Chapter XI: Preface (11)

I will speak first of Cardinal Rauscher’s work, which is the most comprehensive of the three, and touches on many questions passed over in the other two. Written in a calm and dignified tone, it carefully avoids every word or phrase which could offend the _Curia_, and goes to the utmost length in making concessions possible for any one to accept without becoming an infallibilist; but it will nevertheless pour much oil on the flame of anger which has been blazing for weeks past, and singes now one Bishop and now another. Papal infallibility, says the Archbishop of Vienna, must extend to everything ever decided by any Pope, and the whole Christian world must hold with Boniface VIII. and his Bull _Unam Sanctam_ that the Popes have received power from Christ over the whole domain of the State. That will be welcome news to those who want to exclude the Church altogether from civil society. That the Popes themselves in the ancient Church did not hold themselves infallible, that the whole history and conduct of the ancient Church in doctrinal controversies would be an inexplicable riddle on the infallibilist hypothesis, and moreover that the Popes have often fallen into open errors rejected by the Church—all this is well established, though the author cites only some particular facts from the abundant sources he has to draw upon. He then shows the sharp antithesis between the ancient doctrine of the Church and the Popes on the relations of Church and State and the enunciations of Popes since Gregory VII. and Innocent III. With papal infallibility the whole mediæval theory of the unlimited power of Popes to depose kings, absolve from oaths of allegiance, abrogate laws, and interfere in all civil affairs at their will, must be declared to be an immutable doctrine with which the Church stands or falls. The Christian Emperors would have treated such a doctrine as high treason, and even in the days of Charles the Great it would have excited universal astonishment. If this doctrine really had to be preached now to the Christian people, it would be a triumph for the enemies of religion, for the best men would soon be convinced of the utter impossibility of paying any regard to the precepts of the Christian religion in civil matters. The Cardinal proceeds to dwell on the forgeries by which the great master of scholastic theology, the favourite and oracle of all Jesuits and ultramontanes, Thomas Aquinas, was led to adopt the doctrine of infallibility, and how again his influence shaped the whole scholastic system and drew the great Religious Orders, who were bound by oath to maintain his teaching, to adopt it. He concludes in these weighty words:—“If the Pope is declared to be, alone and without the Episcopate, infallible in faith and morals, the Œcumenical Councils are robbed of the authority recognised by Gregory the Great, when he said he honoured them equally with the four Gospels; for they would be and would always have been, even at the time of the Nicene Council, superfluous for deciding on faith and morals. This doctrine would be a declaration of war against the innermost convictions of the Church, and she would be robbed for the future of those aids supplied by the Council of Trent at her extremest need; even the See of Rome would lose the support the Bishops then assembled gave to it, for after the close of that Council, the power of the Popes became greater than it was before.”

The remark of Cardinal Rauscher that, when the dogma of papal infallibility is defined the Church will be deprived of one of her most effective institutions, viz., General Councils, has made a great impression here, as far as I can see. It is readily understood that an assemblage of men, educated to believe in the infallibility of one master, and to repeat mechanically without examination whatever he tells them, would have no influence among men and would be universally regarded as superfluous, a mere idle pageant rather than any real support to the Church. The Church would be impoverished by the loss of one member of its organism, and that very member would be paralysed which in moments of distress and danger had most effectually protected her.

Bishop Hefele’s work is worthy of the man who is beyond question the most profound historical scholar among the members of the Council. One can only regret that a writer so pre-eminently qualified to pronounce a clear and weighty opinion on the whole controversy in all its bearings should have confined himself to the single question of the condemnation of Pope Honorius. Those who wish to know the history of Honorius and the Sixth Council in 681, and to see a flagrant example of the utterly crude and unscientific poverty of that modern scholasticism which is treated as theology in the Jesuit lecture-rooms, may be recommended a brief study of this question, which has already produced so many writings and hypotheses, simple and easily understood as it is in itself. A General Council, acknowledged by the whole Church in East and West, condemned a Pope for heresy after his death, and anathematized him on account of a dogmatic letter he issued. The sentence was without contradiction accepted throughout the whole Church, the Roman Church included, and even introduced into the profession of faith to which every new Pope had to swear at his election. It was repeatedly confirmed by subsequent Councils, and in short remained in full force for centuries, till the Popes were seized with a desire to become infallible. It is only since the fifteenth and sixteenth century, and especially since the Jesuits—beginning with Bellarmine—undertook to revise history according to the requirements of their new dogmatic system, that this extremely contradictory fact had to be submitted to a process of manipulation, and the rock on which all schemes of papal infallibility seemed to be wrecked had to be got out of the way. “Si plus minusve secuerit sine fraude esto,” was said in the old Roman law which allowed a creditor to cut a pound of flesh from the body of his debtor, and so do the knives of the Jesuits and curialists cut right into the flesh of history. The Acts of the Sixth Council were said to have been corrupted through the perfidy of the Greeks, and the whole history and even the letters of Honorius to be forgeries. The Popes themselves, Rome, and the whole West had let themselves be fooled by the cunning Greeks into condemning an innocent and orthodox Pope as a heretic, and the letters of Pope Leo II. must also be forgeries. In short these reasoners were caught in the meshes of their own net, and when in 1660 Lucas Holstein got the Roman _Liber Diurnus_ printed—an excellent edition of which Rozière lately brought out in Paris—the whole impression was suppressed, for it contained the old form of oath which expressly attested the condemnation of Honorius. But twenty years later the book appeared to the great chagrin of Rome, and the infallibilist school had to change their front. They now turned to the letters of Honorius and tried to show that they were perfectly orthodox. But that did not touch the fact that a General Council had solemnly condemned a Pope for heresy, and that the whole Church—the Popes and the Roman Church included—had accepted the sentence without demur. Hefele has shortly and pointedly exposed the shifts and dishonesties of this long controversy carried on in more than a hundred polemical works; and he has taken care, at the same time, to establish conclusively the wide-reaching facts and general results of the inquiry. He shows (page 11), how up to the eleventh century every Pope swore to the truth that an Œcumenical Council had condemned a Pope for heresy.(87)

