Chapter VI: Preface (6)

But now just the contrary is to take place. The decisive contest on that point—if it comes to an open contest—will not be fought on the third _Schema_, _On __ the Church and the Pope_, but at once on the first _Schema_, the handiwork of the Jesuits, when it is returned to the Council, professedly modified but in substance unchanged, from the Commission of two Jesuits and three Infallibilists. As we hear, no attention has been paid to the counter representations of the Bishops, some of whom have objected to it altogether as superfluous and mischievous, some as erroneous and exaggerated. It will now without further discussion, which is simply impossible in the Council Hall, be accepted by the mere majority of votes of the compact troop of Infallibilists, who are at the Pope’s command as _valets à tout faire_, and proclaimed as a dogma by Pius, _approbante Concilio_, as the form runs. Thereby, according to approved Roman doctrine, has the Holy Ghost spoken by the mouth of His divine representative, “causa finita est;” and it only remains for the 150 or 200 opposing Bishops to make all haste to perform a great mental evolution, to change their laws of thought, to reverence as revealed truth what they have hitherto rejected as error, and to force the clergy and laity under them by excommunication and suspension to perform the same gymnastic feat of leaping at one jump from unbelief into firm and immoveable faith.

The modern and purely mechanical scholasticism has brought matters to such a pass that many seriously look upon the Council as a machine, which only needs turning to get new dogmas carried and authorized by the Holy Ghost. Formerly, theologians used to say that the voice of a General Council is nothing but the voice of the whole Church concentrated in one place; that every Bishop bears witness to the traditional belief of his Church and of his predecessors; and that the harmony of these testimonies proves what is the universal belief, and thus attests the truth and purity of the profession of faith sanctioned by the Council. But now all this is entirely changed. The Bishops have come, without any previous knowledge as to what they were to vote about; long-winded and ready-made documents are laid before them on questions most of them have never examined in their lives, of which their flocks at home know nothing and have never heard; they are expected to pass decrees the necessity and opportuneness of which appear to them highly problematical, and to pronounce a string of anathemas, because the Pope and Jesuits will it. They are cooped up in a treadmill called a Council, and must willingly or unwillingly grind what is thrown into it. It cannot indeed be exactly said that this procedure is new and unprecedented, for the same thing occurred, on a much smaller scale, at the Fifth Lateran Council under Julius II. and Leo. X.; but then only the Italian Bishops were made use of, who had long been broken in to the _rôle_ of flunkeys. Now, on the contrary, the Bishops of all nations have been brought into prison at Rome, and are to say Yea and Amen to the decrees the _Curia_ and the Jesuits have drawn up and mean to make obligatory.

But the minority have taken courage, and stand on the defensive; and so the machine is at a standstill. The opponents of Infallibilism have not decreased; on the contrary, it is now thought that about 200 will vote against it. Many, who at first were only “inopportunists,” have now through more careful investigation of the question become decided opponents of the doctrine itself.

Antonelli does not spare assurances, that the Governments may be quite at ease as to the decrees to be issued by the Council; he says they only affect theology, that nothing will be changed in practical life by them, and that the _Curia_ has no intention of employing them for the purpose of interfering with political affairs. But these reassuring declarations are only made orally; great care is taken to avoid putting them into a written, and therefore binding, form. Meanwhile the French Government perfectly comprehends the situation and the objects aimed at, and has already announced that it will fully support its Bishops and protect them against the threatened domination by majorities. Archbishop Lavigerie has gained nothing in Paris, and the decision of France has been communicated to the Cardinal Secretary of State, to the effect that the Government will not allow the 33 French Bishops and their allies of the German and English tongue to be crushed and forced into adopting dogmas they have rejected. The _Civiltà_ has just been singing the praises of Count Daru, who is a living proof that there are still real statesmen; it will very soon adopt just the opposite tone.

Among the points which make the Bishops the more astonished, the longer they stay here and the more narrowly they inspect the condition of things, is the decline of study in Rome, and the want, not merely of learned men but even, and most especially, of well-grounded theologians. Rome was never a favourable soil for serious study and true learning; a resource was found in attracting foreigners here, which could easily be done by means of the great Religious Orders whose Generals reside here. But now these Orders, with the exception of the Jesuits, are in the same state of decay. Where are men of distinguished learning to be found among the Dominicans, Carmelites, Cistercians and Franciscans of our own day? To the Pope himself and those immediately about him this is a matter of indifference; Pius feels instinctively that, if there were real theologians at Rome, they would all offer at least a passive resistance to his _penchant_ for creating new dogmas. Only the Jesuits and their pupils favour that sort of thing; and as long as there were real theologians in Rome, history knows of no Pope who was possessed with this abnormal passion for fabricating dogmas.

