Letters From Rome on the Council

Lately, for the first time, a local priest, Leonardo Proja, in a work published here, has openly expressed his confidence that the Council will at once condemn the shocking error of setting aside the supreme dominion of the Pope over the nations, even in civil matters (“vel in civilibus”) as an invention of the Middle Ages.40

The Court of Rome and the Bishops are at present studying in a school of mutual instruction. The Curia studies the Bishops individually, especially the more prominent among them, and watches for their weak points and the ways of getting at them and making them pliable, and, above all, of dissolving national ties. They don't always manage matters skilfully, for the want of all real freedom, the use of coercive measures, and this apparatus of bolts and bars, cords and man-traps, by which the Prelates are surrounded and threatened at every step in Council, by no means produce a couleur de rose state of feeling, and the contrast between the title of Brother, which the Pope gives officially to every Bishop, and his way of treating them all, both individually and collectively, like so many schoolboys, is too glaring. Even the boasted freedom of speech does not extend very far, for every Prelate speaks under threat of interruption by the bell of the presiding Cardinal, directly he says anything displeasing to Roman ears. On the other hand, the Bishops, during their stay here of six or seven weeks, have learnt a good deal more than the curialists, and many of them have really made immense advances, before which the Romans would recoil with a shudder, if they could see how things stand. A great many of these Prelates came here full of absolute devotion to the Pope, and with great confidence in the integrity of the Curia and the purity of its motives. When they found themselves oppressed and injured at home by its measures or decrees, they still thought it was so much the better in the other branches of ecclesiastical administration. But now, and here, scales have, as it were, fallen from their eyes, and they are daily getting to understand more clearly the two mighty levers of the gigantic machine. The dominant view in Roman clerical circles here is, that the Church in its present condition needs, above all things, greater centralization at Rome, the extension and deepening of Papal powers, the removal of any limitations still standing in the way in national Churches, and the increase of the revenues accruing from Papal innovations. This it is the business of the Council to accomplish. When, therefore, two Bishops lately attacked in their speeches the abuse of expensive marriage dispensations, it was at once said, “Well, then, if any change is made, what is to become of our Congregations and the revenues of their members?”

The Bishops will return home poorer in their happy confidence, but richer in such impressions and experiences. They will also carry back from Rome with them a fuller knowledge of the Jesuit Order, its spirit and tendencies. They now see clearly that the grand aim of the Order is to establish at least one fortress in every diocese with a Papal garrison, and to hold bishops, clergy, and people under complete subjection to Rome and her commands. A French Bishop observed the other day, “If matters go on in this way, we shall have even our holy water sent us ready-made from Rome.” And the Jesuits' business is to see that things do go on in this way. The Bishops have now an opportunity of seeing through the tacit compact, perfectly understood on both sides, between the Curia and the Order. The Pope accepts the Jesuit theology, and imposes it on the whole Church, for which he requires to be infallible; the Jesuits labour in the pulpit, the confessional, the schoolroom, and the press for the dominion of the Curia and the Romanizing of all Church life. One hand washes the other, and the two parties say, “We serve, in order to rule.” So far the relations of parties are clear enough, and result from the nature of the case. It is less easy to define the attitude and disposition of the Bishops towards each other.41

Fourteenth Letter

Rome, Feb. 2, 1870.– There is evidently a deep split running through the Council. It is not merely the question of Infallibility which divides the Bishops, though this rules the whole situation. Each party has an opposite programme. The majority, with their reserve of the 300 Papal boarders, speak and act on the principle that they are there to accept without objection or substantial change whatever their master, the Pope, puts before them; that they are as Bishops what the Jesuits are as Priests – the heralds of the Pope's omnipotence and infallibility, and the first executors of his commands – and accordingly they mean to vote against every motion not introduced or sanctioned by the Pope, and to impede, both in Council and out of Council, whatever would displease him or curtail the revenues of the Curia. And thus the 130 or 140 Bishops, who wish for improvement in Church matters, are thwarted and paralysed at every step by an adverse majority of 400, admirably generalled. Cardinal Barnabó, Prefect of the Propaganda, is one of the most deserving men in the Curia from this point of view. He maintains good discipline among the missionary Bishops, and is not ashamed to besiege an individual Bishop who is under Propaganda, or supported by it, for a whole evening, and threaten him with the withdrawal of his pay if he does not vote just as the Pope desires.