Cardinal Schwarzenberg’s work is chiefly directed against Archbishop Manning.(88) Hitherto the infallibilists, to avoid pushing their theory into sheer absurdity, had appended the condition of _ex cathedrâ_, which everybody could interpret more or less stringently according to his own view, and theologians had actually given twenty-five different explanations of what was required for an _ex cathedrâ_ decision. In order to get out of this labyrinth, Manning has propounded a simpler theory. Everything according to him depends on the Pope’s intention; whenever he “intends to require the assent of the whole Church,” he is infallible.(89) Schwarzenberg points out with pungent irony to what monstrous consequences this would lead. He recalls the saying of Boniface VIII. that the Pope holds all rights locked up in his breast. And thus it must be assumed on Manning’s theory that the Pope holds in his own mind all doctrines present and future, and draws from this internal treasure-house under divine inspiration what he wishes to reveal to the world, so that infallibility becomes inspiration. Has it occurred to the Cardinal that this is precisely the personal opinion of the very man who has now, for the sake of his own infallibility, resolved to plunge the Church into an internal conflict, of which no one can see the end?

It is then further pointed out that, if the new dogma with its consequences prevails, all Governments will put themselves in an attitude of self-defence against the Church. Bishops as well as Councils cease to be any necessary part of the _magisterium_ of the Church, and there is no longer any need for the distinct assent of the Episcopate; the only office left them is to praise and accept with thanks every decision of the Pope’s. Perhaps they may still be allowed to give their advice before he decides, but they have nothing to say to the decision itself or after it, but only to obey and promulgate the papal revelations.

THIRTY-NINTH LETTER.

_Rome, April 23, 1870._—The four chapters of the _Constitutio Dogmatica de Fide_ bear in their ultimate shape such evident marks of the influence of the minority, and so many concessions were made in them, that there is a danger of overlooking the greatness of their defeat and their change of mind, should they finally accept the supplemental paragraph mentioned in my last letter but one. Although it was determined that the minority should make no general opposition to this paragraph, there were not a few Bishops who saw clearly enough its importance and danger. They consoled themselves at first with the promise that the suspicious passage, which clothed the Roman Congregations and the mischief they work in the Church with conciliar sanction, would not be voted upon till the still incomplete portion of the _Schema de Fide_ came on for final settlement. And when, in spite of this promise, it was announced to be the general wish of the Commission that the voting should take place at once, the opponents were quieted by a written assurance that no new power was thereby to be given to the Roman Congregations, and nothing to be altered about them, but all to remain as of old. Gasser, Bishop of Brixen, had the courage to say, in the name of the Deputation, that the passage did not refer to heresy, though it expressly binds the Bishops to the observance of the constitutions and decrees of the Holy See, not only in regard to heresy (_hæretica pravitas_), but also theological errors and controversies. It is incredible that any one could be deceived by such a ruse as this, and yet it is a fact that not even forty Bishops made the omission of this paragraph a condition of their _Placet_. As the Opposition seemed thereby to be shrunk to less than five per cent. of the Council, the _Curia_ was persuaded that it could get rid of them altogether by acting with spirit.

On April 18 appeared an admonition with the following passage: “It must be remembered that according to the Apostolic Brief, _Multiplices inter_ (of Nov. 27, 1869), prescribing the method of procedure in public Sessions, no other vote can be given in them than a simple _Placet_ or _Non placet_.”(90) The Fathers who had given conditional votes in Congregation had to choose now whether they would accept the chapter unconditionally or reject it “sans phrase.” It was foreseen that this alternative would disclose the weakness of the Opposition, and that those of its number who shrank from a decisive rejection would be won for the majority, for the real test of an Opposition is not in words but acts. Protests which are not answered, and speeches which are not heard, may be patiently borne with, as long as all goes well in the public voting. The _Curia_ reckons that the minority will not now dare to show itself, and thus the unanimity will not be disturbed: and its consequent resolve might decide the whole course and upshot of the Council. If the minority gives in here, it will have suffered a first defeat, and must reconstitute itself on a new basis, by taking part in decrees carried under anathema, which are against its own convictions, it breaks with its past, accepts the responsibility and solidarity of the Council and complicity with the majority. This is to admit that all the petitions and protests it was thought necessary to present in the interests of the freedom of the Council were superfluous and aimless, and all the warnings offered of the threatened danger of its œcumenicity being questioned, etc., unmeaning. For the Council to publish anathemas implies the conviction that it is free, legitimate, and œcumenical, and that the order of business is acceptable. The minority thereby would themselves testify to everything they have hitherto assailed, and the only thing left for them would be to insist on their rights as guarded by the _consensus unanimis_. All other grounds for calling the Council in question would be abandoned, and it might fairly be doubted whether the Opposition would adhere to that after giving up so much; at the same time it is morally certain that the Court and the majority do not acknowledge that right.

