Chapter XIX: Preface (19)

It is reported that on the very day after the promulgation several Bishops experienced a certain reaction of sobriety, a feeling like what German students are wont to attribute to cats, and inquired of the high dogma-fabricating parties, the Legates and some members of the Deputation, whether they were really bound to believe, confess and teach all that is contained in the Syllabus, the Bull _Unam Sanctam_, etc., as _e.g._, the subjection of the secular powers to the Pope, the Church’s power of inflicting bodily punishment with Pius who reigns gloriously, the burning of heretics with Leo X., _et id genus omne_. They are said to have been answered with a well-known Roman proverb, “Toto devorato bove, turpe est in caudâ deficere”—“You have swallowed the whole ox of papal infallibility, and the last Spanish addition with it, and you need not strain at the tail, _i.e._, the consequences; that indeed is the best part of this ox.”

The Bishops of the minority agreed before leaving Rome that they would none of them act alone and independently, in such further steps as would have to be taken concerning the decrees of the majority, but would all continue to correspond and act in concert. Meanwhile the Council has not been prorogued, but leave of absence is given to Bishops who can allege urgent reasons up to November 15. Perhaps in the interval the builders of the new Jesuit-Papal Zion, who stay behind, will prepare many a surprise for the Catholic world.

Future historians will begin a new period of Church history with July 18, 1870, as with October 31, 1517.

Are we really at the end of the drama? It appears so. On the same spot where, 1856 years ago, the first monarch of the world, Augustus, bade the attendants on his death-bed clap their hands in token of the rôle being well played out to the end, the Roman courtiers on July 18 have saluted by clapping of hands the first man proclaimed infallible monarch of the world by 532 spiritual satraps. The eight months’ campaign has terminated in the preliminary closing act of July 18; the absolute Papacy celebrates its financially dear-bought, but otherwise easily obtained, triumph over the Church, which now lies defenceless at the feet of the Italians. It only remains to follow up the anathematized enemy, the Bishops of the minority, into their lurking-places, and compel each man of them to bend under the Caudine yoke amid the scornful laughter of his colleagues of the majority. Anathemas, the “ultima ratio” of Rome, have already been discharged at the fugitives, and every such shot of the Infallible is itself infallible.