Midway between the two opposite camps there stands a body of some 150 Prelates of different nations, averse to the new dogma and to the whole plan of fabricating dogmas, to which the Jesuits are impelling the Pope, and alive to the necessity and desirableness of many reforms, but who, on various grounds, shrink from speaking out plainly and with the guarantee of their names.

As far as I can gather from personal intercourse of various kinds with many of the Infallibilist Bishops, their zeal is chiefly due to the following notions: —

First, They are more or less impressed by the representation that there is a general need for new dogmas, and that the old ones are no longer sufficient; but for preparing and enforcing these a single infallible dictator is better adapted than an episcopal assembly. For, besides the inevitable opposition of a minority to every new dogma, the Bishops could never come forward as more than witnesses of the tradition of their respective Churches, whereas the infallible Pope, under direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, can at once make into a dogma and article of faith whatever is clear to himself, without troubling himself about the past or the tradition of particular Churches, even the Roman, – as, for instance, at present, the doctrine of the bodily Assumption of the Virgin Mary.

Secondly– and this is a crucial point, – The distinction between Bishops learned or ignorant in theology will become immaterial, because henceforth they will be mere promulgators and executors of Papal decrees on faith, and therefore ignorance of theology and Church history, which still has some importance, and is felt as a defect to be ashamed of, will no longer be any reproach to a Bishop. He who has no judgment of his own to form may well be incapable of forming one; he is the mere speaking-trumpet of one above him.

Thirdly, Theology itself will be greatly simplified, and its study rendered shorter and easier. Those lengthy historical proofs of dogmas, the investigations as to the range and consequences of a doctrine and the like, will all become superfluous, and matters will be settled out of hand by a brief question to the Pope and his reply. A collection of these rescripts, under the title of “The Art of Learning Theology in a Week,” may henceforth be placed in the hands of every candidate for the priesthood, and would supply the place of a whole library. Even as a matter of economy this is no despicable advantage. The majority of 400 and minority of 137 are then opposed to each other in this way: – the majority, or the Spanish and Italian section (a fortiori fit denominatio) say, “We are resolved to abdicate as a teaching body and integral constituent of the ecclesiastical ministry; we desire to commit suicide for the benefit of the Church, in order that the authority of a single man may be substituted for the collective authority of the whole episcopate and of all Churches.” The minority think, on the other hand, “We are resolved to hand down inviolate to our successors the inheritance of eighteen centuries, bequeathed to us by our predecessors. Our spiritual forefathers were judges and definers in matters of doctrine, and such we desire to remain; we do not choose to give a helping hand to making ourselves and our successors mere acclaimers instead of definers.”

For the rest, it involves a logical contradiction on the part of the Infallibilists to lay any special weight on mere numbers, for nothing turns on the votes of the Bishops in their system, but everything depends on the decision of the Pope. If 600 Bishops were ranged on one side and the Pope with 6 Bishops on the other, the 600 would be thereby proved to be in error and the 6 in possession of the truth. Cardinal Noailles observed very correctly, 150 years ago, that 300 Bishops, who proclaim a doctrinal principle on the mere word of a Pope whom they regard as infallible, have no more weight than one single Bishop who votes on his own personal conviction. The opposition of the minority, as might be expected from their antecedents of the last twenty years, is indeed wrapped up in cotton, but at bottom it is positive enough. It comes to saying that, if the Pope really wishes the Council to take in hand the question of Infallibility, witnesses must be heard on the subject.

The Address of the forty-five German and Hungarian Bishops objects to the boundaries, as they had been hitherto drawn by the Pope for the teaching of the Church, being transgressed, and the Council being compelled to enter on a discussion of the grounds pro and con, which must necessarily bring much suspicious matter into public debate. The definition itself would be sure to excite hostility against the Church, even with men of the better sort (melioris notæ viros) and lead to attacks upon her rights. It may be said that the whole German episcopate, and the immense majority of the German Catholic Church by their mouth, has spoken out against the Infallibilist dogma.