During the General Congregation of the 19th, four Bishops, Latour d’Auvergne, Dreux-Brézé, La Bouillerie, and Mermillod, went to the Pope and requested him to have the decree on infallibility brought forward directly after the Solemn Session of the 24th. They thought rightly enough the favourable moment had come and all was now ready. Pius received the Bishops, who came as deputies of the 400, with great distinction, and replied that he would discuss the matter with the Presidents.

As it is impossible to see how the Bishops or the Governments could get rid of the _regolamento_ when once it is fairly established, the Opposition Bishops know that they will have to approach the great question in the position they take for themselves to-morrow in the first solemn voting, and with such power, unanimity, and influence as they thereby establish their claim to. It is still open to them up to to-night to use the present moment for a complete victory. They only need declare that their protests and warnings were not idle words but seriously meant, that the incongruities which endanger the freedom of the Council and suggest doubts of its legitimacy must be got rid of before any decrees are published under threat of everlasting damnation, and that until they are listened to on this point they refuse to take part in any solemn voting.

But, as far as I know of the Opposition, the majority of them have no ear or heart for such counsel; their grand object is to avoid any decisive conflict, and so to-morrow they will simply yield,—to consider quietly afterwards their future plan of campaign! Some have thought they might save their honour and conscience by a written explanation of their vote. In the public international meeting of the Opposition these plans were rejected, but two rough drafts of the kind were proposed the day before yesterday, one by the Germans, one by the French. Both are too strong and dignified to find many supporters, and too weak to justify the Opposition in the eyes of the Christian world.

It is the sacred duty of the Bishops in Council to bear witness to the ancient doctrine of the Church, and to reform it when it has been obscured by abuses in practice and in the rule of the hierarchy. The more abuses there are, so much the more difficult, and so much the more indispensable also is this reform. What the Catholic world expects of the Council is not a fresh sanction, still less an increase, of these abuses, but the deliverance and purification of the Church from them. But to accept the paragraph which recommends obedience to the constitutions and decrees of Roman Congregations is to make the fulfilment of this serious duty, on which the fate of the Church hinges, impossible. For that paragraph will confirm and clothe with new authority decrees which are a disgrace to the Church and an injury to civilisation, wherein the confused morality of dark centuries is taught and Christian morality denied; and that too without any examination or discussion, any limitation or exception. The Bishops will thereby degrade themselves to servants of the Roman _prelatura_, and sink into accomplices of the Inquisition. We are told indeed that the paragraph will not touch dogma, but for ethics and practice it is almost more important than infallibility itself. It gives full play beforehand for arbitrary caprice and paves the way for the infallibilist dogma.

If we look into the future, the questions come before us of unanimity in matters of faith, and of the confirmation and acceptance of the Council throughout the Church. As to the latter, the Bishops will make it far harder for the Governments to stand by them if to-morrow they virtually repudiate their own protests. The question of unanimity remains as weighty as before, and the gross errors of the _Civiltà_ in its attack on Strossmayer’s vindication of the principle of moral unanimity in decisions on faith has greatly lightened the task of two learned Bishops, who undertook to put in a clear light the true doctrine of the Church on the subject.

If the voting of to-morrow goes altogether in the sense of the _Curia_, the inference will be that all the positions of the minority can be turned, and that as they are resolved to avoid any collision, they may be brought by skilful manipulation not to trouble the moral unanimity any further. Many of them console themselves with the thought that they are only sacrificing everything to peace and harmony, and are not responsible for the undertaking they have been deluded into.

The propositions of the _Schema de Ecclesiâ_ give abundant room for manœuvring. There are many opportunities for apparent concessions and for dividing and perplexing the Opposition, and finally driving them into a corner, so that in mutual distrust of one another they may abandon all hope of making any successful resistance, and satisfy themselves that as nearly everything has been given up already it is not worth while to risk a catastrophe by taking any further step.

FORTIETH LETTER.

_Rome, April 24, 1870._—The final votes of _Placet_ or _Non placet_ on the four chapters of the _Schema de Fide_ are to be taken in to-day’s public Session. And thus after four months and a half a theological decree, or rather a batch of decrees and doctrinal decisions, will be brought to a successful issue, and the first ripe fruit plucked from the hitherto barren tree of the Council, so that there will be something in black and white to carry home. As these four chapters have been subjected to the pruning and toning down of the Opposition, they bear little resemblance to the original draft of the Jesuits, and the minority may lay claim to a victory which four months ago could scarcely have been hoped for. What has been gained for the future by these theological commonplaces and self-evident propositions is of course another question. The general view of the Bishops appears to be that there is no real gain for the Church in these propositions, which can only excite the wonder of believing Christians that it should be thought necessary to prohibit at this time of day such fundamental errors. The value of their labours they take to lie, not in what they have said, but in what they have with so much trouble expunged from the _Schema_.

