Letters From Rome on the Council

We are already in the third stage of this movement. First came, quite unexpectedly, protests against infallibility from the lay world, instead of the accustomed clouds of incense, and then still more unexpectedly the military obedience of the clergy was broken through by the most decided intimations of conscientious sincerity and scientific conviction; and now even the princes of the Church are putting themselves at the head of the Opposition. There is still some difference between the Church dispersed and a great assembly, many as are the restrictions imposed here by fraud and violence on the free expression of opinion. The man of knowledge and character, who would there remain alone and isolated, gains tenfold power and energy here. Consciences are aroused. Many a Bishop who left home with his head wholly or half involved in the haze of Jesuit doctrine, receives the impulse here to unprejudiced study and is irresistibly driven to the side of right and truth. Besides, it is no small thing to have seen the state of things at Rome for six months with one's own eyes.

We shall do well not to raise our expectations too high. The spirit of slavery, which has become ingrained in one generation after another, cannot be scared away in weeks and months from men's minds and the conduct of affairs. So much the more noteworthy is every increase of outward or inward strength in the struggling minority at the Council. And so I return to the work already mentioned, to remark that its contents justify us in reckoning the author, the venerable Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis, with Strossmayer, Hefele, Dupanloup, Darboy, Schwarzenberg, and Rauscher among the heads of the Opposition.

It is only matter of course that much which has often been said before should be repeated here, which we may pass over, without however omitting to notice the impression which the plain and practical nature of the treatise is calculated to produce. What concerns us more nearly is the distinctness and firmness with which the present claims of the Curia are repudiated, as, e. g., in pointing out the injury to episcopal rights involved in the desired definition. “The Bishops,” says the author, “have always been held judges of faith. But assuming that the Pope alone is infallible, the Bishops may indeed assent to his judgments, but cannot exercise any real judicial office, and thus lose a right inherent in the episcopal office. But this right they are in no position to resign, however much they might wish it, for its connection with the episcopal office rests on the institution of the Saviour.” In another passage he says, “Appeal is made to the number of theologians, who in the course of ages have defended infallibility. But that does not make it an article of faith. Divine Providence does not permit such opinions, when they have no true ground or do not agree with the records of revelation, to become articles of faith. It has been a view held for centuries that Christ gave Peter and his successors supreme authority in secular affairs also. But there is no one in our own day who does not reject and deplore it and seek for an excuse for it in the circumstances of the age, except the Roman clergy, in whose Proprium Officium S. Zachariæ we read the other day, that the Pope by his apostolic authority transferred the sovereignty over the Franks from Childeric to Pepin. And yet the Popes have ventured to make this usurped authority, so far as in them lay, into an article of faith.” Then follows a reference to the Bull Unam Sanctam, and the similar statements of Bellarmine and Suarez. “On the other hand,” Kenrick proceeds, “we find at this Council some Bishops, of whom the present writer is one, who have published and solemnly sworn to a declaration that the Pope, at least in England, possesses no such power. This example might teach those who are pressing for the definition of papal infallibility, that even the most solemn papal decree, and though issued like that of Boniface viii. at a Synod, is null and void if it be not grounded on God's word in Scripture and Tradition. ‘Commenta delet dies, judicia naturæ confirmat.’ ”

We may recognise in the tone of these remarks, with all their moderation, an advance on the part of the Opposition to greater freedom and distinctness of speech. And this impression is still more confirmed by Kenrick's judgment on the well-known proceedings in and out of Council. “There is yet another argument used,” he says, “which I can only refer to with reluctance. It is urged that papal infallibility is so vehemently attacked by its opponents that, if it is not now declared to be an article of faith, it is virtually admitted to have no foundation, and surrendered to the daily increasing violence of its assailants without protection. Those who so argue forget that they are themselves responsible for having occasioned this deplorable controversy, by announcing to the astonished world that at the Vatican Council two new dogmas would be proposed to the faithful, papal infallibility and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and in a similar spirit publishing works in England and the United States on the Pope's authority, with a view of preparing men's minds for the acceptance of these dogmas. In view of this temerity, which has not only not been rebuked but has even been defended in Bishops' Pastorals, and with a clear perception of the unhappy consequences that must follow from it, men, who deserve eternal remembrance and will obtain praise of God, have lifted up their voice to remind the faithful that in matters of faith no innovation is allowed, that papal infallibility as distinct from the infallibility of the Church has no evidence of Scripture and Tradition, and that the office of Councils is to investigate and not to carry decrees by acclamation. And just because they speak the truth openly, these men are reproached with stirring up the people by the very persons who would eventually have interpreted their silence as assent and have used it as ground for carrying out their own designs. Then again it is urged upon good people that something must be done under the circumstances for maintaining the honour of the Papacy, forgetting that Bishops should have not circumstances but the truth before their eyes, and that it is as little competent to the successors of the Apostles as to the Apostles themselves to do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.”