Simor, Patriarch of Hungary, has not, or at least not yet, subscribed the Address, but he spoke emphatically against the dogma in the meeting of German Bishops on January 16. All the other Hungarian Bishops at Rome, thirteen in number, have signed the Address; only the Greek Uniate Bishop of Papp-Szilaghy has, like Simor, omitted to do so. The North Italian Bishops too have determined on an address, substantially identical with the German one.

The French Address, which thirty-three Bishops agreed to on January 15, at a meeting at Cardinal Mathieu's, differs somewhat in wording from the German, but the contents are the same in the main, and it is hoped to get forty signatures for this; twenty French Bishops wish to abstain from signing anything, and something under twenty have signed Manning's address, so that there are still twice as many French on the side of the Opposition as of the definition. We may add seventeen North Americans, who have accepted the German Address, with the omission of the clauses omitted in the French one, while the North Italians adopted it unaltered. The opposition to the dogma has thus maintained an universal character, including the most various nationalities. But it would be hardly feasible to decide a new dogma by mere counting of heads, treating the Bishops, like the privates of a regiment, as all equal, so that one vote is worth just the same as another. An analysis of the component elements of this majority, and a comparison of it with the Opposition in scientific culture and representation of souls, would give sufficiently impressive results.

The most startling phenomenon is presented by the Belgian and English Bishops. The former are all on the Infallibilist side, and there can be no doubt that they understand the political importance of the new dogma. They apparently wish to make the breach incurable between the Catholics of the younger generation and the Liberal party, who adhere to the Belgian Constitution; for no Catholic for the future can at once recognise the doctrine of Papal Infallibility and the principles of the Belgian civil law, without contradiction. What makes the majority of English Bishops zealous adherents of Infallibilism it is hard to say; they are not in other respects disposed to be led by Manning. Nor can we assume that, like the Belgians, they deliberately wish to make the Catholic Church of their country the irreconcilable foe of the British Constitution, though that would be the inevitable consequence of the doctrine. It has been pointed out to these Prelates from England, that the solemn declarations of English and Irish Catholics are still preserved in the State Archives, in which they formally renounced belief in Papal Infallibility, and purchased thereby the abolition of the old penal laws and Emancipation. Thus it is said in the “Declaration and Protestation,” signed by 1740 persons, including 241 priests, “We acknowledge no infallibility in the Pope.” In the “Form of Oath and Declaration,” taken in 1793 by all Irish Catholics, occur the words, “I also declare that it is not an article of the Catholic faith, neither am I thereby required to believe or profess, that the Pope is infallible.” And a Synod of Irish Bishops, in 1810, declared this oath and declaration to be “a constituent part of the Roman Catholic religion, as taught by the Bishops; a formula affirmed by the Roman Catholic Churches in Ireland, and sanctioned and approved by the other Roman Catholic Churches.”

I hear that, among the Irish Bishops, Moriarty is averse to breaking with the ancient tradition of his Church. Bishop Brown of Newport, an open and decided opponent of Infallibilism, is kept away by ill health; Ullathorne of Birmingham and Archbishop MacHale of Tuam wish also to keep clear of it, but without signing the address. Bishop Clifford of Clifton, on the contrary, as I hear, has signed it. So Manning's following among his countrymen is a very divided one.

Fifteenth Letter

Rome, Feb. 4.– There is a good deal of interesting matter to report of the Sessions of the last few weeks. And, first, as to the Council Hall: notwithstanding the great curtain, it remains a wretched apology for a Council-chamber, and I must repeat emphatically that such a discussion as, e. g., was possible in St. Paul's Church, at Frankfort, in 1848, would be hardly practicable here. Bishops whose voices are feeble and not penetrating enough, must give up the idea of speaking, and even strong men among them feel thoroughly exhausted after they have spoken. A French Bishop, whose speech had produced a great effect, said afterwards of the hall, “Elle est sourde, muette, et aveugle.” But the Pope persists, on account of the neighbourhood of the so-called “Confession of St. Peter,” from which he thinks a force issues to bind the Bishops closer to him, and fill them with contempt of the world. This influence, however, has been very little manifested as yet – rather the reverse. There have been many Opposition speeches, and the bell of the presiding Legate not unfrequently interrupts them with its shrill dissonance; in the latter Sessions a new method has been practised of reducing unpleasant speakers to silence – by scraping with the feet. It is a striking fact that talent, eloquence, and force of thought are observed to be almost entirely on the side of the Opposition; very few men of mark or able speakers can be mentioned on the Infallibilist side. Manning and Mermillod would be good and versatile speakers, only they are not sufficiently masters of Latin. Deschamps alone on that side has won great applause as an eloquent speaker, though with sufficient poverty of thought.

