Chapter X: Opposition Among Roman Catholics in England (2)

Meanwhile, on the other side, Ward’s ambition was to demonstrate “how extensive is the intellectual captivity imposed by God on every loyal Catholic.”[201] And there is no possibility to doubt which of the two schools was congenial to Roman authority. For the editor of the _Dublin Review_ was rewarded with expressions of papal approval, while Lord Acton’s literary ventures were one after another brought to untimely ends.[202] But the thing that flourished, the work upon whose eccentricities and extravagances Roman authority looked with favour, was the Apologetic of Ward in the _Dublin Review_. Utterly unhistorical as it assuredly was, more Ultramontane than Rome itself, carrying recent development to unprecedented excess, and exhibiting exactly those characteristics of wilful blindness to uncongenial facts which roused so justly Acton’s moral indignation, Ward’s Essays were nevertheless the approved and sanctioned type of Roman doctrine and Roman defence offered for the edification and guidance of Roman Catholics in this land. There is something exceedingly tragic in the suppression of Acton’s plea for sincerity and moral rectitude, coupled with the encouragement given to the reckless and painfully superficial utterances of the _Dublin Review_.

[201] _Essays on the Church’s Doctrinal Authority_, pp. 20, 34.

[202] Cf. _Church Times_, 26th July 1907.

The English Romanists as a body were scared by Ward’s extravagance. And to none were his methods more repugnant than they were to John Henry Newman. By a singular grace, Newman escaped the convert’s proverbial temptation--that of carrying new beliefs to all possible extremes. He had affinities with the _Dublin Review_ and with Lord Acton’s Journals. But he was keenly conscious of the defects of both. He thought the one lacking in regard for authority, the other in reverence for fact. He was very far from identifying himself with either.

When Ward attempted to enlist Newman in his Infallibility campaign, Newman’s characteristic sincerity did not attempt to conceal the repugnance with which he viewed the proposal.

“As to writing a volume on the Pope’s Infallibility it never so
much as entered into my thought. I am a controversialist, not a
theologian, and I should have nothing to say about it. I have ever
thought it likely to be true, never thought it certain. I think,
too, its definition inexpedient and unlikely; but I should have no
difficulty in accepting it, were it made. And I don’t think my reason
will ever go forward or backward in the matter.”[203]

[203] 1866, Thureau Dangin, iii. p. 111; Purcell, _Manning_, ii. p. 321.

But Newman despaired of inducing his fellow Romanists to attend to history.

“Nothing would be better,” he wrote, “than a historical review. But
who would bear it? Unless one doctored all one’s facts one would be
thought a bad Catholic. The truth is, there is a keen conflict going
on just now between two parties--one in the Church, one out of it;
and at such seasons extreme views alone are in favour, and a man who
is not extravagant is thought treacherous. I sometimes think of King
Lear’s daughters, and consider that they, after all, may be found
the truest who are in speech more measured.”[204]

[204] See _Guardian_ article, 6th June 1906, from _the Month_ of January 1903.

Hence it was that Ward’s vehement and exaggerated Ultramontanism drew down upon him one of the severest rebukes which Newman perhaps ever wrote. He told Ward that it was wholly uncatholic in spirit, and was constituting a church within the Church. Ward comically observed that after such a letter he must take a double dose of chloral if he meant to sleep.

Newman also wrote a reassuring letter to Pusey, expressing his belief that there was no fear of a decree of Papal Infallibility, except in so limited a form as practically to leave things as they were.[205] But when the Vatican Council was already met, and the probabilities that the dominant party might succeed in reducing to fixity what had hitherto been a theological opinion, at the most, became more and more convincing, Newman wrote to his Bishop in a very different and very anxious strain:--

[205] _Life of Pusey_, iv. p. 128.

“Why should an insolent, aggressive faction be allowed to make the
heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful? I pray
those early doctors of the Church whose intercession would decide
the matter (Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome; Athanasius, Chrysostom,
and Basil) to avert this great calamity. If it is God’s will that
the Pope’s Infallibility be defined, then it is God’s will to throw
back the times and moments of the triumph which He has destined for
His kingdom, and I shall feel that I have but to bow my head to His
inscrutable Providence.”[206]

[206] _Standard_, 7th April 1870; Salmon, _Infallibility_, p. 22; Thureau Dangin, iii. p. 124.

This memorable sentence, the most memorable of any from the Roman Communion in England, was written in the full confidence of privacy to his own Diocesan, Ullathorne, Roman Bishop of Birmingham. Somehow it came to light, and appeared in the public press. The publication, never explained, has been called a culpable indiscretion.[207] But whatever it be called, it assuredly represents the writer’s most profound conviction, uttered with perfect frankness. Here, as to his Father in Christ, he reveals his soul. Trusted and confided in as he was by individuals on either side within the Roman body; by Ward and Faber on the one hand, and by Lord Acton on the other; profoundly intimate with modern thought and religious conceptions beyond the Roman pale; he anticipates disastrous consequences to the Church, and to the world, if the Infallibility theory be decreed.

