Chapter V: Preface (5)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FIFTEENTH LETTER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following occurrence was comic:—You know in what repute the supple and complaisant Fessler, Bishop of St. Pölten, is held here, the first herald for retailing the new dogma to the world. Not long ago, Charbonnel, the Capuchin Bishop of Sozopolis, placed himself near him, and began to speak of clerical place-hunting, the eagerness for distinctions and promotions among Bishops, and the crooked ways they often take to obtain them, and pointed so unmistakeably by look and gesticulation at his neighbour, the Secretary, that on going out Fessler said it was high time to put an end to the Council, which was every day getting more disagreeable. The question was then started by German and Hungarian Bishops whether it would not be better, as Martin thought, to substitute lay-brothers for clergymen’s housekeepers, or whether the restoration of “the common life”—the Chrodogang institute—of course in a very modified form, should be attempted. They overlooked the fact that such matters cannot be regulated by a Council, but must be arranged according to the disposition and circumstances of the clergy in the various dioceses. Haynald, Meignan, Bishop of Châlons, and the Chaldean Patriarch, insisted that mere school questions should not be decided by the Council without any necessity, and that some freedom of movement must be left to Science. But the word freedom has nowhere so ill a sound as at Rome. Only one kind of freedom can be spoken of here—the freedom of the Church; and, in their favourite and accustomed manner of speech, by the Church is intended the Pope, and by freedom domination over the State, according to the Decretals. And to talk of freedom of Science! The Council, if it entertained such views, would be forgetting altogether that it was only called together for two purposes—to increase the plenary power of the Pope, and to aggrandize the Jesuits. But the Order has, like the Paris labourer of 1848, “le droit du travail;” it is not content to exist only, but must work—of course in its own way,—and for this it requires two things: first, new dogmas; and secondly, plenty of condemnations and anathemas. The business of the Council is to provide both.

The Cardinals, with the exception of Rauscher, Schwarzenberg, and Mathieu, have taken no part in the speaking, nor have the Generals of Orders and Abbots. Only when the need for a reform of the Cardinals themselves was spoken of, Cardinal di Pietro rose, who is regarded as the most liberal-minded of the Italians in the Sacred College, to show that such a reform could only be a financial one, _i.e._, that the Cardinals required larger incomes. What the Bishops meant was something very different, viz., a better and fuller representation of different nations in the _Curia_, and a limitation of the Italian monopoly. But scattered observations of that kind could elicit no sort of real apprehension in the minds of the Italians, who are firmly seated in the saddle; so secure do they feel in their possession of a dominion many centuries old, and so very odd do the claims of other nations appear to them. In this point the present Romans or Latins are of the same mind as the old Romans of the sinking Republic, who sacrificed 600,000 men in the Confederate war rather than allow equal political rights to their Italian allies.

The great blow, which brings matters near a decision, has now been just struck, and all that the Jesuit and anti-German party longed for, and the French and Germans feared, is now before our eyes, the third _Schema_, “on the Church and the Pope,” has been distributed, and leaves hardly anything to be desired in point of clearness and plain speaking. These transparent decrees and anathemas may be thus summed up: “The Christian world consists simply of masters and slaves; the masters are the Italians, the Pope and his Court, and the slaves are all Bishops (including the Italians themselves), all priests, and all the laity.”

This third _Schema_, which was distributed to the Bishops on January 21, is a lengthy document of 213 pages, entitled _De Ecclesiâ_, and it is the one the _Curia_ is chiefly bent on getting received. It is said to be the work of a red-hot Infallibilist, Gay, Vicar-General of the Infallibilist Bishop Pie of Poitiers, and is so drawn up that by a slight addition the Infallibility of the Pope, which it already leads up to and implies, can be inserted in express form very easily, and as the necessary logical supplement; and thus the internal harmony of this important document, with its appended anathemas, would be completely secured. Three main ideas run through the _Schema_, and are formulated into dogmatic decrees guarded with anathemas: _First_, to the Pope belongs absolute dominion over the whole Church, whether dispersed or assembled in Council; _secondly_, the Pope’s temporal sovereignty over a portion of the Peninsula must be maintained as pertaining to dogma; _thirdly_, Church and State are immutably connected, but in the sense that the Church’s laws always hold good before and against the civil law; and therefore every Papal ordinance that is opposed to the Constitution and law of the land binds the faithful, under mortal sin, to disobedience to the Constitution and law of their country.