Now, indeed, among the 41 Italian Cardinals, only two are named as theologians, the Thomist Guidi and the Barnabite Lulio. Of the achievements of the latter nothing is known, and he has left the Jesuits to their own devices in the elaboration of the _Schemata_; but in the Council he is the chief representative of Roman theology. More distinguished than Lulio is the Piedmontese Prelate and Professor, Audisio, author of a History of the Popes, which of course cannot be measured by a German standard. Vincenzi, a good Orientalist and author of a learned—but in the main erroneous—apology for Origen, being a quiet, modest man who goes his own way, is thought nothing of here, and has neither title, dignities, nor benefices, although in knowledge he outweighs twenty Monsignori. De Rossi, the most acute and learned among the genuine Romans, who has educated himself by the study of German works, is a layman and therefore cannot be anything. The Dominican Modena, Secretary of the Congregation of the Index and as such director of the whole institution, who died a few weeks ago, passed here for a learned theologian, but no monuments of his knowledge and research are extant outside the Index. When a foreigner observed to him shortly before his death that, in order to condemn German or English books, one should understand something of the language, he showed great surprise at so unheard-of a demand, and replied that for Italians, who notoriously far excel all nations in genius and acuteness, if a foreigner translated a couple of passages from a book into Latin or Italian, that supplied quite enough materials for pronouncing a censure on the book. The Dominican Gatti has now succeeded Modena as Secretary of the Index, and therefore as supreme judge _ex officio_ of the literature of the world. On his scientific capacity and literary achievements history is silent. And so the few learned works produced here have to be provided by foreigners domiciled at Rome.

Theiner publishes documents from the Archives, so far, that is, as they serve “the good cause;” much he is notoriously forbidden to publish. The French Benedictine, Pitra, now a Cardinal, edits the original documents of Greek canon law; the French Chaillot writes the single important Church journal or record, _Analecta Juris Pontificii_, where, notwithstanding its rigid Ultramontane line, useful collections or ancient treatises not previously printed may here and there be found. Dogmatics and theological philosophy—_i.e._, philosophy adapted to dogmatic needs and ends—are provided here by the three German Jesuits, Schrader, Franzelin and Kleutgen. For here Germans are only thought available when they have first been transformed into Jesuits and thereby, as far as possible, un-Germanized. That Order, on which the features of the Spanish national character of the sixteenth century are still indelibly impressed, cannot tolerate a genuine German in his natural shape; it would be compelled to eject him as Etna vomited out the brazen slipper of Empedocles. It is well known that the most industrious and learned of the Roman Prelates, Liverani, was obliged to leave Rome; he lives, I believe, at Florence.(47)

If we examine the names of the Professors at the Roman University of the Sapienza, we find among the teachers of theology, with the solitary exception of the Canon-Regular, Tizzani, who is now blind, only monks—Dominicans, Carmelites and Augustinians—and these mere names wholly unknown beyond the walls of Rome. No less lamentable is the view presented by the philosophical, mathematical and philological departments. The best that can be said of this University, the intellectual metropolis of 180,000,000, is about this, “que c’est une fille honnête qui ne fait pas parler d’elle.”

On the whole, the air here is much too raw, the soil inhospitable, the Index too near, and the censorship too merciless, for scientific works and serious investigations. The Italians say of a mindless work, “É scritto in tempo di Scirocco.” And here there is an intellectual scirocco established in permanence. And thus the brave German Benedictines, who assembled here some years ago under an Italian Abbot, Pescetelli, in St. Paul’s without the Walls, have become victims of the unhealthy atmosphere—that is, besides the mental scirocco indigenous here, the sharp north wind blowing from the Gesù. They had energetic men among them, such as Nickes and others, were anxious to work in German fashion, and made a good beginning in a volume of _Voices from Rome_, published in 1860; a German Cardinal was their protector. But no sooner had they been denounced to the Pope by the Jesuits—German and of ill-repute for orthodoxy are synonymous terms here than they had to decamp. The Abbot, weary of these chicaneries, resigned his office and returned to Montecassino. But the Benedictines generally are looked on most unfavourably by the authorities here. As it was said in a capital sentence at Paris, in 1794, that the condemned man was “suspected of being suspected of deficient sense of citizenship,” so must it be said of the Benedictines here that they “are suspected of being suspected of a deficient sense of Papalism.” They are not devoted enough towards the _Curia_; these little religious communities cannot be so entirely kept in hand, the Jesuits from of old are hostile to them, and it is found in Rome that they have not hitherto rendered sufficient service to the great cause of strengthening Roman domination. They are therefore to be revolutionized, and, like the Jesuits and the Mendicant Orders, to receive a monarchical constitution. Their autocratic General will then reside in Rome, and the Pope will do with them what he did with the Dominicans, when he made Jandel, the Jesuit pupil, their General. Then the Benedictines will be for the Jesuits what the Gibeonites were for the Israelites, their “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”(48)

Such a project for revolutionizing the Benedictines, who would then of course cease to be sons of St. Benedict, is reputed to be among the measures prepared for the Council. If the present condition of Rome be compared with earlier ages, as late as Benedict XIV.’s reign, or even twenty or thirty years later, there is truly an enormous difference, and this deep decay and intellectual collapse cannot be explained by external causes merely; inward and more hidden motives must be taken into account, which I think I well understand, but will not here speak of. That does not trouble our Roman clergy of to-day; they institute no comparisons, and don’t even know the names of the men who dwelt in the same spot a century ago. And the thought of their own poverty of intellect and culture, if it ever occurs to the Roman clerisy, does not at all hinder their always admiring themselves, like Dante’s Rachel,

“Mai non si smaga
Dal suo miraglio, e siedo tutto giorno
Ell’ é de’ suoi begli occhi veder vaga.”(49)

NINETEENTH LETTER.

