allow not the slightest change. And as they had a majority in the Commission, Pie's wish was strangled before its birth.

There is no want of restless activity and agitation in favour of infallibility. The processions to obtain the gift of infallibility from the Holy Virgin and the numerous Saints, whose bones and relics fill the Roman Churches, march with sonorous devotion through the streets; the lazy and lukewarm are urged not to remain idle at so important a time, and there is no lack of intimations of the real profits which the dogma must yield to the city. The Bishops of the minority must have had marble hearts if they had continued proof against so many fervent prayers for their conversion, and wished still to defend their Gallican citadel in spite of the general assault upon it. The Roman parish priests have already presented an address in favour of the dogma, but not – as I hear – till after the opposition among them had been put down by the highest authority. And now an urgent admonition has been addressed to the University Professors either to signify their desire for the definition or resign their offices. All who receive salaries here have long been accustomed to the soft pressure put upon them from above, and are hastening, with a correct appreciation of the importance of the wish of the authorities, to follow lead. In the last few days we have had an address from 4 °Chamberlains of the Fathers of the Council who “prostrate at the Pope's most sacred feet earnestly desire to have the opportunity of sharing the wholesome fruits (saluberrimi frutti) of infallibility and the exultation felt by all true believers at the decree.” The text of the address is given in the Unita Cattolica.

Meanwhile the chief Pontiff himself speaks in most emphatic terms. The Tedeschi, notwithstanding Senestrey's assurances, are in bad odour here. A letter of the Papal Secretary in the Univers of June 2 describes the Opposition Bishops as amateurs de nouveautés dangereuses, and I understand that in a letter to Chigi, the nuncio at Paris, the Pope speaks of his infallibility as “that pious doctrine, which for so many centuries nobody questioned.” This expression is peculiarly suggestive. That the Pope uses it in good faith is certain, and that he has not gained his conviction by any study of his own is equally certain. He has been deluded by this monstrous lie, which no single even half-educated infallibilist will make himself responsible for, and thus has been driven into his perilous course. No one, who has but glanced at the official Roman historians, such as Baronius or Orsi or Saccarelli, can possibly maintain seriously that there has been no doubt for centuries about papal infallibility. This saying lifts the veil and affords us a glance into the workshop, where the Pandora's basket was fabricated which has now been opened before our eyes. Future theologians will know how to appreciate that weighty saying, “no one for many centuries,” and I for my part would say, like Gratiano to Shylock, “I thank thee for teaching me that word.”

Cardinal Schwarzenberg, who spoke on the 7th against the second chapter, was not, I think, interrupted, as was however the Bishop of Biella, Losanna, on the pretext that he did not keep to the subject. The old man is a doubly unpleasant phenomenon to the Court party, both from his boldness and clearness of view, and as being a living proof that even an Italian may be a decided opponent of infallibilism. At the international meeting at Cardinal Rauscher's on the 8th it was determined that the third chapter was to be especially attacked in the speeches.

This third chapter deals with matters of very pregnant import. It binds the Bishops to the acknowledgment that all men are immediately and directly under the Pope, which means that the so-called papal system is to be made exclusively dominant in the Church, in place of the old episcopal system, or in other words is to displace the latter, as it existed in the ancient Church, altogether. Bishops remain only as Papal Commissaries, possessed of so much power as the Pope finds good to leave them, and exercising such authority only as he does not directly exercise himself; there is no longer any episcopate, and thus one grade of the hierarchy is abolished. The persons bearing the name of Bishops are wholly different from the old and real Bishops; they have nothing more to do with the higher teaching office (magisterium), and have no authority or sphere of their own, but only delegated functions and powers, which the Pope or any one appointed by him can encroach upon at pleasure. Even this is not enough for Archbishop Dechamps of Mechlin, who has now proposed four canons anathematizing all defenders of the episcopal system; this has roused the suspicions even of several Bishops of the majority. These four canons are so significant an illustration of the aims of the party that they deserve to be put on record here: —

(1.) “Si quis dixerit Romanum Pontificem habere quidem in Ecclesia primatum jurisdictionis, non vero etiam supremam potestatem docendi, regendi et gubernandi Ecclesiam, perinde ac si primatus jurisdictionis ab illâ supremâ, potestate distingui posset – anathema sit.