Several Bishops attach great weight to the consent of the Deputation to substitute for “Romana Ecclesia” the words “Ecclesia Catholica et Apostolica Romana.” Others think it a matter of indifference. Hefele’s pamphlet on Honorius has created such a sensation that the Pope has commissioned the Jesuit Liberatore and Delegati, Professor at the Sapienza, to white-wash Honorius, and make away with everything in his history incompatible with the new dogma. Pius is persuaded, and his infallible “feeling” tells him, that everything must have happened quite differently from what is represented; how, he knows not, but he thinks that the Jesuit and the Roman professor have only to make the proper investigations and they will soon discover the requisite materials for refuting the German Bishop.

On Wednesday, April 20, Rome was illuminated to celebrate the Pope’s return from Gaëta. The Roman officials greatly dislike these illuminations on financial grounds, for they have to contribute to the cost out of their own pockets. A triumphal arch was erected for the Pope at the end of the narrow street leading to St. Peter’s piazza, and the following inscription in letters of fire was conspicuous far and wide:—

Popoli chinatevi innanzi al Vaticano,
Ecco il Pontefice ch’io vi conservai nei giorni di pericolo,
Esso è la pietra angolare della mia chiesa,
Il refugio degli oppressi,
Il sostegno del povero,
Lo scudo della civiltà e della fede.

That is the witness Pius bears to himself. To theologians it may be a new idea that he personally is the corner-stone of the Church, but that is only one of the many predicates and prerogatives which may be deduced from infallibility. Two isolated voices cried “Evviva il Papa infallibile.” It was clear the multitude was to be stimulated to swell the cry, but, as before, all remained quiet. The attempt has been sometimes made before, whether by amateurs or under official inspiration I know not, and then Veuillot asserts in the _Univers_ that he has heard this shout of vast multitudes breaking forth spontaneously from the exuberance of their hearts. It is like the music of the spheres which only Pythagoras heard.

Ketteler’s pamphlet was finally published on April 18, and the Bishop has begun to distribute it. It is really directed against the dogma itself, which for a long time people could not believe, and not merely against the opportuneness of defining it. How much better would it have been for the interests of the Church, if the necessity had been recognised long ago for looking this Medusa’s head straight in the face, and defying its petrifying gaze, and if our Bishops had plainly and decisively announced their resolution last December to have no dealings with it. Now at least Cardinal Rauscher does not spare warnings; he perceives the gravity of the danger and has had a new fly-leaf distributed, showing that the promulgation of papal infallibility will elevate the two Bulls _Unam Sanctam_ (of Boniface VIII.) and _Cum ex Apostolatûs officio_ (of Paul IV.) into rules of faith for the whole Catholic world, and thus it will be taught universally in Europe and America, henceforth, that the Pope is absolute master in temporal affairs also, that he can order war or peace, and that every monarch or bishop who does not submit to him or helps any one separated from him ought to be deprived of his throne if not of his life, besides the other wonderful doctrines in the second of these Bulls, which must reduce every theologian to despair.(91) All that is nothing to the majority, for whom the law of logical contradiction has no existence. It is their watchword that the dogma conquers logic as well as history. One of their German members gladly re-echoes the idea that the proper aim and office of the Council is to stop the mouth of arrogant professors; if that is accomplished everything is gained, according to this pastor of a flock feeding on red earth. On the other hand I heard very different words fall to-day from the mouth of another German Bishop, who said he was constantly asking himself how long the German Bishops would look on and put up with everything.

The great and all-absorbing question now is what will next be brought before the Council after April 24. In the natural order the second part of the _Schema de Fide_ would come on, which is comparatively innocuous though abundantly capable of improvement. But is it not time to fabricate the talisman of absolute power, the infallibilist dogma? Then would the Council be in the fullest sense and for ever provided for and finished, and the master would praise his servants. Many will answer the question in the affirmative. The two modern Fathers, Veuillot and Margotti, strain every nerve daily for that end, and many of the most zealous French Bishops—as those of Moulins, Bourges, and Carcassonne, and the indefatigable Mermillod—have represented to the willing Pius, as I mentioned yesterday, that now is the nick of time, and that he may gratify the longing of his faithful adherents by placing infallibility in the order of the day. These Frenchmen consider that their Government, now occupied with the plébiscite, will not trouble itself with the acts and decisions of the Council, and moreover needs the help of the clergy. Amid the bustle of the plébiscite, they think the new dogma, and even the reproduction of the Syllabus in the twenty-one canons, will excite little stir or indignation, for the French can only embrace one idea at a time, and the Parisians only discuss one subject in their _salons_.