_Rome, Feb. 8, 1870._—It is a most exciting drama that is being exhibited here, and notwithstanding much that is both little and painful in its details, one of great and moving import; and those who have the opportunity of inspecting its machinery more narrowly, can hardly at times avoid feeling very strongly on the subject. The figure of Laocoon, with the snakes coiled round him, is constantly recurring to my mind; for I seem to be witnessing the strategical arts and skilful evolutions of a general, who is trying to surround a little band of opponents with his immensely superior forces, so as to compel them to lay down their arms and surrender at discretion without striking a blow. The disproportion is indeed enormous; first there is the Pope, whose mere name still is a host in itself, and that Pope is Pius, who for twenty-four years has had such homage and flatteries heaped upon him as no Pope ever had before, and who is accustomed to shake the Roman Olympus by his nod. Then there are the Cardinals and Prelates, the whole spiritual staff of Congregations—the Papal family—all fully united and resolved, and the _contribuens plebs_ of foreign Bishops, who are fairly caught in the net, and will not be suffered to escape without the bonds and chains of the most stringent decrees securing their obedience. On the other side stand from 150 to 200 Bishops, of divers tongues and nations and now for the first time united by a common need and a common danger, like a snowball liable to melt at the first breath of milder air, and fighting like those Spaniards of the Cortes, who, with one foot chained to a stone, compelled the Mexicans to spare their lives. One asks every morning in doubt and terror, how far the solvents employed have attained their end? Many would gladly capitulate if only they were met half-way by tolerable conditions, and such would secure them a rather less cold reception on their return to their dioceses. Meanwhile the eyes and the hopes of all educated Catholics, not only in Germany but in Italy, France and North America, are fixed on the chosen band of 300 Bishops.

But how are matters likely to proceed? The Opposition is tough and tenacious. Every new _Schema_ bears so unmistakeably the impress of the interests of either the Jesuits or the _Curia_, that the Bishops cannot help growing constantly more cautious, suspicious and reserved. And to make their designs still clearer, the Jesuits supply the practical commentary in their official journal, the _Civiltà_, to the effect that no measures of the Governments against the encroachments of the Church on the civil jurisdiction, or her summons to transgress the laws of the country, would bind the consciences of their subjects. The subjoined anathema against every one who refuses to acknowledge that laws are annulled by the ordinances of the Church (_i.e._, the Pope), is a sorry consolation for the Bishops; for experience has shown too often that courts of justice and statesmen don’t trouble themselves about the excommunications incurred in the discharge of their official duties. The Bishops accordingly foresee nothing but endless rubs and collisions with the civil power, as well as with whole classes of the population at home; and when the Jesuits are commended to them as pledged and triumphant allies in the contest to be waged against Governments, constitutions and laws, they generally shake their heads suspiciously and with no particular feeling of triumphant joy.

The Pope’s 300 episcopal foster-sons cost him 25,000 francs daily, and that makes the pleasant little sum of 1,500,000 francs for two sterile months, during which these doughty warriors have sat a good deal, but accomplished nothing by their sitting; for the old Roman proverb, “Romanus vincit sedendo,” has not been verified here. The Pope is gradually getting frightened at this daily expenditure, and, after the fashion of great lords, who readily lay the blame of the failure of their own plans on the bad advice of their subjects, he said to-day, in an outbreak of disgust, “per furia di farmi infallibile, mi faranno fallire.”

The proceedings of the Council must therefore be expedited and curtailed. At the same time nothing must be remitted of the matters it is to deal with and vote into canons and decrees. Therefore the order of business must be changed. Cardinal Antonelli says now that “the speeches have been too long and too many, and must be entirely put an end to; the Bishops must be content with handing over their observations in writing to the Commission of twenty-four or the Commission for Petitions.” He tries to sweeten the bitter draught to their lips by remarking that this decision is for their own advantage, for, after being so wearied out with the long sittings and listening to speeches, they must be glad to be relieved of the burden. The Bishops, however, experience no such joyful feeling, but say that the last vestige of conciliar freedom is now abolished. They have the more reason for saying so, since it is notorious that the Infallibilist and purely Romanist party is exclusively represented on the Commissions, so that it may be clearly foreseen that the remarks and suggestions of the liberal-minded and reforming Bishops will simply be thrown into the waste-paper basket, or, under the most favourable circumstances, be buried in the archives of St. Angelo. At the moment I am writing the new _Regolamento_ has not yet been published, owing to the urgent requests and representations of certain Bishops. But to judge from Antonelli’s statement, the authorities seem determined to drop the last veil, and show quite openly to the world that the Council has been arranged as a mere machine of Roman administration, and must therefore of course be forced back into the path from which it had wandered. Many a Bishop now looks back with painful regret to the Council of Trent, where, notwithstanding the haughty insolence of the Italians, the ambassadors of Spain and France acted as protectors to the foreign Prelates, and were a great check on the arbitrary violence of the Legates. Now, Antonelli assures every diplomatist who says a word on the unprecedented method of procedure, and the hostile character of the proposed decrees towards the State, that these things have only a theoretical and doctrinal significance, and that in practice the _Curia_ will study a wise moderation, and place itself on a friendly footing with the Governments. He means, that when one fills one’s arsenal with new and effective weapons, that is no proof that they will at once be discharged. I don’t know whether this satisfies the diplomatists. Perhaps Count Trautmansdorff is satisfied, for his Government has repeatedly announced its resolve to wait quietly till the Council is over and the _Curia_ is put in possession of all the decrees and dogmas it wants. Then, when the new doctrines are already inserted in all the catechisms and taught in all seminaries and enforced in every confessional, it will be time enough to consider what line the civil power should take in the matter. M. de Banneville and the Paris Government do not seem to be of this opinion. I don’t imagine they are minded at Paris so entirely to sacrifice the Bishops to the arbitrary will of the _Curia_ and its paid majority, and for the last few days the French ambassador has been engaged in a lively telegraphic correspondence with his own Government. We may very soon expect important disclosures.