(2.) “Si quis dixerit talem potestatem Romani Pontificis non esse plenam, sed divisam inter S. Pontificem et episcopos, quasi episcopi a Spiritu S. positi ad Ecclesiam Dei docendam et regendam sub unico summo pastore etiam divinitus vocati fuerint, ut in supremâ potestate totius Ecclesiæ capitis participent – anathema sit.

(3.) “Si quis dixerit supremam in Ecclesia potestatem non residere in universæ Ecclesiæ capite, sed in episcoporum pluralitate – anathema sit.

(4.) “Si quis dixerit Romano Pontifici datam quidem esse plenam potestatem regendi et gubernandi, non autem etiam plenam potestatem docendi universalem Ecclesiam, fideles et pastores – anathema sit.”

Fifty-Eighth Letter

Rome, June 21, 1870.– What I have to communicate in this letter is so important, that I find it desirable to take it out of the historical order of events and let it precede the detailed account of what occurred between June 8 and 17.

A circumstance occurred on Saturday, which has kept all who are interested about the Council in breathless suspense ever since. Nothing in fact could be more unexpected than that, at the moment when the Opposition, though still maintaining the contest from a sense of conscientious duty, almost despairs of success, a fresh ally should join its ranks in the person of a Roman Cardinal, whose accession is the more valuable because he does not only speak in his own name, but has concerted his speech with the fifteen Bishops of his Order. In fact I hear his speech spoken of in many quarters as the most important and unexpected event in the Council. It must not of course be supposed that Guidi's spirited speech represents adequately the tendencies of the Opposition, but still it must be affirmed that it involves a complete, and as we believe irreconcilable, breach with the majority. In order to enable people to appreciate the full weight of the speech it is of some importance to premise a brief account of the speaker.

Cardinal Guidi has belonged, almost ever since his entering the Dominican Order, to the convent of the Minerva. For a long time he belonged to the theological professoriate connected with the convent, and enjoyed, as such, the well-earned reputation of great learning and strict orthodoxy. When eleven years ago Pius ix. wished to send thoroughly trustworthy and learned Roman theologians to the University of Vienna, to inculcate genuine Roman science and views on the young clergy, his eye fell on Father Guidi. After working there for some years he returned to Rome, having been meanwhile appointed Cardinal, and was soon afterwards made Archbishop of Bologna; and as the Italian Government promised to place no impediment in the way of his residing there, he actually betook himself to his See. But he soon found that it was not the place for him. The Dominican Order had seriously compromised itself in the notorious Mortara affair, and accordingly the Bolognese rabble broke out repeatedly into the most deplorable demonstrations against the new Archbishop as a member of the hated Order. He therefore returned to Rome, and administered his diocese from hence. And here he was one of the Pope's favourites, only during the last year he has lost favour through his freedom of speech. Since then he has been prosecuting his theological studies in retirement, and it was pretty well known what he thought about the personal infallibility of the Pope. Several months ago he had assembled the Dominican Bishops at the Minerva about this affair. His view prevailed, and when Father Jandel, the General imposed on the Order by the Pope and reluctantly accepted, tried to put a pressure on them, they replied that they were Bishops, and were bound, as such, to consult their consciences when called to act as judges of faith. Then began a notable agitation in the Order, which was already divided into two camps. One arbitrary act followed another. A so-called academy of St. Thomas was opened, and hardly had the President taken his seat, when he made a long speech, expounding the doctrine of St. Thomas and the Order on papal infallibility in the most tactless and violent manner to his episcopal audience. A Dominican Bishop delighted the Pope by getting up an infallibilist address among his episcopal colleagues. Then followed a series of writings defending St. Thomas against Janus. A member of the Order was forbidden by the General, Jandel, “to speak either publicly or privately about infallibility,” and the Civiltà Cattolica of June 18 praised the General for prefixing to the infallibilist writing of a Dominican the approbation that in the Dominican Order papal infallibility has always been held as a Catholic truth.