Banneville has at last actually presented the memorandum of his Government to the Pope, as President of the Council, and with the intimation that it should be communicated to the Fathers. That of course will not be done, for both Pius and Antonelli are irritated at the paper. Pius is annoyed at the innermost kernel of the dogma being so openly exposed to view, when Count Daru says, “You want to hand over all rights and powers to the Church, and then by the infallibilist dogma to concentrate this plenitude of temporal and spiritual power in the one person of the Pope.” That is of course what the _Curia_ does want, but it should be uttered in pious and somewhat obscure phraseology, as the _Civiltà_ usually speaks, and not be called by its right name in this bold and naked fashion. Antonelli again is much displeased, because his favourite distinction between the principles in which the Church must be inexorable, and the practice in which Rome will graciously concede the very opposite, is met here by the inquiry whether the faithful are actually to be taught henceforth that they must believe what they need not carry out in practice, and accept as divinely revealed rules which they may without hesitation transgress? He had reckoned on a better understanding, on the part of the French Government, of the favourite Roman theory of infinite and inexhaustible papal indults and dispensations, and is glad that he need make no reply to the note which throws so glaring a light on the morality of the _Curia_ and its notions of duty and truth. He contents himself with telling the diplomatists that there would be some difficulty in the Pope’s communicating the note to the Council. Clearly, for they must at the same time be directed to attempt a refutation, and that would lead to very awkward consequences. The French Government might indeed have sent their memorandum to each Bishop separately, but then they would have had the prospect of the non-French Bishops of the majority returning it unopened.

Count Trautmansdorff has also presented the memorandum of the Austrian Government to the Cardinal Secretary of State. It runs as follows:—

“Nous voulons seulement élever aussi notre voix pour dégager notre responsabilité et signaler les conséquences presqu’inévitables d’actes qui devraient être regardés comme une atteinte portée aux lois qui nous régissent. Comme le Gouvernement français, c’est à un devoir de conscience que nous pensons obéier, en avertissant la cour de Rome des périls de la voie dans laquelle des influences prepondérates semblent vouloir pousser le Concile. Ce qui nous émeut, ce n’est pas le danger dont nos institutions sont menacées, mais bien celui que courent la paix des esprits et le maintien de la bonne harmonie dans les relations de l’état avec l’Église. Le sentiment qui nous fait agir doit paraître d’autant moins suspect au St. Siége qu’il correspond à l’attitude d’une fraction importante des Pères du Concile, dont le dévouement aux intérêts du Catholicisme ne saurait être l’objet d’un doute. Placés sur un tout autre terrain que cette fraction, puisque nous n’obéissons qu’à des considérations politiques, nous nous rencontrons toutefois aujourd’hui dans le désir commun d’écarter certaines éventualités. Cette coïncidence de nos efforts nous permet de croire qu’en prenant la parole au nom des seuls intérêts de l’État nous ne méconnaissons pas ceux de l’Église. Si la démarche du Gouvernement français, que nous désirons seconder de tout notre pouvoir, vient en ce moment donner un appui à la minorité du Concile et l’aider à faire prévaloir des idées de modération ou de prudence, nous ne pourrons que nous féliciter d’un tel résultat, bien que, je le répète, notre action soit parfaitement indépendante et doive rester en tout cas indépendante de celle des membres du Concile.”

Finally the observations of the French Government are urgently commended to the attention of the _Curia_.

FORTY-FIRST LETTER.

_Rome, April 27, 1870._—We find ourselves in a remarkably critical position here. The great event so long expected of the first promulgation of dogmas is over, and the desired unanimity has been successfully attained for these four chapters of the _Schema de Fide_, notwithstanding the supplemental paragraph. Two Bishops who could not overcome their dislike to that paragraph preferred to stay away or leave Rome for the day. All the curialists are in high feather, and are congratulating each other on their victory, boasting that they have gained three most important points without any public opposition. First, the Pope, for the first time for 350 years,(92) and in contradiction to the practice of the first 1000 years of Church history, has defined and published the decrees in his own name as supreme legislator, just like those masters of the world, Innocent III., Innocent IV. and Leo X., merely with the addition that the Council also sanctions them. Secondly, the new order of business has now been virtually accepted by all, and the protest abandoned. Thirdly, the conclusion, which is meant to invest with conciliar authority the former dogmatic decrees of the Popes, has been accepted.

The excitement visible on the countenances of the majority, when Schwarzenberg, Darboy, Rauscher and Hefele were called up to vote, showed what had been expected. The mass of the majority say the same thing will happen when the _Schema_ on the Church has to be voted on; the minority answer that it will not, and that they only want to avoid wasting their powder before the time; “la minorité se recueille,” like Russia after the last war, and on the division day will be found fully equipped for the fight. We shall soon see, for that day is not far distant. But now what next? The infallibilist party are afraid of this dogma being lost after all, like a ship wrecked in port. They reckon that the time is approaching when the Council must inevitably be prorogued, and therefore urge the Pope to break through the regular order of the _Schemata_, and bring forward at once either the whole _Schema de __ Ecclesiâ_ or the article on papal infallibility which has been interpolated into it. The four French Bishops assured him that they spoke in the name of the 400. Pius would not of course feel any very constraining influence in their wishes _per se_, for he knows well enough that the 400 are composed mainly of his foster-sons and of the Bishops of the States of the Church and the Neapolitans, who all speak or hold their peace and sit or stand as they are bidden. But it would be an unspeakably bitter sacrifice for him to refuse to his trusty adherents what he so earnestly desires himself, and to let these 400 or at least many of them say, “Your own organ, the _Civiltà_, the Jesuits, Veuillot, Margotti—have forced this question upon us; we have agitated for it and staked our name and theological credit on it, and now it is all to be labour lost!”