As far as I can make out, the conviction still prevails among the Roman clergy and their episcopal allies that the dogma of Infallibility in the third _Schema_ will be accepted by the Council, at least in a somewhat modified form, but one easily capable of being extended and quite sufficient for present exigencies. They say, “We will first take the vote on the question of opportuneness, and a mere majority may very well decide that. It has decided already by the 400 or 410 signatures to the (Infallibilist) Address, and the Bishops who have themselves answered No, will be obliged to yield to this decision, and so to come to the vote on the dogma itself, _i.e._, to declare whether they personally hold the Pope to be dogmatically fallible or infallible.” The Romans expect that, when matters have come to this point, not a few Bishops—especially Ketteler of Mayence, and, it may be hoped, many more with him—will come over to their side and profess their faith in Papal Infallibility. In whatever form they clothe their belief, it comes to the same thing in the end. At last there will only remain a little band of obstinate Prelates who will protest. They may talk if they please, and then it will be proclaimed to the world, by an overwhelming majority of perhaps 700 votes, that it has become Infallibilist. Then might a new St. Jerome say, with greater force than the former one said of Arianism, “Miratus est orbis se esse factum infallibilistam.” A Roman clergyman, who expressed this expectation to me with peculiar confidence, added that there had been a like occurrence at the Council of Trent and it would now be repeated. I perfectly understood him, and the matter deserves to be mentioned here as a striking parallel to certain recurring possibilities. The Council, which was meant to reform and thereby to save the Church, was brought to an early consideration of the universal neglect of Bishops to reside in their dioceses and the need for recognising this duty as one of Divine obligation. But it appeared at once, in the first period of the Council, that the Court of Rome and its faithful Italians in the assembly had the strongest interest in preventing the assertion of this simple and logically necessary truth. For, as regards the past, it would have implied severe censure of the practice followed by the Popes since the beginning of the thirteenth century, which would be shown to be a constant violation of the Divine law; while, in regard to the present and future, it would have seriously limited the plenary power of the Popes, for it was always held a principle in the Church that no one could dispense from the law of God. But the non-Italian Bishops, and nearly all the Italians themselves, were at first in favour of declaring it to be “the Divine law,” so strong was the evidence. And it was seen clearly enough that from the divinely imposed obligation must again be inferred the equally divine rights and institution of the episcopate. Meanwhile the Jesuit General made his two famous speeches to show that all episcopal authority was a mere emanation from the Pope. For ten months, from September 18, 1562 to July 14, 1563, all sessions of the Council had to be suspended to prevent any decree being made on the subject; and at last, on July 14, 1563, the twenty-eight Spanish Bishops and “the Divine right of residence” succumbed to the majority of 192 votes, about three-fourths being Italians. _Absit omen!_

The _Civiltà_ of February 5, 1870, in its article, “I Politicastri ed il Concilio,” has supplied a noteworthy commentary on the canons or decrees of the third _Schema_, which affirm the Church to be an institution armed with coercive powers of inflicting bodily punishments; for that is obviously the meaning. The “Politicastri” are those statesmen who imagine that the State has a sphere of its own, independent of the legislation of the Church and the interposition of the Pope. That, according to the Roman Jesuits, is a most abominable error. A law which contradicts a law of the Church has not the slightest validity for men’s consciences. For the authority of a Council—and _a fortiori_ of a Pope, from whom, on the Jesuit theory, Councils derive all their force and validity—is above the authority of the State.(50) Should the State therefore require obedience to a law opposed to an ordinance of the Council, it would do so without any real right (_senza vero titulo giuridico_), and, should it enforce compliance, would be introducing a suicidal tyranny. It is further explained that this by no means applies to those religious laws only which rest on Divine ordinance, but also to those which are purely ecclesiastical, and therefore on Catholic principles are variable.

Let us take the twelfth of the _Canones de Ecclesiâ_, which anathematizes all who doubt the Church’s power to inflict corporal punishment; and consider further that the Popes have most solemnly declared that by baptism all heretics are become their subjects, are amenable to the laws of the Church, and must, if needful, be compelled to obey them.(51) Consider further that the Syllabus condemns the toleration or equality of different religions, and no doubt can remain as to what system it is intended to introduce.

The second Letter of the famous Oratorian and member of the French Academy, Father Gratry, has just come here, and has produced a great impression. It treats of the gross forgeries by which the way for the introduction of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility has been gradually prepared, first in the ninth and then in the thirteenth century; and dwells especially on the fact that the theologians—above all Thomas Aquinas, who rules in the schools, and his many disciples and followers—were deceived by these fabrications, and that even the Popes themselves were misled by them. Gratry’s exposition is clear and convincing; but he goes beyond the middle ages. He shows how dishonestly the Breviary was tampered with at Rome at the end of the sixteenth century, and how, up to the present time the Jesuits, Perrone and Wenninger,—the latter in a truly amazing fashion—have followed the practice of citing fabulous or corrupted testimonies.