SIXTEENTH LETTER.

_Rome, Feb. 5._—On reviewing the situation, I believe I may venture to say that it has become better, far better, than it was a few weeks ago. For this the Christian world is mainly indebted to the noble, dignified and united attitude of the German and Hungarian Bishops. These men,—I speak of course only of the majority of the forty-six—while taking frequent and most conscientious consultation with one another, and knowing the three German Cardinals to be in substantial agreement with them, have gained almost daily in clearness of view, confidence and decision; and their example, again, has encouraged the Bishops of other nations. If, as many fear, Ketteler should, at the critical moment, go over to the Papal side, and let his sympathy for the convenient Infallibilist doctrine get the better of his love for the German Church and nation, his loss will be more than made up by forces newly gained. Hefele, who is the first living authority about Councils, has signed the Opposition address, and would, I believe, have still more gladly signed a stronger one. Three Cardinals of one nation who don’t want to have anything to do with Papal Infallibility! “It is an unheard-of, an abominable thing,” say the Romans. “O that we still had Reisach! his loss is bitter at so critical a moment, and that we should have to console ourselves for his death by the living voices of Martin, Senestrey, Leonrod and Stahl, is still bitterer!”

The Hungarians are greatly influenced by knowing that they would find themselves isolated in their own country, if they, the representatives of ecclesiastical reform, were to return from Rome conquered, and as forced believers in Papal Infallibility and the complete system of ecclesiastical despotism. Their position is one of close union, and by its union is imposing; whereas the fifteen or sixteen Bishops of Austrian Germany are somewhat weakened by the desertion of Martin and the three Bavarians and the approaching apostasy of Ketteler, who is already preparing the way for it in the _Mainzer Journal_. From thence, as I perceive, has the falsehood gained currency, that the Opposition are ready to accept Spalding’s (professedly) modified proposals, and thus to acknowledge Infallibility in its grossest form and vote the whole third _Schema_—that Magna Charta of ecclesiastical absolutism—absolutely and without any change. That would indeed be a catastrophe almost without precedent in Church history. We should have to assume that the Opposition Bishops had resolved to verify in their own case Mazarin’s saying about Parliaments, that their policy is always to say “No,” and act “Yes.” Ketteler, moreover, has special grounds of his own for gaining or preserving the particular favour of the Pope; for remembering his retirement from the candidature for the Archbishopric of Cologne, he might effect the abolition of the compact of Rome with the Governments, which secures a veto to the latter, and the introduction of either entirely free elections with Papal confirmation, or, still better, of simple nomination of Bishops by the Pope. He has spoken in Congregation in this sense, and was of course cheered by the Infallibilists.

No less strong and dignified is the attitude of half the French Bishops, who have attached themselves to men like Darboy, Dupanloup, Landriot of Rheims, Meignan of Châlons and Ginoulhiac of Grenoble. On the other side, there are about twenty decided Infallibilists, while the rest of the French Bishops wait or avoid speaking out. The party of Darboy and Dupanloup have the double advantage of being supported by their Government—while the Austrian ministry assumes a wholly apathetic and indifferent position,—and of belonging to the nation whose troops make the Council and the civil Government of the Pope possible, and whose Bishops therefore the _Curia_ is obliged to treat with respect. A French Bishop can say a good deal without, as a rule, having to fear being called to order by the Legate’s bell.

The North American Bishops too are being gradually educated to ecclesiastical maturity in the school of Rome and the Council, and have already grown out of that naïve belief in the disinterested generosity and superhuman wisdom of the _Curia_ which most of them brought here. To-day the Pope paid them a visit at the American College, conversed in a friendly way with the Bishops individually, said obliging things, and, in a word, displayed those well-known powers of fascination he has such a command of. “A month ago this would have taken effect,” said an American priest who was present, “but now it comes too late.” He also assured me that not five of the forty-five American Bishops would sign the Infallibilist Petition or vote for the dogma.