Under these circumstances people were the less prepared to find Cardinal Guidi, in contrast with his numerous sympathizers in the College of Cardinals, venturing boldly on a step which must embitter his whole existence at Rome. The very first sentence of his momentous speech must have concentrated the anger of the majority on a Cardinal, as they thought, so confused and oblivious of his duty. Guidi began by affirming that the separate and personal infallibility of the Pope, as stated in the amended chapter of the Schema, was wholly unknown in the Church up to the fourteenth century inclusive. Proofs for it are vainly sought in Scripture and Tradition. The whole question, he added, reduces itself to the point whether the Pope has defined even one dogma alone and without the co-operation of the Church. No man could claim divine inspiration (doctrina infusa). An act might be infallible, a person never. But every infallible act had always proceeded from the Church herself only, either “per consilium Ecclesiæ sparsæ,” or “per Concilium.” To know “quid ubique credatur, si omnes Ecclesiæ cum Romanâ Ecclesiâ concordent,” information is indispensably required. After this examination the Pope sanctions doctrine “finaliter,” as St. Thomas says, and only so can it be rightly said “Omnes per Papam docent.” He then showed from the works of the Jesuits Bellarmine and Perrone, “in definendis dogmatibus Papas nunquam ex se solis egisse, nunquam hæresim per se solos condemnâsse.” As Guidi uttered these words the majority began to make a tumult under the lead of the Italian Spaccapietra, Bishop of Smyrna. The Cardinal saw he could not continue his speech. One bishop cried “birbante” (scoundrel) and another “brigantino.” But Guidi did not let himself be put out of countenance; he answered with astonishing firmness and calmness that he had a right to be heard, and that no one had given to the Bishops the right of the Presidents. “However, the time will come yet for saying your Placet or your Non placet, and then every one will be free to vote according to his conscience.” Here for the first time his speech was interrupted by loud applause, and the words “Optime, optime” resounded from every side among the Opposition Bishops. Manning was asked by one of them, who stood near him, “Etes-vous d'accord, Monsigneur?” He replied, “Le Cardinal est une tête confuse.” On this a high-spirited Bishop could not refrain from observing to the powerful Archbishop of Westminster, “C'est bien votre tête, Monseigneur, qui est confuse et plus qu'à moitié Protestante.”

After this pretty long interruption Guidi went on to require a change in the chapter on infallibility “ut clare appareat Papam agere consentientibus episcopis et illis occasione errorum qui sparguntur petentibus, factâ inquisitione in aliis Ecclesiis, præmisso maturo examine et judicio et consiliis fratrum aut collecto Concilio.” This was the true doctrine of St. Thomas; “finaliter” implied something to precede, and the words “supremus magister et judex” pre-suppose other “magistri” and “tribunalia.” He concluded by proposing these canons: —

(1.) “Si quis dixerit decreta seu constitutiones a Petri successore editas, continentes quandam fidei vel morum veritatem Ecclesiæ universæ ab ipso pro supremâ suâ et apostolicâ auctoritate propositas non esse extemplo omnimodo venerandas et toto corde credendas vel posse reformari – anathema sit.

(2.) “Si quis dixerit Pontificem, cum talia edit decreta, posse agere arbitrio et ex se solo non autem ex consilio episcoporum traditionem Ecclesiarum exhibentium – anathema sit.”

On sitting down he gave his manuscript to the Secretary, and was soon surrounded by the leaders of the Opposition, some of whom complimented him on his speech, while others expressed their admiration of his courage in resisting the attempts to interrupt him. When a learned Italian Bishop asked Valerga, Patriarch of Jerusalem, what he thought of this speech, he replied audibly with the pun, “Si e squidato,” and on his interrogator rejoining that anyhow the speech contained nothing but the truth, Valerga let slip an expression very characteristic of himself and his party, “Si, ma non convien sempre dir la verità.”