One grand result of the Council its authors have not foreseen or reckoned upon, which, however, has already attained alarming dimensions; I mean the scandal it has given. They seem to have really believed with a childish _naïveté_ that the Council could be hermetically sealed up, like birds under a glass bell, and its members shut up apart,—that 3000 persons could be reduced to silence by a Papal edict about matters they feel there is the strongest necessity for speaking of. Such a notion could only grow up in the heads of Roman clerics, who are wont to look at the world beyond their own narrow sphere only through crevices of the open door, or through the key-hole. Only too much has become known. The Jesuits, the _Civiltà_, the _Univers_, the _Monde, et id genus omne_, have done their best to reveal the sharp contrast of opposite parties, and the world of to-day, sceptically disposed as it is and little inclined to cover the shame and nakedness by turning away its face, is present at a double spectacle: it witnesses the system of force and intrigue by which a Council is managed, and it watches with keen observation the process of manipulating a new dogma. Men say now, what Cardinal Bessarion said before, according to an anecdote current here, that the way Saints were canonized in his own time made him very suspicious about the older Saints and Canonizations. In the same way the Protestant and Catholic laity, who are here in such numbers at present, say, “We know and see now how matters are managed in the Church when a new dogma is to be made; what artifices, and deceptions, and methods of intimidation are employed to gain votes. Must it not have been the same at former Councils?” I have heard even Bishops here say that such thoughts pressed upon them, and were severe temptations against faith. And if these things are done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? Is it different with you in Germany?

TWENTIETH LETTER.

_Rome, Feb. 9, 1870._—In commencing the discussion on the Catechism the Council passed into the last stage of the peaceful proceedings, which are to precede the battle on the claims of the Roman authority. The speech of Cardinal Rauscher, who is ill, was delivered by the Bishop of Gurk, and made a great impression. He was followed by Cardinal Mathieu, one of the best Latinists in the French episcopate, the Primate of Hungary and the Archbishop of Tours. After them Dupanloup spoke, who was again, as on the former occasion, not well heard. He lashed those who think that the cultivated nations of the Catholic world are to have a Catechism dictated to them by Rome. The Session was not favourable to the propositions, but men can no longer fix their minds on themes of lesser importance. All are thinking of the decisive contest which is imminent. Many indeed on both sides wish that it could be avoided. The threatening attitude of the policy of France has roused serious misgivings. It was known in Rome at the end of January, but the decisive instructions only arrived on Saturday, February 5, and produced a deep and unpleasant sensation. Hitherto the Court of Rome was able to hinder the withdrawal of the French troops, by threatening to take refuge under English protection at Malta; but with the good understanding that now prevails between the French and English Governments this is no longer possible. It is perfectly well known in the Vatican that neither of the two powers will stretch out a hand to uphold Papal absolutism. It is a proof of the strong impression produced by the French note that the Papal Court has kept it secret. No appeal is tried to Catholic public opinion or the loyal episcopate, for it is well ascertained that the Infallibilist doctrine has very different enemies from the temporal power. To Cardinal Antonelli it seems like a denial of the whole work of his life to stake the temporal power of the Pope for the sake of a new dogma. But if this is to be saved, the dogma must be sacrificed. So the Opposition now has the assurance that the neutrality and non-intervention of the Catholic powers is come to an end, and it is encouraged at the same time by the part the learned world has begun to take on its side, since the publication in Germany of the addresses which attest the antagonism of eminent Catholic scholars and professors of theology to the new dogma.

Nevertheless the minority is composed of heterogeneous elements, and it may be safely calculated that they will not all hold out to the last. Some opponents of the definition are friends of the doctrine, and oppose it on grounds not of a purely abstract or theological nature. No one has calculated the numerical proportion of these in inopportunists to the real opponents of Infallibility. Any serious discussion of the question has long been avoided, and many think it ought to be avoided, because therein lies the dangerous weakness of the party. The ground of inopportuneness, which had already been adopted in the Letter to the Pope from Fulda, was taken up from the first, in the hope of paralysing the majority by an imposing number of dissentients. They hoped to be strong by their numbers, and to look strong by a certain kind of unity. The theory of inopportuneness seemed to provide a common ground for the decided opponents of the dogma and for the timid and vacillating or moderate adherents of the doctrine itself. That a really united Opposition has been formed on this basis is mainly due to the Bishop of Orleans. He attacked the opportuneness with such a powerful array of testimonies in his famous Pastoral, that every one saw clearly the doctrine itself was involved, though he never entered in so many words on the theological question. The position he provided has served its purpose for two months, without the party being brought to a declaration for or against the dogma. It has served to bring in adherents to the Opposition, who in the strictest sense of the word belong to the Roman Court party, and to provide waverers with a comparatively innocent method of resistance. It has prevented the victory of the _Curia_ in the days of their greatest ascendancy, but it is untenable for a permanence. The position of the inopportunists has the fatal disadvantage that it can be out-flanked. That would have happened, had the Bishops been separately requested to give their opinions “sub secreto,” with a promise that no public declaration in the Council should be desired.