I have heard many, and especially French, Prelates say, during the last few days, sometimes in obscure hints, sometimes clearly, that the Council will soon—in a few weeks—be closed or dissolved; an opinion all the more surprising, because nothing as yet has been done. In that case the Bull with the many Excommunications will have to be treated as issuing from the Council.(43) But the only relation of the Bishops to that Bull is as the suffering and punished party.

The third Solemn Session was to have been held on February 2, but had again to fall through from the want of any materials. And there are still mountains of work and numbers of elaborate _Schemata_ awaiting the Council; for the decrees it is summoned to make, or rather which Pius IX. intends to proclaim to the world, “with the approbation of the Council,” are to be veritable pandects embracing the entire doctrine and constitution of the Church, regulating all relations between Church and State, and restoring the Papal supremacy over the bodies and souls of all men. The domain of morals, properly so called, is alone excluded; for there the Jesuits have good reasons for wishing to keep their hands free. In short, the projected work that still remains to be done would occupy at least a year and a half. And for this end everything has been chosen and sharpened into the form of canons, which can only introduce complications, provoke conflicts with the civil Governments, embitter the relations of rival Confessions, prejudice the position of the Bishops, and foster the hatred of the lay world against the clergy. And accordingly, with many Bishops, the wish to escape taking any part in these discussions may be father to the thought, and a speedy end of the Council may appear to them a sort of conciliar euthanasia. To many a Bishop has the old proverb already occurred, in reference to the Council, that the best thing would be not to have been born and the next best to die early. It is not the Swiss only who have a home-sickness. And then there is the treatment; I heard a French Count here say to-day, “On les traite d’une manière brutale.”

I have just received the last number of the Paris _Correspondant_, with its article by the Viscount of Meaux, Montalembert’s son-in-law, who is here. His account of how the Council is treated is so much to the point, and so thoroughly confirms my own statements, that I will quote it for you.

“The _Schemata_,” he says, at p. 347, “are prepared beforehand, the order of business is imposed by authority (_imposée_), the Commissions are elected before any consultation, from official lists, by a disciplined majority which votes as one man. On these Commissions the minority is not represented, and there are no other deliberations except in Congregation. Before these Congregations the subjects are brought in all their novelty and laid before the 700 members, without any previous explanations. It is difficult to understand the speeches, and there are no reports which the Fathers can inspect, so that no Bishops have the opportunity of submitting their thoughts to the deliberate examination of their colleagues. Moreover, they are forbidden to have anything printed here for the Council. All these characteristics indicate an assembly summoned to approve, not to discuss, intended to exalt, not to moderate, the power which has summoned it. And with what haste does it push on in this direction! How impatiently does the majority press for a declaration of Papal Infallibility!” So far the Viscount. Matters must indeed have come to a pass when so cautious and strictly Catholic a journal as the _Correspondant_ presents its readers with this picture of the Council.