Among the Cardinals, de Angelis, de Luca, Bilio, and Capalti are considered the four Papal pillars of the Council. Bilio, a Barnabite, and still a young man, passes in Rome for an eminent theologian, and while the other Cardinals and Monsignori would hold it a sin to understand German, he knows two German words, which he constantly repeats, but always with a shudder, “deutsche Wissenschaft.” He thinks German science something like the witches' caldron in Macbeth – full of horrible ingredients.

The first dogmatic Schema has gone back to the Commission on Faith after a long, many-sided, and severe criticism, and is to be revised and again laid before the Council as little altered as possible. The revision is intrusted to three of the most zealous Infallibilists, Martin, Deschamps, and Pie, with the indispensable Jesuits, Schrader and Franzelin. The Bishops are then simply to accept it without discussion. It is not to be discussed, first, because there can be no discussion in the Hall; secondly, because this wretched patchwork does not bear discussion; thirdly, because there would be no coming to an end this way; fourthly, and chiefly, because an excellent precedent will be created, which may be made a rule for the forthcoming Schemata, and will open the prospect of carrying through matters far more important and more valuable for the Curia.

If once the first Schema were voted without discussion, by the help of the devoted majority of 400, though against the opposition of many Bishops, the same method might be pursued with subsequent Schemata, and thus the most important of all, on the Church and the Pope, could be carried, which contains the most exorbitant assertions of Papal omnipotence, and implies Papal Infallibility, which is introduced by a side-wind. By this means the maxim observed at former Councils, and even at Trent, that decisions can only be settled by a unanimous vote, would be happily got rid of, and the resistance of the Opposition broken or rendered useless. Such a victory of the curialistic party would exceed all other successes in importance and practical value. The Council is accordingly come to a momentous crisis. Father Theiner, the Prefect of the Papal Archives, has had a part of the first volume of his Acts of the Council of Trent printed. We find there a modus procedendi, which secures to the Fathers of the Council much more freedom and action than the present regulations, of which Italian Prelates say themselves that they leave no freedom, and only allow a sham Council. Theiner has been altogether forbidden, by the management of the Jesuits, to publish his work, and has received the most strict commands not to show the part already printed to any Bishop.

The introduction of the second Schema, on Discipline, gave occasion to many earnest and important speeches. The Germans at first had to blush for one of their number, Martin of Paderborn, who made a speech overflowing with the most unqualified devotion to the will of the supreme master, the authorship of which was attributed to his Jesuit domestic chaplain, Father Roh. But the speech of Archbishop Melchers of Cologne made all the more favourable impression. He spoke, with quiet dignity and freedom, of the perversity and shamefulness of the meddling Roman domination, the system of dispensations, and the unmeasured centralization. Great was the astonishment of the assembly; Cardinal Capalti went on urging, with impatient look and sign, on de Luca, the President for the day, to stop the German Archbishop. At last, when he had nearly finished, de Luca interrupted him, and said he must hand in his proposals to the Commission. Melchers did not let himself be put down; he replied that he had done that long ago, and had received no answer, and observed that he spoke in the name of more than a million German Catholics. And then he quietly went on with his speech. The words of Archbishop Haynald cut deeper still; he is the best speaker in the Council after Strossmayer, and is also subtle and circumspect, so that the Legate, who was visibly anxious to interrupt him, could not discover the right moment for putting his bell in motion.