Then, again, it is a position that can easily be mastered by means of the majority. A minority may be invincible on the ground of dogma, but not of expediency. Everything can be ventured to combat a false doctrine, but not to hinder an imprudence or a premature definition. In questions of faith one dare not give in; not so in questions of discretion only. And then the Council must have been sooner or later driven from the ground of inopportuneness, if it was not shipwrecked on the order of business; for it was a point of view the decision could not finally hinge upon, in presence of a preponderating majority.

The defection of part of the Opposition was thus only a question of time, though it became more difficult for individuals after each act done in union, and many an inopportunist has advanced to theological contradiction of the dogma. But the attempt to make the rejection of the doctrine the principle of the party forced the contrast more and more on the minds of individuals. Among the Germans primarily, and in the groups of leading Bishops from different countries who took counsel together, a more determined spirit gradually developed itself, and it was seen that their adversaries made capital out of every sign of unclearness of view among the Opposition. They were constantly spreading reports that on the main point all were united, and that at most there were not above twenty opponents of the dogma, including only two Germans, who were adherents of Hermes and Günther; perhaps only five opponents in all, or none at all. In presence of these assertions a public declaration seemed necessary, less for the faithful at home than for non-Catholics, who ask about the doctrine. The Bishops of the Opposition told themselves that honour and episcopal duty demanded that a Bishop should not withhold his belief on a fundamental question, at a moment when all have to speak, the moment of danger. The very success of the inopportunist policy is no true success. It is no victory of the truth, when it is not openly proclaimed in the contest. Those who do not fight under the banner of their own convictions are not on equal terms with their adversaries.

Thus the view has been more and more making way, that not only must every definition be avoided as dangerous, but that the doctrine of the Roman theologians and their adherents in the Episcopate must be rejected as false. And this brought men more and more to the scientific ground. It was no longer a mere affair of personal conviction, but of direct evidence, and the moment was come for literary argument to assert its place in the proceedings of the Council. The position of the mere inopportunists became more difficult, and the band which held the party together was loosened. Their adversaries at once zealously availed themselves of this favourable crisis; nearly every Bishop of the minority was plied with various intermediate formulas and conciliar proposals. Attempts were made to sow disunion among the leaders; political jealousies at home, and whatever else could be made use of, were seized upon to undermine mutual confidence. Some were to be deceived by the phantom of a middle party, and were told that they might take a position as peacemakers at the head of a mediating section—of course in the anticipation that every one who makes concessions and admits the principle of the definition will pass over to the majority. Against all these attempts the Bishops of the minority have, on the whole, though not without some wavering, kept firm and true. But still the transition to the strictly theological standpoint, where individual conviction on the question of Infallibility must be decisively recognised and represented, cannot be accomplished without an internal conflict and shaking of the party.

TWENTY-FIRST LETTER.

_Rome, Feb. 11, 1870._—When once literature began to be brought to bear actively on the proceedings of the Council, the crisis could not long be delayed, for science, which has to do with truth only, knows nothing of diplomatic considerations, and makes no concessions to the requirements of the moment. It brings back the discussion inevitably from theory to fact, from the sphere of dogma to the sphere of history. In remorselessly exposing the inventions and forgeries which form the basis of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, it necessarily attacks the whole ultramontane system of which that doctrine is the logical consequence. The fundamental refutation of the dogma is fatal to much in the specifically Roman theology and the modern claims of the Popes, which would not otherwise have been assailed in Council by any Bishop. Those who shrink from collision with the _Curia_, and would desire to spare it a public exposure of error before the whole world, and who have therefore hitherto remained on the defensive, will now be driven further and placed in a position they would never have chosen. They see their adversaries in a light—whether as deceived or deceivers—which seriously disturbs their daily intercourse with them. For it is no longer possible to conceal by any periphrasis the fact that the spirit the Opposition has to combat is no other than the spirit of lying. And so, when the voice of honest science cannot be excluded, no peaceful issue is possible. The contest takes the form of an internecine strife against that absolute Papal system for which the Court had at first confidently expected to gain the almost enthusiastic sanction of the Council. The aid of science can be purchased at no cheaper price. No wonder then if the Bishops recoil in trembling before the weighty task of winning the victory for that view which specially prevails among learned Germans of this day, first in the Council, and then among the mass of the clergy and the faithful. There are few among them who are not inwardly conscious that they will themselves come in for some of the heavy blows.