After this speech a large number of Bishops left the Council Hall, and excited groups of prelates might be seen standing about in all directions. Cardinals Bonnechose and Cullen addressed their very pointless speeches to empty benches. Both pleaded for the proclamation of the fourth chapter, as it stood. Bonnechose, from whom Ginoulhiac and others had expected a very moderate speech, proved that he had completely gone over into Manning's camp, which cannot surprise any one in the case of a man who himself made no secret of his having no clear views on the question. Cullen destroyed by his last speech the impression made by the first, which had been admired, not for its contents but for its strictly parliamentary form.

Cardinal Guidi's courageous speech was destined soon to bear its fruits. The Pope – the dearest object of whose heart is the perfect freedom of the Council, as the official journal stated the other day – sent for him at once, and next day boasted to several Cardinals of having energetically rebuked their undutiful colleague for his heresy and ingratitude, and threatened him with being called on to renew his profession of faith. But the Cardinal may consider himself indemnified for these hard words of the Pope by the homage he received the day after his speech from almost the whole body of the Opposition Bishops who came to visit him. And he knows that the best of them were even worse treated by his Holiness than himself, where it was possible.

Fifty-Ninth Letter

Rome, June 22, 1870.– On the 13th the votes were taken on the changes proposed in the preamble, and taken by rising and sitting down.147 Instead of “Vis et salus Ecclesiæ ab eo (Papâ) dependet” was proposed “Vis et soliditas in eo (Papâ) consistit.” The majority seem to have thought that stronger. The debate began with the speech of the Irish Archbishop of Cashel, a member of the Commission. It is precisely in our days, he said, that it is so necessary for the Pope to have absolute and irresponsible authority, for therein lies the one safeguard, first, against the encroachments of Liberalism; secondly, against the Radical and anti-Church policy of the Governments; thirdly, against the poisonous and unbridled influence of journalism; and fourthly, the absolute Pope can alone meet the ecclesiastical and national enterprises of Russia or subdue the political sects and ward off the Revolution which is impending everywhere. In short, human society requires a deliverer, and this deliverer must be omnipotent and infallible. So it is said in the Commission, and the Irish prelate, who was specially alarmed by Fenianism, spoke in its name. As soon as the Pope with the assent of the Council – or indeed without it – has ruled his own omnipotence and infallibility, the deliverance of mankind is accomplished.

The French Benedictine, Cardinal Pitra, undertook to lift the assembly out of this cloudy region back to the firm ground of facts, viz., the facts disclosed by himself. He expatiated on the collection of canons in the Greek Church, saying that those relating to the Roman See had been falsified, and the Russian Church was above all implicated in this system of forgery, which had brought things to such a pass that there was no authentic collection of canons in the Oriental Church. This was probably intended to serve as a diversion, for the enormous fabrications in favour of papal omnipotence, which were carried on for centuries and are incorporated in the codes of canon law, had been frequently before referred to in a very suspicious manner in the Council. Even the Bishop of Saluzzo, who is almost a thorough-going Roman absolutist, had called the collection of canons (Gratian's, etc.) an Augean stable. Pitra went on to indulge in an uncommonly fervid philippic against the Machiavellian and persecuting Russia. But he forgot to say one thing, viz., that in no country would the impending decrees be received with such satisfaction as in Russia, nowhere would they give greater pleasure than in that great Northern State which considers itself the happy heir of Rome in the East. So much must be known even in Rome, that on the day the dogma is promulgated all the bells in Mohilew, Wilna, Minsk, etc., will resound to ring the knell of Rome. Pitra was followed by Ramirez y Vasquez, Bishop of Badajoz. He maintained in the style and tone of Don Gerundio de Canpazes, the doctrine that the Pope is Christ in the Church, the continuation of the Incarnation of the Son of God, whence to him belongs the same extent of power as to Christ Himself when visibly on earth. Maret had announced his intention of speaking, with the view of combating the four anathemas of Dechamps, which were so manifestly directed against his book. But Dechamps, on learning this, told the Bishop of Sura that, if he would keep silence, he would withdraw his anathemas, and excused himself by alleging his zeal for the new dogma, assuring Maret that he had a good heart and meant no harm. So Maret renounced his design of speaking.