There are two serious dangers to which we are always exposed. The first I have already spoken of, which is introducing the plan of passing the _Schemata_ by majorities, so that the desired dogma would be carried as it were by assault. The second danger—and it seems to me far more threatening—is that one of those involved and disguised formulas which the Infallibilists vie with one another in devising, in order to deceive and catch the votes of the less sharp-sighted Prelates and thus incorporate it into the third _Schema_, may really succeed with the greater number of the hitherto opposing and protesting Bishops. This notion is in fact implied in the phrase one has heard so often, that a middle party must be formed among the Bishops; for the programme or shibboleth of this middle party is to be an elastic formula, or one only expressing the thing metaphorically, or, again, one not sharply dogmatic but rather pious and edifying in sound. By the help of this middle party the formula might be made acceptable to the rest of the Prelates, and the desired end be happily attained. Thus Mermillod and two others have to-day invented a phrase, which seems to them suited to square the circle and to satisfy and unite all. They say they wish to declare that the Pope, whenever he speaks on doctrine, speaks _tanquam os et organum Ecclesiæ_. And by this they understand that the Church has no other mouth than him and without him is dumb, from which it obviously follows that he is infallible. I doubt if many Bishops will be detained in the meshes of a net so coarsely spun. No better is the formula invented by Spalding, which might be called a pretty downright one,—that everybody must inwardly assent to every doctrinal decision of the Pope on pain of everlasting damnation.(44) That goes far beyond even the Manning-Deschamps Address, which limits his infallibility to decrees addressed to the whole Church, while this formula of Spalding’s declares every conceivable Papal utterance (_judicium_) infallible; for a Christian can only give the assent of inward belief, when there is no possibility of error and when there is a really divine authority and revelation. Every theologian must declare this invention of the Archbishop of Baltimore’s to be the most monstrous demand ever made on the conscience and understanding of the Catholic world. It is as if a courtier at Teheran were to say, “I will not indeed affirm that our Shah is almighty, but I do assert confidently that he can create out of nothing whatever he will and that his will is always accomplished.” The reverend Fathers who torment themselves with inventing such devices would perhaps do best if they were to make a collection among themselves, and offer a prize of 100 ducats for that form of circumlocution or involution most securely adapted for entrapping the innocent souls of Bishops. Then the most ingenious heads from all Europe would compete in sending in their suggestions, and the right bait might be discovered among them.

SEVENTEENTH LETTER.

_Rome, Feb. 5._—To supplement and partly to verify the news in my last letter, I will now tell you some facts that came to light yesterday and the day before.

The Opposition Addresses were presented to the Pope on January 26, subscribed by forty-six Germans and Hungarians, thirty French, and twenty Italian Bishops, together with some of the North American Bishops, the Portuguese, and certain others. Cardinal Barnabo had employed all available means of intimidation to prevent the Orientals from signing, and hence the number of signatures was somewhat below what had been expected. Of the Germans, Martin, Senestrey, Stahl and Leonrod had signed the Infallibilist Address, which, as was only afterwards discovered, has not been presented, because—it was countermanded. It is not, as I first informed you, composed by the Episcopal Committee, but by the Jesuits, and emanates from the bureau of the _Civiltà_; the abiding marvel is that 400 Bishops could be induced to sign such a document without even verifying a single one of the pretended facts cited in it. That an Infallibilist should subscribe in blind confidence, and without examination, a document coming from the Pope himself, is natural; but that 400 pastors of the Church, assembled for deciding and therefore for examining ecclesiastical questions, should endorse on faith the composition of a nameless Jesuit, is an occurrence the Order may pride itself on.

A Petition has been set on foot by the Jesuits, and hawked about with the Pope’s approval, proposing that the bodily Assumption of the Mother of the Lord should be made an article of faith, and all who henceforth doubt of it, or point to the notorious origin of the notion from apocryphal writings, be anathematized. This anathema would inevitably fall on every one who is acquainted with Church history and patristic literature. This passionate delight in anathemas, curses and refusals of absolution has been powerfully aroused, as you may see from the canons which reproduce the Syllabus and are added to the third _Schema_. The augurs of the Gesù do not indeed smile, but simper, when they meet each other, for they know that the rich harvest from these seeds will drop into the bosom of their Order. Here again it is shown plainly that the interests of the Bishops and of the Jesuits are sharply opposed.

That Bull, with its many curses and cases reserved to the Pope, which fills the Jesuits with hope and joy (though not they but the Dominicans of the Inquisition are its authors), is for the Bishops a source of discouragement and despair, so that the Bishop of Trent is said to have lately observed that he would rather resign his See than publish it. It is now asserted that the Pope has again suspended it, partly on account of remonstrances of the French Government, partly to put the Bishops in better humour for the Infallibilist definition.

The Petition for the new Marian dogma had 300 signatures on January 31. In managing such affairs the Jesuits are unrivalled, for the Order is like a great actor, such as Garrick, _e.g._, whose every limb from top to toe moves, speaks, and conspires to express the same idea. Then they have an Infallibilist Petition from the East, the only one known to have been got up; that is to say, they made the Maronite boys and youths of their educational establishment sign the Petition they had drawn up.