Father Gratry’s first Letter on its arrival at Rome roused serious reflection in many. His skilful handling of a subject familiar to all, and his repeated application of the solemn passage, “Numquid indiget Deus mendacio vestro?”(52) together with his unmistakeable allusion in his division of mankind into “viri veraces” and “viri mendaces,” contributed to make clear the full significance of the contrast—to many for the first time. Döllinger’s printed criticism of the Address was not calculated to quiet the excitement it caused. The Roman party, in the hope of effecting an internal split in the party, seized the handle which Döllinger’s statement that he was in harmony on the main question with the majority of the German Bishops seemed to supply, and tried to extract a counter declaration from the Bishops. The first attempt, to induce the Archbishop of Munich to exert his authority, failed. Then the Bishop of Mayence brought the matter before the Assembly of German Opposition Bishops. He angrily disclaimed for himself any solidarity with Döllinger’s view, and averred his belief in Papal Infallibility, saying it was only the difficulty and danger of a dogmatic declaration quite unnecessary in itself that made him an opponent of the definition. Had his motion been accepted, and the German Opposition renounced their hostility to the dogma and retired to the ground of mere expediency, the complete victory of the Infallibilists would have been a matter of a few weeks only. But when the German Bishops rejected Ketteler’s urgent demand, and decisively refused to give up their assault on the dogma, the half-and-half character and weakness of their position vanished, and they ceased to subordinate or sacrifice the theological standpoint to the question of expediency. And thus the difficult word has been spoken; they have already pronounced against the doctrine itself in the Addresses they have signed. The reproach incurred thereby does not, of course, apply in full force to the Bishop of Mayence, who has always told his colleagues that he is on their side on the question of opportuneness only. The Bishop of Rottenburg (Hefele) has already declared in his speech at Fulda that it is necessary to advance further and assail the doctrine itself. And he repeated this in reply to Ketteler’s proposal. The great majority of the Bishops were unfavourable to that proposal. While in this way they testified their agreement with Döllinger, some of them—especially Strossmayer—declared emphatically for the œcumenicity of the Council of Florence. They have weighty reasons for this. The more strongly the minority hold to Döllinger’s interpretation of the famous Florentine decree, the less can they afford to depreciate the authority of the Synod. For in their opinion it is just that decree which serves to expose the dishonesty of the other party, and to overthrow the extreme doctrine. It will do them good service too in the discussion on the _Schema de Ecclesiâ_ and the new _Schema de Romano Pontifice_, which is now announced.

But while the German Bishops rejected Ketteler’s proposal, and left to the _Civiltà Cattolica_ and the Mayence _Katholik_ the war against the Munich School, they did not venture to come to an open breach with the less homogeneous elements of their party, wishing to retain Ketteler on their side—who is as zealous against the Roman principles in Church and State as against German science—as an active ally in the contest against the _Schema_. For this end there have been consultations, especially between the Archbishop of Cologne on one side and the Archbishop of Munich on the other. The commotion produced by Döllinger’s essay in the learned world of Germany gives them an opportunity for helping the minority over this discomfiture, and averting for the immediate moment of danger the threatened disruption. It cannot be denied that to a certain extent the latest declarations of German Catholics are very acceptable to the Bishops, for the very reason that they partly emanate from men who belong to the more moderate opponents of Infallibility. It is a piece of good luck for the Bishops staying at Rome that men who are independent, and at a distance from the flatteries and threats of the Vatican, undertake to call things by their right names, that reason makes itself heard by the side of passion, and science by the side of authority. It is moreover very convenient that the materials can be used while the writer is disowned. But although the Bishops know well how to value the importance of the support given to their cause from Germany, yet this new movement is not altogether to their taste; their dignity demands that they should not succumb to pressure from without, or owe too much to the public press. A Bishop is indeed presumed to be a theologian. And as it is impossible that the considerations which for the moment are decisive in the Council should always be taken into account by writers, there cannot fail to be manifold embarrassments. From the intra-conciliar point of view it is easy to go too far. And then it may be regarded as almost inevitable that many Bishops should receive these manifestations of opinion from Germany with outward coldness, or reply by advising that it should be left in their hands alone to secure the victory of truth. In their eyes silence is in itself a kind of vote of confidence. A too zealous participation might almost look like a sign of doubt as to the Bishops having strength and perseverance and coherence enough to conquer. To be sure, none feel such doubts more strongly than the Bishops themselves, but nothing can better serve to give them the confidence in themselves which is so much to be desired as showing them that others feel it.

And thus among the German Bishops in Rome Hefele’s view has triumphed over Ketteler’s, the logical and decided over the half-and-half policy, and the difficult turning-point has been passed without loss or breach in the party. And not a day too soon! Next week a new _Schema_ and a new order of business will bring the disunion and irritation in the Council to a point.

TWENTY-SECOND LETTER.

_Rome, Feb. 15, 1870._—If I wrote a fortnight ago that the situation was essentially improved since the first weeks, this must be taken with important reservations. The most keen-sighted of the North American Bishops then said, “We have done nothing at all, and that is a great deal.” He thought it an important gain that of the proposals laid before the Council, the two _Schemata_, nothing had passed, and none of the objects for which it had been convoked had, up to that point, been attained. But this has only been the damming up of a stream which eventually bursts through the more violently, and carries away the dam with it. For the majority of 500, who are resolved to indorse everything and vote every measure proposed, holds firmly together, before and behind; while the minority, on the other hand, is in danger of being shivered to pieces on the rock of opportuneness.