But now the writings of the German Bishops have appeared and the notes of the Governments have been delivered. To the French note is added a more urgent one from Austria, as well as a Prussian, a Portuguese and now also a Bavarian note, and all breathe the same spirit. All give warning that they shall regard the threatened decrees on the power and infallibility of the Pope as a declaration of war against the order and authority of the State. Even the English Government leaves no room for doubt about its mind, and if the Pope—as I know—fears above all things any manifestation of feeling there, he might learn from Manning that the strongest antipathy is felt among all classes, high and low, to the proposed dogmas, and that English statesmen see in them nothing less than a suicidal infatuation. Manning has thoroughly authentic proofs of that in his hands, but of course he won’t produce them.

Pius is in a chronic state of extreme irritation. He sees with pleasure his two favourite journals—the _Univers_ and _Unita_—abuse the Opposition Bishops in the most contemptuous language, and he indulges himself in outbreaks of bitterness against those who question his infallibility, which pass from mouth to mouth here but which one dares not write down. Even Cardinal Bilio is alarmed at such ebullitions, and affirms that he is constantly urging moderation and forbearance on the Pope, and has already warded off a great deal of mischief.

What strikes us foreigners is the evident indifference to the Council and its acts manifested by the inhabitants of the eternal city of every class. It is seldom spoken of in society, and what absorbs the attention of the world north of the Alps seems hardly to have the least interest for the Romans, what is there heard of with astonishment they hardly think worth a passing mention. And if ever the Council is spoken of, it is in hurried, mysterious, abrupt sentences, for every one says the espionage system has never been in such force here as since the opening of the Council, and a large staff lives by the trade. I know persons here whose doors are constantly watched by spies, who do not even conceal themselves, and if the Roman theologians had such rich materials for their investigations as is possessed by the Roman police, they would not have their equals in the world.

The Romans as a rule are fully aware of the financial value of the infallibilist doctrine, and know right well that a large increase of revenue as well as power from all countries is looked for as its product. That in their eyes is already an accomplished fact. They know for certain that the dogma will be at once proclaimed, and there is hardly a Roman here who has not an uncle or brother or nephew in orders and may not hope to share the anticipated profits in his own person or in the person of his relatives. The curialists here say, “We have lost so much by the diminution of the States of the Church, and so many payments, benefices and lucrative posts have passed out of our hands, that we absolutely require to be indemnified in some other way, and this the new dogma is intended to do and must do for us.” If ever the Pope is acknowledged throughout Christendom as an infallible authority, it is inevitable that ecclesiastical centralization should take much larger dimensions than before. Not only doctrine, but everything concerning Church life will be drawn to Rome and there finally settled. Theologians may undertake to distinguish between matters to which the Pope’s infallible authority extends or does not extend, but in practice everything signed with his name will be held to be an utterance of divine truth, and nothing which is not attested with that signature will be held valid. There is a proverb here—

Quei consigli son prezzati
Che son chiesti e ben pagati.

And who would not gladly pay a handsome sum to be armed with an infallible decision, which will at once crush all opposition and put down all adversaries? The golden age of papal chanceries and clerks lies not in the past, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when, as a court prelate of the day tells us, the papal officials were daily employed in counting up gold pieces; it will first dawn on the day this truly golden doctrine of infallibility is promulgated. Were Cicero to re-appear in Rome now, he might repeat what he said in the Oration _Pro Sextio_, “Jucunda res plebi Romanæ, victus enim suppeditabatur large sine labore;” only he could no longer add, “Repugnabant boni, quod ab industriâ plebem ad desidiam avocari putabant.” For such “boni” no longer exist at Rome; rather is the account of Tacitus completely verified, “Securi omnes aliena subsidia expectant, sibi ignavi, aliis graves.”(93) Another thing is the large and incurable deficit in the Roman finances, which must increase every year. There is an annual expenditure of thirty million francs to cover, and the Peter’s pence, which came to fourteen millions in 1861, have sunk to about eleven millions, notwithstanding the collections ordered to be made everywhere twice a year. No further help can be obtained from loans. M. de Corcelles, who has exposed this uncomfortable state of things with the best intentions, has no other remedy to propose but a great increase of Peter’s pence. It is hoped in Rome that the different nations will contribute larger sums than before to the Pope, now he is become infallible and thus more closely united to Deity. But they reckon much more on the enormous centralization and all-embracing monopoly of all possible dispensations, indulgences, consultations, canonizations, and decisions on moral, liturgical, political, dogmatic and disciplinary questions. They remember the treasures amassed in the temple of Delphi in ancient days, and expect the new oracle to be erected on the Tiber to attract, like a vast magnet, not iron but gold and silver.