As I now hear, the majority, on January 25, resolved to let their Address and Petition drop, if the minority will accept Spalding’s proposed addition to the third _Schema_. They are indeed very magnanimous, for that addition, as was observed just now, goes much further and stands to the Address somewhat as Dido’s ox-hide cut up into thongs to the hide before it was cut: it will embrace whole countries and cities. Spalding desires too to have the Index placed completely under the shield of Papal Infallibility, and therefore the opinion that the Pope can have made any mistake about the sense of a book is to be condemned. Next day, the Petition of the minority, who knew nothing of the decision of the other party, was presented to the Pope and rejected by him. The Infallibilists appear to have spread the report that their Address had been actually given in simply for the purpose of catching their opponents in a trap.

On Sunday, January 23, the Commission named by the Pope for examining motions proposed held its first sitting, under the presidency of Cardinal Patrizzi and not of the Pope himself, as was thought—seven weeks after the Council met and when a number of motions had long been awaiting its scrutiny. This delay had evidently been designed. It has now been resolved to arrange and examine proposals, not according to subjects but nations, so that the proposals of the French, Germans, etc., will be separately discussed and decided upon.

Cardinal Rauscher has written, or got written, a treatise on the Infallibility question in German, which is now being translated into Latin, and which does not merely oppose the dogma as inopportune, but attacks the whole principle and, as I am assured, on fundamental grounds. But it cannot be printed here, where the Roman censorship is constantly growing stricter. It will be printed in Vienna, and copies will then have to be sent here under cover to the Austrian Embassy. To the representations of the German and French Bishops against the oppressiveness and injustice to the minority of the order of business, the Pope has not seen fit to make any reply. _Væ victis!_ Woe to them who do not belong to the faithful and devoted majority! This is what resounds here, morning, noon and night. Meanwhile the Papal Committee of the Council has devised a new means for paralysing the minority, and cutting short discussions which might easily become inconvenient. It is directed that all objections or proposals for modifications of the _Schemata_ are first to be handed over in writing to the Presidents and referred by them to the Commission _de Fide_, which rejects or admits them at its pleasure. If the authors of the proposals appeal against the decision of the Commission, the whole Council decides, of course by simple majority of votes. If this arrangement were really to be introduced, the minority—_i.e._, the German and French Bishops—would be deprived of all possibility of exerting any influence on the composition of the decrees or warding off any decree they considered injurious; they would always be outvoted, and the Council would more and more take the form of a mere machine for outvoting them. The Bishops would soon learn to spare themselves the useless trouble of proposing changes, and a much closer approach would be effected to the great object of making new articles of faith and decrees by a mere majority of votes. The only question is what the French and Germans intend to put up with from the Italians and Spaniards, for it is clear that here again the question of nationalities turns up in the background, and the Brennus sword of the Southern and Latin majority is always ready to be thrown into the scale.

EIGHTEENTH LETTER.

_Rome, Feb. 6._—The report of the dissolution or prorogation of the Council gains in strength. Manning has found it important enough to have it contradicted in his journal, the _Tablet_. He writes, or makes somebody write, “The Holy Father is full of strength and confidence, and has no intention of proroguing the Council, as his enemies say.” As far as the Pope is concerned, I hold the statement to be true. Pius is still absolutely confident of success and firmly convinced of two things—_first_, of his divine, legitimate and irresistible fulness of power, which requires that a conspicuous example, memorable for all future ages, shall be made of the Bishops who oppose him; _secondly_, of the special protecting grace and guidance accorded to the Council by the Holy Virgin, on whose benevolence he notoriously maintains that he has very special claims. He has issued an Indulgence for the whole Church, which gives us some insight into his connection of ideas and religious views. In the Bull of December 1869, he says that the Dominican General, Jandel, has represented to him that the new method of prayer, consisting of 150 repetitions of the “Hail, Mary,” was first introduced at the time the grand crusade against the Albigenses was organized. But our own age is infected with so many monstrous errors that this new method of prayer should be employed now also, in order that under the mighty protection of the Mother of God the Council may destroy these monsters. Whoever, therefore, after confession and communion, recites the Rosary daily for a week, for the Pope’s intention and for the happy termination of the Council, may gain a plenary indulgence of all his sins, applicable also to the dead. The Pope adds that even when a child, and far more as Pope, he has always placed his whole confidence in the Mother of God, and that he firmly believes it to be given to her alone by God to destroy all heresies throughout the world. How this special power of the Holy Virgin consists with the fact that many heresies have now lasted quietly for fourteen centuries, it would be interesting to know. The rest the reader may find himself in the German Pastorals.