The _Schema_ now under discussion, of a common Catechism for the whole Catholic world, is clearly connected with the general programme cut out for the Council; for if the new dogmas are fabricated, they will at once be inserted into this universal Catechism, and thereby inculcated in the simplest and most convenient manner on the youth and the whole body of the faithful. The Jesuits have found the experiment very successful in Germany with their own Catechism, and have thereby naturalized the doctrine of Infallibility gradually, with a precision rendered more explicit in each successive edition in the boys’ and girls’ schools, especially those conducted by nuns. The Catechism has also proved a great financial success, and thus whole countries have become tributary to the Order. In the same way the new Catechism of the Council will be a source of manifold profit to both the _Curia_ and the Jesuits. The _Curia_ treats the Council with scientific skill, like a patient who has first to be gently physicked, and then has stronger doses given him by degrees. First came the _Schema_ of philosophical and theological doctrine, then of discipline, and now the question of a common Catechism. Behind this looms the deeply-cutting _Schema_ on the Church; and when that is triumphantly passed, the _Schema_ on the Pope appears as the crown of the grand legislative work. While the former tractate propounds the _supremum magisterium_ of the Church, as holding sovereign power over lands and seas, souls and bodies, in the last _Schema_ this supreme _magisterium_ crops out in the person of Pius IX., who now enters into the possession of the supreme dominion and powers marked out for him in the dogmatic chart, if we can speak of any marking out when, in principle, everything is laid claim to, and the master himself alone and conclusively draws the line of demarcation where he chooses. He presents himself to the world as infallible teacher and legislator in the realm of science, as supreme judge of the literature of the world, as supreme lord and master in all that pertains to religion, or is related to it, and as infallible judge of right and wrong in all points. Many will say with Polonius, “Though this is madness there is method in it.” Let us examine these principles more closely.

_First_, The Pope possesses the supreme and immediate dominion and jurisdiction, not merely over the Church in general, but over every individual Christian. Every baptized person is directly and immediately subject to the Pope, his ordinances, special commands and penalties. His power is “suprema tum in Ecclesiam universalem, tum in omnes et _singulos_ Ecclesiarum pastores et _fideles_ jurisdictio;” or, as the twenty-one Canons say, “ordinaria et immediata potestas.” Whoever disbelieves this incurs anathema.(53)

_Secondly_, The Church stands as high above the State as heavenly beatitude above the profits and goods of this earthly life.—(_Can._ 13.)

_Thirdly_, Every one must therefore prefer the advantage of the Church to the welfare of the State, “Si quando videantur utilia regno temporali, quæ bonis sublimioribus Ecclesiæ et æternæ salutis repugnent, ea nunquam habebunt pro veris bonis, etc.”—(_Can._ 13 ad fin.)

_Fourthly_, The supreme _magisterium_ of the Church, _i.e._ the Pope, whether alone or in union with a Council, has to decide what Princes and Governments should do or leave undone in questions of civil society and public affairs. “De ipsâ agendi normâ judicium, quatenus de morum honestate, _de licito vel illicito_ statuendum est pro civili societate publicisque negotiis, ad supremum Ecclesiæ magisterium pertinet.”

_Fifthly_, As the Pope possesses not only the supreme office of teacher, but also the supreme right of coercion and punishment, he not only distinguishes as teacher what is and what is not permissible for States and nations, but he can enforce his decision on political matters by penalties upon every one—be he monarch or minister or private citizen. He has the right “devios contumacesque exteriori judicio et salubribus pœnis coërcendi atque cogendi.”—(_Can._ 12.)

_Sixthly_, Whenever a law of the Church conflicts with a law of the State, the latter must give way; and whoever maintains that anything forbidden by the law of the Church is allowed by the law of the State incurs anathema.—(_Can._ 20.)

These ecclesiastical maxims, which deprive the laws of the land of all force and of all obligation for the conscience, are partly those already in existence, partly those any Pope may issue hereafter whenever it pleases him.

Thus marriage, primary instruction and education, the toleration or suppression of dissenting communions, the jurisdiction and privileges of the clergy, the acquisition and control of ecclesiastical property, oaths, wills, and the whole of the unlimited domain taken into her hands and legislated for by the mediæval Church, and in short whatever comes under the head of permissible or forbidden—this, _en masse_, forms the sphere of the Pope’s jurisdiction, wherein he rules with absolute and sovereign power, and puts down all opposition by coercion and punishments. Truly this reminds one of the Prophet’s words, “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are fallen, and we will plant cedars in their place.” Since Paul _iv._’s time, 260 years ago, no Pope has so openly and undisguisedly spoken out the thoughts and wishes of his heart. The kernel of the doctrine, then, is this: there is on earth one sole lord and master over kings and subjects alike, over nations as over families and individuals, against whom no right or privilege avails, and whose slaves all are. The only difference is that some, viz., the Bishops, can on their side rule and lord it in their dioceses as upper servants in the name of the Church or the Pope, so far as their master does not interfere to stop them, while all others are mere slaves and nothing more. This obviously goes far beyond the Syllabus. This is the Bull _Unam Sanctam_ modernized and, so to speak, translated out of military language (about the two swords) into political and juristic terms. Innocent III., Innocent IV., and Boniface VIII., said that, “ratione peccati,” they could interfere anywhere, and bring any affair or process before their Court, for it belongs to the Pope to decide what is sin and to punish it. What is said here comes to the same thing, that the Pope determines what is or is not allowable, and acts accordingly.

It is a stately edifice of universal Papal dominion whereon the keystone of Infallibility, which bears and upholds the whole, is to be placed, so that every command and ordinance of the Pope, even in political matters, is infallible, as the Jesuit Schrader has so clearly and forcibly pointed out. And to this must be added further (according to Canon 9) a vast and infinite domain for infallible decisions, viz., “all that is requisite for preserving the revealed deposit in its integrity.” Who can specify what is included here, or fix any limits to it?

Two other links in this world-embracing chain are not visible, which are yet necessary for its coherence. The Interdict, which robbed whole populations of divine service and sacraments, must be restored in its ancient splendour, and the Pope’s right to dispense from oaths must be distinctly asserted.