In another passage, after dwelling on the preponderance of the Italian prelates he proceeds, “If they wish to give the decrees of the Council the character of the testimony of the whole of Christendom, without altering the inequality of numbers of the representatives of different nations, there is the precedent of the plan adopted at the Council of Constance with the happiest results, viz., taking the votes by nations or languages and not by heads. And this method would secure the speedier and better settlement of the matters under discussion, for the Bishops of the same tongue or nation know the needs of their Churches better and would understand how to meet them; moreover they could express their views more readily in their mother tongue than is possible in the General Congregation where Latin is obliged to be spoken, which they have perhaps lost their familiarity with through the long course of an active life, so that they have either to keep silent or to speak under difficulties. And by this means a discussion and searching examination would become practicable, which must necessarily take place at a Council, but which is wanting at the Vatican Council. There is indeed abundant opportunity for making speeches, but the great number of Fathers and the order of business imposed on the Council cuts off all opportunity for submitting any point to a close examination by regular debate with one speaker answering another. Five months have already passed since the opening of the Council, with what result need not be said here. Meanwhile the question of the new definition has roused a great excitement throughout the Christian world, which is still on the increase; some desire the definition, others emphatically repudiate it. Bishops have entered the lists against Bishops, priests have written against their own and against other chief pastors, and won commendation from the supreme authority for doing so. The journals of both parties, with their not always true reports or at least crooked reasonings, keep the whole world in a state of agitated suspense as to what is coming. May one say to what all this will lead and what will be the end of this violent tempest which has so suddenly risen in a clear sky and seems likely to produce much mischief? They are certainly deceived who fancy that the promulgation of the new dogma will at once lay the waves; the contrary is far likelier. Those who would obey the decrees of the Council will find themselves in a most difficult position. The civil Governments will treat them, not without some plausible grounds, as less trustworthy subjects. The enemies of the Church will throw in their teeth the errors said to have been taught by the Popes or sanctioned by their conduct, and will laugh to scorn the only possible answer – that they did not promulgate these errors as Popes but as individual Bishops of Rome. And then the scandalous Church history records of certain Popes will be urged as so many proofs of the internal discrepancy of Catholic belief, for men do not distinguish between infallibility and impeccability, which appear to them inseparably connected.”

What Kenrick thinks the Opposition ought to do is not expressly stated, but may be gathered from his language. He says indeed that “whoever does not submit to the decisions of an Œcumenical Council does not deserve the name of Catholic,” but he adds, “if the indispensable conditions have been observed in holding the Council.” And he makes moral unanimity one of these conditions. He does not allow the crude conception which seems to prevail among the majority, that a Council has simply to vote and then the world must reverence the result as the dictate of the Holy Ghost. The infallibility of Councils is to him no miraculous work of inspiration, but a simple result of the constitution the Church received from her Founder, whose assistance will never fail her, if she remains true to Scripture and Tradition and the agreement of the various particular Churches.

Kenrick and all the Bishops who hold firmly with him may meet the impending decision in quietness and confidence, for the defeat of their opponents is certain, whether they persist and define and promulgate the new dogma, or retreat at the last moment. In the former case deliverance will come through a catastrophe whose consequences defy all calculation. And yet even in Rome there do not lack pious minds which, undisturbed by these terrible dangers, desire to see the insolent enterprise carried through, in the belief that the prevalent corruption can only be overcome by a life and death struggle. “Quod medicina non sanat, ferrum sanat.”