[207] Thureau Dangin, iii. p. 124.

Bishop Ullathorne[208] would undoubtedly receive this confidence with perfect sympathy. For, although a believer of the doctrine, he had himself, as a student, been taught the opposite at Downside. Indeed, his own fidelity to Ultramontane ideas was so challenged that he thought it advisable to seek a special interview with the Pope, and assure him, at the time of the Vatican Decrees. But, naturally, Newman’s letter not only produced a great sensation when it appeared in the public press; it also deepened the distrust with which the partisans of Infallibility regarded him. We can well understand how one who wrote with so manifest an anxiety to stand by the historic past, and to avoid extremes, was regarded with suspicion from Rome by pronounced and uncompromising Ultramontanes.

[208] _Autobiography_, p. 41. Cf. Purcell, _Manning_, ii. p. 439.

As always in great movements, so with the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, much depended on commanding personalities. And no figure in the conflict of 1870 is more conspicuous than that of Archbishop Manning. It was not for his learning or intellectual depth or piety that he held so remarkable a place in promoting Ultramontane opinions. But there is no doubt that, whether outside the Council or within, he arrested universal attention. No man was more completely identified with the doctrine than he; and identified with it in its extremest form. No paradox alarmed him; he shrank from no inference, however strange. Bellarmine would have been proud of him as in many ways a worthy successor to his own _à priori_ methods. It is impossible to mistake the temperament which produced the two famous Pastorals launched by Manning for the instruction of English Romanists in 1867 and 1869.

He has already, and this is very significant, formulated the doctrine practically in the same phrases in which it appeared in the Vatican Decree: “Declarations of the Head of the Church apart from the Episcopate are infallible.”[209] “Judgments _ex cathedra_ are, in their essence, judgments of the Pontiff apart from the episcopal body, whether congregated or dispersed.”[210]

[209] _Pastoral_ (1867), p. 23.

[210] _Ibid_. (1869), p. 142.

This doctrine, he is certain, the Church has always believed and taught. History awakens no doubts, creates no problems, to Manning’s mind. Everywhere he contemplates, both exercised and admitted, papal inerrancy. His theory is that the stages of the doctrine have been three: simple belief, analysis, definition. In the first period, belief in the Church’s and the Pope’s inerrancy pervaded all the world. Thus he thinks that the condemnation of Pelagianism by Innocent I. (418) was regarded as infallible from the first moment of its promulgation. As for Honorius, there is not the slightest reason for misgivings: “heretical he could not be.” We have his letters. They prove his Catholicity. The papal acts of the primitive ages imply infallibility, according to Manning, “and in almost all cases explicitly declare it.”[211] The exercise of authority is everywhere to him Infallibility. Thus the Archbishop presented the English Romanist with a sketch of the first ages pervaded by a calm, unchallenged faith in the Pope’s Infallibility.

[211] _Pastoral_ (1867), p. 40.

The second period in the doctrine’s progress is that of analysis and contention. And here Manning pours unqualified contempt on the Gallican view. Gallicanism was Manning’s peculiar and special abomination.

“Gallicanism,” he said, “is rationalism; that which the Gospel cast
out; that which grew up again in mediæval Christendom. Gallicanism is
no more than a transient and modern opinion which arose in France,
without warrant or antecedent, in the ancient theological schools
of the great French Church; a royal theology, as suddenly developed
and as parenthetical as the Thirty-nine Articles; affirmed only by a
small number out of the numerous Episcopate of France....

“To this may be added, that the name of Bossuet escaped censure only
out of indulgence, by reason of his good services to the Church: and
that even the lawfulness of giving absolution to those who defend the
Gallican Articles has been gravely questioned.”[212]

[212] _Ibid._ p. 41.

In Manning’s view of history, Gallicanism was a disease engendered by the corruptions of the old French Monarchy.

The third period in the progress of Infallibility is the period of definition. This is certain to come. It is merely a question of time.

Thus, according to Manning, the doctrine of Papal Infallibility is no more of an innovation than the doctrine of our Lord’s Divinity at Nicæa. It is true that he is conscious of a possible objection lurking in suspicious minds.

“If any one shall answer that these evidences do not prove the
Infallibility of the Pope speaking _ex cathedra_, they will lose
their labour.

“I adduce them,” he continues, “to prove the immemorial and universal
practice of the Church in having recourse to the Apostolic See as the
last and certain witness and judge of the Divine tradition of faith.”