As little did they dare to interrupt Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, when he ascended the tribune and began as follows: – “We are told we are not to make long speeches, but I have a great deal to say. We are told again not to repeat what has been said by others, but at the same time we are kept shut up in this Hall, where for the most part we cannot understand one another; we are not allowed to examine the stenographic reports of our speeches, and the only answer made to our representations is always the same – ‘The Pope wills it.’ I don't know therefore what has been said by the speakers who have preceded me.” He then went on to speak of the rights of the Bishops, their degradation by the Roman centralizing system, “the caves, wherein the Roman doctors have buried themselves from the light of day,” etc. He spoke in admirable style, and was listened to with rapt attention, though at every word his auditors expected an interruption from the Legate; but it never came. Darboy himself said afterwards that he had done like Condé, and flung his marshal's staff into the ranks of the enemy.

On January 22, Dupanloup made a speech in the same sense, which has already been reported to you, and took occasion to mention those courtiers who have learnt never to tell the truth to the Pope. Courtiers of this sort from various nations sat and stood in crowds around him. He might have added what was said to the Pope – vainly, of course – 300 years ago, in a work composed by his order, and is just as true now as then: that the dream of omnipotence and infallibility, so studiously produced and cherished in his soul by flatterers, is the main cause, next to the avarice of the Curia, of the decline and corruptions of the Church. Meanwhile it is truly wonderful that so much could be said at all; it was felt to be a moral discomfiture or capitulation of the Curia in its state of siege. Cardinal Schwarzenberg, and after him the Primate of Hungary, had certainly struck the note which still rang on, but the Legates had not dared to silence them with the bell, and so missed the opportunity of principiis obsta. Schwarzenberg had already created a great sensation by recommending the periodical recurrence of Councils, afterwards taken up by Strossmayer, and then falling back on the decree of Constance (for decennial Councils), which is an abomination at Rome. No doubt they would have no objection in Rome to Councils every ten or twenty years, suitably modernized, manipulated, and obedient to every wink, like the present majority; but the fatal Opposition embitters this enjoyment, and when once the great work is accomplished, and Infallibility proclaimed, it will be found at Rome that all this machinery is not worth its pay, “que le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle;” for it costs too much money to entertain 300 Placet-saying Bishops, to make it worth while often to reproduce the drama, or rather the pantomine.

Other Prelates, whom the Curia reckons among the Dî minores gentium, have no indulgence shown them. When an American Bishop spoke of the corruptions and gross falsehoods in the Roman Breviary, and of the fabulous interpolations in the works of some Fathers, e. g., St. Augustine, inserted there, Capalti rang his bell violently – the Fathers were not to be so spoken of. But the American did not let himself be disturbed, and proceeded at once to quote the Breviary lections from St. Gregory. He was again called to order, and told he must change the subject or leave the tribune.

In this second Schema, compiled by Jacobini, the second Secretary of the Council, the gross ignorance of the author is glaringly exposed. With the usual self-sufficiency of Rome, and with the aim of making the Bishops still more dependent on the Curia than before, the special conditions of whole countries had been ignored. Thus every Bishop, who wished to leave his diocese, was first to get the Pope's permission from Rome, and the Archbishops were to delate all who acted otherwise at Rome. Simor observed sharply on that, “This then is the position Rome assigns to Metropolitans, after robbing them of all their ancient rights: to be the accusers of their conprovincial Bishops.” Another declared roundly that, if his physician sent him to a watering-place, he should not think of asking leave from Rome. Jacobini would not even recognise the right of Bishops to attend the political assemblies of their countries, of which they are members by the Constitution, because, as the Schema words it, “assembleæ generales” no longer exist in the sense allowed by Urban viii. The Pope was further to have the right henceforth of giving away the benefices in the Bishop's gift during the vacancy of the See, which would bring in a large increase of taxes for the Curia, and draw a number of candidates to Rome again, as in the palmy days before the Reformation. In Germany we should get back the class of so-called Curtisanen,42 who notoriously did so much to promote the Protestant division. The Bishops inflicted many a blow on the abuse of expensive dispensations to be elaborated at Rome from artificially derived impediments of marriage (as of cousins, godfathers, and the like) before the Legate's bell could stop them. Then a Hungarian Bishop related, how it often happens that a poor woman comes weeping to the Bishop, to beg him to save her marriage and her very existence by a dispensation. But the Bishop must let the poor woman be ruined, for not he but the Pope only can dispense, and “mulier non habet pecunias – pecunias.” The Court Prelates said afterwards that this Hungarian had made himself very disagreeable with his “mulier non habet pecunias.”