Sixty-First Letter

Rome, June 24, 1870.– Rome is just now like an episcopal lazar-house, so great is the number of the prelates who are sick and suffering and confined to their bed or their chamber. And still greater is the number of those who feel worn out and impatiently long to be gone. But there are persons here who calculate thus – that the Italians, Spaniards and South Americans are accustomed to the heat, and bear it very well, and as to the Germans, French and North Americans – “vile damnum si interierint.”

Guidi's speech still occupies men's minds, and forms the topic of conversation in conciliar circles. Men are astonished at the courage of a Cardinal in daring so directly to contradict the Pope. While Pius has word written to Paris that “for many centuries no one doubted the Pope's infallibility,” Guidi declares it to be an invention of the fifteenth century.

The following account of the dialogue between the Pope and the Cardinal is current at Rome, and it seems to rest on the authority of Pius himself, who is notoriously fond of telling every one he meets how he has lectured this or that dignitary: —

Guidi, on being summoned by the Pope directly after his speech, was greeted with the words, “You are my enemy, you are the coryphæus of my opponents, ungrateful towards my person; you have propounded heretical doctrine.” Guidi.– “My speech is in the hands of the Presidents, if your Holiness will read it, and detect what is supposed to be heretical in it. I gave it at once to the under-secretary (sottosecretario) that people might not be able to say anything had been interpolated into it.” The Pope.– “You have given great offence to the majority of the Council; all five Presidents are against you and are displeased.” Guidi.– “Some material error may have escaped me, but certainly not a formal one: I have simply stated the doctrine of tradition and of St. Thomas.” The Pope.– “La tradizione son' io – vi farò far nuovamente la professione di fede.” Guidi.– “I am and remain subject to the authority of the Holy See, but I ventured to discuss a question not yet made an article of faith; if your Holiness decides it to be such in a Constitution, I shall certainly not dare to oppose it.” The Pope.– “The value of your speech may be measured by those whom it has pleased. Who has been eager to testify to you his joy? That Bishop Strossmayer who is my personal enemy has embraced you; you are in collusion with him.” Guidi.– “I don't know him, and have never before spoken to him.” The Pope.– “It is clear you have spoken so as to please the world, the Liberals, the Revolution, and the Government of Florence.” Guidi.– “Holy Father, have the goodness to have my speech given you.”

The same afternoon a Spanish Bishop belonging to the extremest Infallibilists said, “Absque dubio facies Concilii est immutata. Oportet huic sermoni serio studere.” When Guidi asked how the Cardinals had taken his speech, Mathieu replied, “Cum seriâ silentiosâ approbatione,” on which Guidi observed, “Sunt quidam qui idem mecum sentiunt, sed deest illis animi fortitudo.”

“La tradizione son' io” – it would be impossible to give a briefer, more pregnant or more epigrammatic description of the whole system which is now to be made dominant than is contained in those few words. All the members of the Civiltà, the thick volumes of Schrader, Weninger and the Jesuits of Laach are outdone by this clear and simple utterance. Pius will take rank in history with the men who have known how by a happy inspiration to throw a great thought into the most adequate form of words, which impresses it for ever indelibly on the memory. The formula is worthy to be classed with the equally pregnant saying of Boniface viii., “The Pope holds all rights locked up in his breast.” It is bruited about here from mouth to mouth, and the analogy of Louis xiv., which inevitably occurs to everybody, reaches even further. Every day since I have witnessed the drama being enacted here, has the saying suggested itself to me, “L'Église, c'est moi.” Any one who would form a judgment of the state of things here should be recommended above all to read a work like, e. g., Lemontey's Essai sur l'établissement monarchique de Louis xiv., or the instructions of the King for the Dauphin. One sees there how absolute sovereignty, the intoxicating sense of irresponsible power – and spiritual absolutism is far more overpowering than political – leads almost of necessity to the notion of infallibility and divine enlightenment. Louis xiv. says seriously and drily to his son, “As God's representative we have part in the divine knowledge as well as the divine authority.”149 And he warns him that all his own errors had arisen from his too great modesty in giving ear to extraneous advisers. For eight hundred years the question has been disputed, why the Popes are so short-lived, and the phenomenon has been ascribed to a special divine dispensation which removes them betimes, that they may not be morally poisoned by too long enjoyment of their dignity – “ne malitia mutaret intellectum.”