Pius has even had his naïve but robust belief in his own heavenly illumination and vocation to proclaim new doctrines sensibly embodied in a picture. In a chamber beyond the Raphael Gallery there is a picture painted by his order; he stands in glorified attitude on a throne proclaiming his favourite dogma of the Immaculate Conception, while the Divine Trinity and the Holy Virgin look down from heaven well pleased upon him, and from the Cross, borne in the arms of an angel, flashes a bright ray on his countenance. Thus Pius stands in a special mystical relation to Mary; she guides and inspires the Council through him, and he in turn will proclaim, with its assent, the decrees she has inspired and which will destroy the monstrous errors of the present day, or will at least give them a fatal blow. Unfortunately, not one single decree has yet been brought out after exactly two months, and all the heresies continue just as strong as before the Council met. And yet the pregnant and successful Councils of the ancient Church did not require a longer time for their decisions; the Council of Nice was finished in two months, the Council of Chalcedon in six weeks. Certainly it was not then supposed that Mary had first to give the Pope, and then he to give the Council, the weapons for destroying heresies: they were content to rely on the Paraclete promised by Christ.

Meanwhile the present assembly has nothing in common with those ancient Synods, except in being composed of persons called Bishops. But our Bishops are unlike those of the ancient Church, for they have to yield up to the _Curia_ three-fourths of the rights possessed by their predecessors, and it would be simply ridiculous to liken the state of tutelage and restraint they are now placed under by the _Curia_ to the free and independent attitude of the fifth-century Councils. The more free-spoken among them have just addressed, on 2d February, another Petition to the Pope, requesting that the so-called Council Hall in St. Peter’s may be exchanged for a more suitable chamber; for now that serious discussions on the dogmas and decrees are to begin—and the third _Schema_ will be met with strong and persevering opposition in many of its articles—the present arrangement becomes still more intolerable than before. Any regular discussion is simply impossible in the present Council Hall; there is no doubt of that. “That is just right,” say the Papal officials; “we neither desire nor need discussion, but simply that the propositions should be voted.” “But this is an unheard-of thing, against all conciliar usage and all natural right,” reply the Bishops. Archbishop Darboy said, “We are called on to anathematize doctrines and persons; to pass sentences of spiritual death. But would any jury in the world pronounce capital sentence without first having heard the defence?” And thus the Council has entered on a very critical period, and a spirit of irritation is becoming visible, increased by the constantly deepening conviction that the Bishops are to be used for purposes alien to their minds and suicidal. One word describes the entire plot—outvoting by majorities. The united German, French and North American Bishops are opposed to a well disciplined army of about 500, who will vote as one man at the beck of the Pope. This army consists of 300 Papal boarders, the 62 Bishops of the Roman States who are doubly subject to him, 68 Neapolitans, 80 of the Spanish race, some 110 titular Bishops without dioceses, the Italian Cardinals, 30 Generals of Orders, etc.(45) In a word, the Latin South is arrayed against the French and German North. And therefore the design of the _Curia_, to carry decrees or dogmas on every question of Church and State, etc., by a mere calculation of _plus_ and _minus_, is doubly monstrous and utterly unchurchlike. For, _first_, it must inevitably produce a deep national irritation, if it is said hereafter in Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, France and the United States, “The Italians and Spaniards have triumphed over our views and interests at Rome, simply because their dioceses are much smaller than ours and they have 50 Bishops for 100,000 souls, while we have only one.” _Secondly_, it involves a complete break with the past of the Church and the practice of Councils. Some Bishops have examined the official records of the Council of Trent by the Roman historian Pallavicini, and have found there that Pius IV. directed his Legates—and that too with special reference to a decree on the fulness of Papal jurisdiction—to make no decrees the Bishops were not _unanimously agreed upon_.(46)