Chapter XV: Preface (15)

_Rome, June 11, 1870._—If the new article of faith is accepted and proclaimed throughout the Catholic world, what will be its retrospective force? On what decisions and doctrines of previous Popes will it set the seal of infallibility? What amplifications and corrections of Catholic theology will it involve? These questions are naturally raised here, not indeed by the Bishops of the majority but by many of the Opposition; only no one is in a position to give even an approximately accurate answer from want of the necessary books, and the Court party reckoned on this “penuria librorum,” which Cardinal Rauscher has already complained of. A German theologian who had previously examined and studied the subject, undertook to answer the anxious question of the Bishops, and I send you his collection, which makes no claim to completeness, as a not unimportant contribution to the history of the Council.

The Jesuit Schrader, who is the most considerable theologian of his Order since Passaglia’s retirement, and who has been employed both before and during the Council for drawing up the _Schemata_, on account of the special confidence reposed in him by the Pope, has shown, in his great work on _Roman Unity_,(108) that, as soon as papal infallibility resting on divine guidance and inspiration is made into an article of faith, it must by logical necessity include all public ordinances, decrees and decisions of the Popes. For every one of these is indissolubly connected with their teaching office, and contains, whatever be its particular subject, a _doctrina veritatis_ either moral or religious. Papal infallibility is not a robe of office which can be put on for certain occasions and then laid aside again. The Pope is infallible, because he is, in the fullest sense of the word, the representative of Christ on earth, and like Christ he teaches and proclaims the truth by his acts as well as his words; in short no public act or direction of his can be conceived of as not having a doctrinal significance. And thus Catholic theology and morality will be enriched by the new dogma with not a few fresh articles of faith, which will then possess the same authority and dignity as those already universally received as such.

There are indeed former papal decisions which, in becoming themselves infallible through the proclamation of infallibility, will in turn cover and guarantee the infallible character of the collective Constitutions of all Popes. The first of these decisions is the statement of Leo X. in his Bull of 1520 against Luther, “It is clear as the noonday sun that the Popes, my predecessors, have never erred in their canons or constitutions.” The second is the declaration of Pius IX. in his Syllabus, “The Popes have never exceeded the limits of their power.” This assertion too will become an infallible dogma, and history must succumb and adapt itself to the dogma. Let us however specify some of the new articles of faith thus declared to be infallible.

1. According to the teaching of the Church, the validity of the sacraments, and especially of ordination, depends on the use of the right form and matter. The whole Church for a thousand years regarded the imposition of the Bishop’s hands as the divinely ordained matter of priestly ordination. But Eugenius IV., in his dogmatic decree, decided that the delivery of the Eucharistic vessels is the matter of the sacrament of Orders, and the words used in their delivery the form.(109) If the doctrine of this decree, solemnly issued by the Pope _ex cathedrâ_ and in the name of the Council of Florence—which however was no longer in existence—was to be accepted as true and infallible, it would follow that the Western Church for a thousand years, and the Greek Church up to this day, had no validly ordained priests. Nay more, there would at this moment be no validly ordained priest or Bishop in the Church at all, for there would be no succession. And Eugenius gave an equally false definition of the form of the sacraments of Penance and Confirmation.

2. According to the teaching of Innocent III., in the decretal _Novit_, and other Popes after him, the Pope is able and is bound, whenever he believes a question of sin to be involved, to interfere, first with admonition and then with punishments. He can on this ground reverse any judicial sentence, bring any cause before his own tribunal, summon any sovereign before him, simply to answer for a grave sin or what he considers such, annul his ordinances, and eventually excommunicate and depose him.(110)

3. God has given to the Pope supreme jurisdiction over all kings and princes, not only of Christendom but of the whole earth. The Pope has plenary jurisdiction over the nations and kingdoms, he judges all and can be judged by none in the world, according to Paul IV. in the Bull _Cum ex Apostolatus Officio_, and Sixtus V. in the Bull _Inscrutabilis_. It is also a doctrine of faith, to be received on pain of eternal damnation, that the whole world is subject to the Pope even in temporal and political matters, according to the Bull of Boniface VIII., _Unam Sanctam_. Boniface adds that the Pope holds all rights “in scrinio pectoris sui.”