The minority perceive, on a calmer consideration, that the two canons proposed by Guidi would not provide sufficient security for the episcopate taking part in the teaching office of the Church according to the integrity of her constitution. The second indeed, like a well-aimed arrow, hits the mark. It calls the thing by its right name, and anathematizes the purely personal infallibility of the Pope, independent of the consent of the Church and resting on direct divine inspiration, as a heresy, which it unquestionably is in the eyes of every theologian who knows anything of the Church and her tradition; but then, after the Pope has so openly and expressly committed himself to precisely this view of the Church, it is thought impossible here in Rome, and close to the Vatican, to throw an anathema in his face. And besides the expression in the first canon, that the consentient “consilium Ecclesiæ” is requisite for an infallible papal utterance, is open to the same charge of vagueness as the notorious and much-abused ex cathedrâ, and could as easily be explained away into the mere arbitrary caprice of the Pope. It would always rest with him in the last resort to maintain “ex certâ scientiâ” that the “consilium Ecclesiæ” agreed with his own judgment.

A remodelling of the fourth canon has been undertaken, but the new formula is not known. It is however much talked of among the Bishops, and the general view is that it remains substantially unchanged, and still contains the personal infallibility of the Pope independently of the Church. Manning had said that the utmost regard that was possible should be paid to the views of the Opposition in the alteration of the chapter. And so those Bishops still hope for the accomplishment of their desires who, like Ketteler and Melchers, entreat that only one, however sterile, verbal concession may be made, so as to give them a bridge on which to pass over the gulf safely into the camp of the majority.

I lately heard a Roman layman say that what most surprised him among the many wonderful things he had seen here was the contempt for the Catholic Church which prevails here. For that contempt could not be more emphatically expressed than by the Pope appropriating to himself what according to the ancient doctrine belongs to her, and declaring himself the sole and exclusive organ of the Holy Ghost. It is the same here universally; when one talks with a Roman, the Curia, the Pope, is everything, and the Church nothing but the “contribuens plebs.” My informant thought it was easy enough to understand the view of born Romans, but difficult to give any rational account of the attitude of the episcopal majority, for it must be clear to every one of them that the promulgation of the new dogma would destroy irrevocably all episcopal independence of Rome, and strip the nimbus from the brow of the Bishop who is a successor of the Apostles. I observed to him that in Romance countries this primitive idea of the episcopate had long since vanished, as he might easily convince himself by asking the next Italian peasant or shopkeeper he met what was his notion of a Bishop. And five-sixths of the majority belong to these countries,

In the Congregation of June 20 the Deputation put up one of its members, Bishop d'Avanzo of Calvi and Teano, to speak. For there was urgent need of promptly meeting the great scandal given by Guidi, and deterring any Cardinal who might be so disposed from following his example. The speaker allowed that in dogmatic decrees the tradition of the Church must be consulted and the Holy Ghost invoked, but how this was to be done was left to the judgment of the Pope, By his second canon Guidi passed over “ad aliena non Catholica castra,” exceeded all Gallicans and wanted – he, an Italian, a Dominican and a Cardinal – to canonize Gallicanism. A shudder ran through the ranks of all the Italians who live between Ferrara and Malta, but they remembered for their comfort that the unworthy son of the peninsula had been for some years professor at Vienna, and it was obvious that the German malaria he had caught there was the cause of this matricidal heresy.