Neither Pius nor the Monsignori and other curialists think it conceivable that the minority will hold out to the last in their opposition. They reckon securely on this fraction of the Council being broken up by fear and discouragement, and that few if any of them will let matters come to a _non placet_ in the next public Session, and thus openly confess themselves unwillingly subdued. To those Roman clerics, who are accustomed to look at religious questions only as the ladder by which to mount to an agreeable life and good income, courage and steadfastness in the confession of ascertained truth is something strange and inconceivable. Fear and hope, calculations of loss and gain, will finally decide the Bishops’ votes—that is the firm persuasion of every Italian member of the _Curia_. So much is certain: if on the very eve of the Solemn Session, when the new dogma is to be promulgated, it was certainly known that eighty Bishops would say _Non placet_ next day, the Session would be countermanded and the Church saved. The first question for us Germans is of course whether we can trust our Bishops? Will they abide steadfast? Or will they at last sacrifice themselves and the truth, their clergy and their flocks? As to what immediately concerns the clergy, this is not strictly a question of doctrine belonging to the sphere of religious faith and mystery, where one might make a willing submission of mind to a decree held to be the voice of divine revelation; it is a pure question of historical facts to be determined by historical evidence, of points on which every educated man capable of judging evidence, whether a Catholic or not, can form an independent judgment. Every one with eyes to see can answer with absolute certainty these three questions, on which the whole matter hinges—

1. Is it true that the admonition to Peter to confirm his brethren has always and in the whole Church been understood of an infallibility promised to all Bishops of Rome?

2. Is it true that this infallibility of all Popes has been taught and witnessed to in the whole Church through all ages down to our own day?

3. Is it true that no Pope has ever taught a doctrine rejected by the Church, and that no Pope has ever been condemned by the Church for his doctrine?

It is absolutely impossible for any one, who feels compelled by his own investigation of history to answer these three questions in the negative, to submit inwardly to the opposite decision of the Council, whatever external homage he may pay to it. Ten Councils will not be able to shake him for a moment in his conviction; he will only say, “pur si muove.” His doubts will be turned, not against what is historically certain but against the Council; he will call in question the real freedom, the intrinsic claims and authority of this Council, and—to go no further—the two successive regulations for conducting business supply in this case abundant materials for the question. And it is just as impossible for a man who has a notion of historical certainty to believe in any one else’s mind being changed by the decree of an assembly of Bishops. If a well-educated man told me he had just come to the conclusion that Julius Cæsar never lived, I should not believe in his conviction but in some disorder of his mental faculties, and should advise him to undergo medical treatment. And so, if the new dogma is proclaimed and the clergy submit either tacitly or expressly, no cultivated man in all Germany will believe that the thousands of scientifically trained men who have had a German education have suddenly changed their convictions, because some hundreds of Italians and Spaniards have chosen to decree away the testimony of history. “Facts are stubborn things.” Public opinion will recognise only two alternatives in the case of those who submit, ignorance or dissimulation and falsehood. And the effect will be an immeasurable moral degradation of the Catholic clergy and a corresponding decay of their influence.

This consideration will not of course make the slightest impression on the majority of the Council, or even on those Germans who belong to it. We have psychological riddles to deal with here. How, _e.g._, are we to explain the fact that a man, who has taught the very opposite doctrine in a manual of instruction for the higher class of colleges published seventeen years ago, and has let it pass through eleven or twelve editions without a word being altered, is now in Rome one of the most zealous promoters of the definition, and is constantly affirming that all the clergy except a few professors will readily submit?

FORTY-SECOND LETTER.

_Rome, April 29, 1870._—What I mentioned in my last letter as a pamphlet of Cardinal Rauscher’s, is a printed memorial addressed to the Presidents of the Council, bearing the title of _Petitio a pluribus Galliæ, Austriæ et Hungariæ, Italiæ, Angliæ et Hiberniæ et Americæ Septentrionalis Præsidibus exhibita_, and dated April 20th. It states that papal infallibility is beset by many objections and difficulties, which require an examination such as is impossible in a General Congregation. Among them is one of supreme importance, bearing directly on the instruction to be given to the faithful on the divine commandments and the relation of the Catholic religion to civil society.

“The Popes have deposed Emperors and Kings, and Boniface VIII. in the Bull _Unam Sanctam_ has established the corresponding theory, which the Popes openly taught down to the seventeenth century under anathema, that God has committed to them power over temporal things. But we, and almost all Bishops of the Catholic world, teach another doctrine. We teach that the ecclesiastical power is indeed higher than the civil, but that each is independent of the other, and that while sovereigns are subject to the spiritual penalties of the Church, she has no power to depose them or absolve their subjects from their oaths of allegiance. And this is the ancient doctrine, taught by all the Fathers and by the Popes before Gregory VII. But if the Pope, according to the Bull _Unam Sanctam_, possessed both swords—if, according to Paul IV.’s Bull _Cum ex Apostolatûs officio_, he had absolute dominion by divine right over nations and kingdoms,—the Church could not conceal this from her people, nor is the subterfuge admissible,(94) that this power exists only in the abstract and has no bearing on public affairs, and that Pius has no intention of deposing rulers and princes; for the objectors would at once scornfully reply, ‘We have no fear of papal decrees, but after many and various dissimulations it has at last become evident that every Catholic, who acts according to his professed belief, is a born enemy of the State, for he holds himself bound in conscience to do all in his power to reduce all kingdoms and nations into subjection to the Pope.’ We need not define more precisely the manifold accusations the enemies of the Church might deduce from this.