4. According to papal teaching, it is the will of God that the Popes should rule and “govern,” not only the Church, but all secular matters and literally the whole world. Thus Innocent III. says; “Dominus Petro non solum universam Ecclesiam sed etiam sæculum reliquit gubernandum.”

5. According to papal teaching, as proclaimed by Gregory VII. at the Roman Council of 1080, the Popes with the Fathers assembled in Council under their presidency are not only able, by virtue of their power of binding and loosing, to take away and bestow empires, kingdoms and princedoms, but can take any man’s property from him or adjudge it to any one.(111)

6. According to papal teaching the Pope alone can remit all sins of all men. Thus Innocent III. says in his letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople.(112)

7. According to papal teaching the Pope is ruler by divine right of Germany and Italy during the vacancy of the Imperial throne, because he has received from God both powers, the spiritual and the temporal, in their fulness (_jura terreni simul et cœlestis imperii_). So John XXII. has declared in his Bull of 1317.(113) On account of this doctrine millions of German and Italian Christians, from 1318 to 1348, were placed under ban and interdict and deprived of the sacraments by the Popes.

8. The Pope by divine right can give whole nations into slavery on account of some measure of their sovereign. Thus Clement V. and Julius II. dealt with the Venetians on account of territorial quarrels, Gregory XI. with the Florentines,(114) and Paul III. with the English on account of Henry VIII.’s revolting from him.

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

10. According to papal teaching it is just and in consonance with the Gospel to rob innocent populations, cities, regions, or countries _en masse_, with the sole exception of the infants and the dying, of divine service and sacraments, by an interdict, merely because the Sovereign or Government of the country has violated a papal command or some right of the Church. Innocent III., Innocent IV., Martin IV., Clement V., John XXIV., Clement VI., and others have done so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

41. According to papal decisions it is an excess of extravagance and folly, and a detestable innovation, to translate the Roman missal into the vernacular. It is to violate and trample under foot the majesty of the ritual composed in Latin words, to expose the dignity of the holy mysteries to the gaze of the rabble, to produce disobedience, audacity, insolence, sedition and many other evils. The authors of such translations are “sons of perdition.” Alexander III. says this _totidem verbis_ in his Brief of Jan. 12, 1661.(144) Nevertheless the translated missal is in general circulation in France, England and Germany, and is daily used by all the most pious persons.

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

FIFTY-SEVENTH LETTER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no want of restless activity and agitation in favour of infallibility. The processions to obtain the gift of infallibility from the Holy Virgin and the numerous Saints, whose bones and relics fill the Roman Churches, march with sonorous devotion through the streets; the lazy and lukewarm are urged not to remain idle at so important a time, and there is no lack of intimations of the real profits which the dogma must yield to the city. The Bishops of the minority must have had marble hearts if they had continued proof against so many fervent prayers for their conversion, and wished still to defend their Gallican citadel in spite of the general assault upon it. The Roman parish priests have already presented an address in favour of the dogma, but not—as I hear—till after the opposition among them had been put down by the highest authority. And now an urgent admonition has been addressed to the University Professors either to signify their desire for the definition or resign their offices. All who receive salaries here have long been accustomed to the soft pressure put upon them from above, and are hastening, with a correct appreciation of the importance of the wish of the authorities, to follow lead. In the last few days we have had an address from 40 Chamberlains of the Fathers of the Council who “prostrate at the Pope’s most sacred feet earnestly desire to have the opportunity of sharing the wholesome fruits (_saluberrimi frutti_) of infallibility and the exultation felt by all true believers at the decree.” The text of the address is given in the _Unita Cattolica_.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FIFTY-EIGHTH LETTER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FIFTY-NINTH LETTER.