Guidi had said that the admonition to Peter to confirm his brethren pre-supposed something to be confirmed, i. e., that the Pope only confirmed the doctrine already maintained by the Bishops. To this d'Avanzo answered that it was utterly uncatholic, and one must rather begin from above and not from below, and ascribe the authorship and initiation of doctrine to the Pope, who was immediately inspired by the Holy Ghost; “causa princeps infallibilitatis est assistentia Spiritûs Sancti.” And here followed a statement that must be given word for word: “Supervacaneum est omne additamentum, nulla emendatio in decreto et canone schematis acceptatur; nulla conditio, nulla limitatio admittetur per deputationem; inutilis est igitur omnis labor? ‘Animalis homo non percipit quod de cœlo est.’ ”150 To say the definition was inopportune was merely pandering to the corrupt portion of society, and especially to the tribe of Government officials. The speaker added emphatically: “Satis fit servis Satanæ, qui sunt gubernantes, negantes ordinem supernaturalem – ergo Decretum est opportunum. In Pontifice Spiritus Domini vivit et agit, Pontifex ergo hôc Spiritu agente errare non potest.” It became known at once in the Council that this declaration, which annihilated so many hopes, had been made in the name and by special command of the Pope, and that “the animal man” meant the Opposition.

The two next speakers were the titular Patriarchs Ballerini and Valerga. The first said with notable frankness, “Were we to let personal infallibility drop, we should destroy the obedience due to the Pope and exalt ourselves against God Himself.” In other words, the Vice-God orders us to declare him infallible, and of course we obey implicitly.

Valerga's appearance was the beginning of a comedy, which was repeated in subsequent sittings. He wanted to prove papal infallibility by inferences from the Florentine decree, which was received by all; but he was twice interrupted by the Presidents for not keeping to the question. He thereupon left the tribune, not without remarks being made by Opposition Bishops that they saw this treatment was not reserved for them only. The same thing happened on June 22 to Bishop Apuzzo of Sorrento and Archbishop Spaccapietra. On the 20th, towards the end of the debate, Archbishop MacHale of Tuam in Ireland spoke with great severity against the decree, the fatal consequences of which he seems to appreciate better than most of his Irish colleagues. Bishop Apuzzo reminded the Hungarians that they once had a primate (Szelepcsenyi, a pupil of the Jesuits) who had summoned a synod to condemn the Gallican Articles of 1682, and that quite recently a Provincial Synod at Colocza had used language of very infallibilist sound. Haynald took part in that Synod, and he, as well as Rauscher, to whom the same reproach was addressed, had already observed that it would not do to put a strictly logical interpretation on mere complimentary phrases. In the course of his speech Apuzzo became still more abusive. “Those are the sons of Satan,” he exclaimed at last, “who say the Bishops are judges in the Church. No! we are but poor sinners.” At the same time he proposed a supplement still more peremptory than the chapter. Spaccapietra came to grief in Church history, which is more grossly mishandled at Rome and in the Council Hall, when it is appealed to at all, than anywhere else. This time St. Polycarp's yielding to the Pope about the observance of Easter – he notoriously did just the reverse – was to serve as an example to the Opposition. When the speaker went on to utter fierce invectives against Cardinal Guidi, he was interrupted. He declared he had only something to say against the schismatics, but the President closed his mouth in theatrical fashion saying, “Cedat verbum tintinnabulo.” So he left the rostrum.

Men breathed more freely when, after these hollow declamations, two British Bishops brought the clear practical sense of their race and country to bear on the question and the previous discussion of it. The first of them, Archbishop Errington, who was formerly Cardinal Wiseman's coadjutor but soon got out of favour at Rome, pointedly characterized the vicious nature of the whole transaction; there were speeches on both sides, one affirming, another denying, and no one could feel that he had refuted anything or advanced his cause the least by his words. The Deputation alone had the privilege of referring to the speeches and examining them, and it belonged to the majority, not to the Council; “how it was formed, we know.” As a tribunal the Council was bound to institute a calm and searching investigation of facts, tradition and testimonies, and for this only one means was available, which was employed at the former great Councils including the Tridentine, to form deputations from both parties for earnest conference, where scientific examination might take the place of rhetorical harangues – from both parties, for it was idle with Bilio to bid them ignore the existence of two parties. “Modo in hôc Concilio fit aliter et illud ineptissime,” he concluded, and he proposed the formula, “Magisterium universalis Ecclesiæ est infallibile.”