“This difficulty then must be most carefully sifted before papal infallibility is dealt with. The Conference we demanded on March 11 may do much towards clearing it up. But the question, whether Christ really committed to Peter and his successors supreme power over kings and kingdoms is, especially in this day, one of such grave importance that it must be directly brought before the Council, and examined on all sides. It would be inexcusable for the Fathers to be seduced into deciding, without thorough knowledge and sifting, on a question which has such wide consequences and affects so deeply the relations of the Church to human society. This question therefore must necessarily be brought before them, before the eleventh chapter of the _Schema de Ecclesiâ_ can be taken in hand. It might, if you please, be separately treated. But, as it cannot be adequately judged of without a thorough examination of the relations of the ecclesiastical to the civil power, it appears to us very desirable that the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the _Schema_ should be discussed before the eleventh.”

What first strikes one about this remarkable document is, that the German Bishops belonging to the minority—Martin, Stahl, Senestrey and the Tyrolese are of course out of the reckoning—are not represented here. Does this indicate a real divergence of view or only a difference of tactics? The former notion seems to me inconceivable. It is impossible that men like Hefele, Ketteler, Eberhard and the rest should have any doctrinal predilection for the system of papal absolutism extended over sovereigns and the whole political and civil domain. Certainly they too are so strongly opposed to the infallibilist dogma because it involves the mediatizing of all kings and governments. I can therefore at present discover no explanation of this phenomenon, and cannot allow any room for the suspicion that the persistently active curialistic influences have succeeded in dividing the German Bishops from the rest of the minority.

What will the Presidents do with a document so serious, so moderate and so incisive? What have they done already? So far as I know, nothing. It is a principle, and has now become an habitual practice with them, to leave all representations and petitions of the minority unnoticed and unanswered. The directing Deputation, which is intrusted with the entire control of the Council, feels quite justified in adopting this line by the papal ordinances.

The policy hitherto pursued by the Jesuits and the _Curia_ was, first to extend to the utmost the comprehensive office of the Church, as legislator for the nations and guardian of faith and morals; and then, by making the Pope absolute master and dictator of the Church, to assign to him all that had been claimed for the Church, so that he—acting of course in the interests of religion and morality, but simply according to his own good pleasure—should have every office, person and institution subject to him, and that the final appeal in every cause should lie to his tribunal. Since all this can only be secured and guaranteed by the infallibilist dogma, the inferences on the relations of Church and State drawn by the opposing Bishops form precisely the chief recommendation of that dogma in the eyes of the Legates, the Italian Cardinals, the Spanish and Italian Bishops and those of the French who are ultramontanes. They all say among themselves, if not aloud before the world, “That is just what we want; our very object is to get the doctrine on the relations of Church and State changed, the independence of civil society and the civil power abolished, and the complete temporal supremacy of the Church—_i.e._, the Pope—at least gradually established.” It is not indeed advisable to say this as yet in such explicit and unreserved terms, but the reason why the infallibilist dogma is so opportune and indispensable is exactly because it implies jurisdiction over the temporal sphere, which the Pope can according to circumstances either leave unused and say nothing about it, or suddenly draw forth for use like a weapon concealed under a mantle. He has dealt thus with the Austrian Constitution; while he let alone other countries, whose constitutional systems must have been partly at least a scandal on Roman principles, he pronounced the Austrian Constitution abominable (_nefanda_). And any one, who wishes to examine the practical significance of this infallible judgment, need only go to the Tyrol and observe how it has been already explained there to the inhabitants by their enthusiastic clergy.

At the audience, when he presented the French note to the Pope, Banneville expressed the wish of his Government that the discussion of the _Schema de Ecclesiâ_ (with the chapter on infallibility) might at least not be taken before its time—which was equivalent to saying, “At least give us time, for the matter is not yet ripe for discussion.” Hitherto delay has been for the interest of the _Curia_, for it was expected that the minority would wither away and finally be extinguished; they trusted to the power so often proved of the Roman solvents. The article of the _Civiltà_ which told the prelates, “We care nothing for your talk about moral unanimity in matters of dogma, and shall make the new dogma in spite of your opposition,” was written _in terrorem_, and was meant to hold up before the refractory the terrible perspective of a contest emerging in the abortion of an impotent schism. The article has not in the main produced the desired effect, for the Bishops still hold together and bind themselves by writings and public declarations, and the number of those who can no longer with any decency desert to the majority threatens to increase. Now therefore it is the interest of the _Curia_ to allow no further delay, but to bring forward the _Schema_ at once.

The Bavarian ambassador has presented the note of his Government, which appeals emphatically to the attitude of the German Bishops who represent in the Council sound principles on the relations of Church and State.(95) It cannot indeed appeal to its own Bishops, for three of them are active and fiery supporters of infallibilism and the supremacy of the Pope over Kings and States. It was previously thought impossible for a German Bishop to desire to see the day when the Popes could again grasp the reins of temporal dominion which had dropped from their hands, depose monarchs, give away countries, abolish constitutions, annul laws and dispense oaths of allegiance. But this spectacle we now enjoy! For the pastors of souls must be assumed to intend to make dogmas, not for a mere pastime or for the enrichment of theological commentaries and text-books, but in order to reduce the theory to practice.