But Manning’s real interests were not in endeavours to ascertain what history declares. The sole duty of the believer was absolute submission to the authority of the existing Church, irrespective of past teachings. The assumption that what is taught to-day corresponds with what always has been, was made, and must not be challenged. Hence the famous identification of history with heresy, for which Manning made himself responsible. His assurance of the doctrine is so unassailable that he can scarcely tolerate the enquiry, Is it true?

“The question is not,” he writes, “whether the doctrine be true,
which cannot be doubted; or definable, which is not open to doubt;
but whether such a definition be opportune, that is, timely and
prudent.”[213]

[213] _Pastoral_ (1867), p. 119.

Or again, more emphatically still if possible--

“With the handful of Catholics who do not believe the Infallibility
of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, speaking _ex cathedra_, we will not
now occupy ourselves. But the opinion of those who believe the
doctrine to be true, but its definition to be inopportune deserves
full and considerate examination.”

That the doctrine is opportune, said Manning, followed at once from the fact that it was true. God has revealed it. “Can it be permitted to us to think that what He has thought it opportune to reveal, it is not opportune for us to declare?” If it be said that many revealed truths are not defined, Manning answers, Yes, but “this revealed truth has been denied.” “If the Infallibility of the visible Head of the Church had never been denied, it might not have been necessary to define it now.” Thus the prospect of a coming definition is held _in terrorem_ over the heads of any who do not silently acquiesce in the doctrine being taught. Manning could scarcely ignore the fact that this denial of Infallibility was no new thing in the Roman Church. His answer to this is equally significant.

“We are told by objectors that the denial is far more ancient
and widespread: that only makes the definition all the more
necessary.”[214] “In England, some Catholics are stunned and
frightened by the pretentious assumption of patristic learning and
historical criticism of anonymous writers, until they doubt, or
shrink in false shame from believing a truth for which their fathers
died.”[215]

[214] _Pastoral_ (1867), p. 40.

[215] _Ibid._ p. 41.

One would like to know how this sounded to the old Catholic families of England, to Bishops such as Errington or Clifford, to those whose fathers had assured the English Government on oath that Papal Infallibility formed no part of the faith of Catholics.

Manning indeed saw a host of practical reasons why the inerrancy doctrine should be decreed: because this truth has been denied; because, if not decreed, the error will henceforward appear to be tolerated, or at least left in impunity; because this denial of what Manning called “the traditional belief of the Church” was an organised opposition to the prerogatives of the Holy See; “because it is needed to place the Pontifical Acts of the last 300 years, both in declaring the truth, as in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and in condemning errors, as in the long series of propositions condemned in ... Jansen and others, beyond cavil or question”; because it was openly said that the pastors of the Church are not unanimous, therefore “it is of the highest moment to expose and extinguish this false allegation, so boldly and invidiously made by heretics and schismatics of every name.”

The dogma was necessary also to justify the believer’s attitude toward the Pope. Faith, argued Manning, requires the Infallibility of the teacher of truth. If the teacher be fallible, our certainty cannot be Divine. If the Pope be fallible, we cannot be certain that the doctrines propounded by him--the Immaculate Conception, for instance--are of faith. “The treatise of Divine Faith is therefore incomplete so long as the Infallibility of the proponent is not fully defined.”

Thus a theoretical system requires completion which nothing but this dogma can give; for which, therefore, this dogma must be created. Moreover, Manning scorns what he calls “the incoherence of admitting a supremacy and denying its infallible action.” We have here a reminiscence of De Maistre. There is the same theorising tendency. Two dominant ideas are found throughout. The one, that the doctrine is required to secure the completion of an _à priori_ view. The other, that it will be practically a singularly useful asset. Therefore we must have it. It is not the theologian, it is the ecclesiastical statesman who speaks in this. The centralisation of power, concentrated in one supreme individual, easily accessible, prompt to reply, was Manning’s ideal. He contrasted it with the slow, deliberate method of Universal Assemblies. Errors would have time to spread, with fearful rapidity, before this heavy machinery could be brought effectively into operation. Statesmen would frustrate its assembling. If the Pope be personally infallible, apart from the Episcopate, “why,” asks Manning quite naturally,

“why is he bound to take a means which demands an Ecumenical Council,
or a world-wide and protracted interrogation, with all the delays and
uncertainties of correspondence, when, by the Divine order, a certain
means in the Apostolic See is always at hand?”

Assertion--vigorous, uncompromising, sweeping--was not only the bent of Manning’s disposition; it was also cultivated on principle. What the English people wanted, according to the Archbishop of Westminster, was neither compromise nor accommodation. “Downright truth, boldly and broadly stated, like the ring of true metal, wins their confidence.” When Gladstone described him as “the oracle,” Manning replied, “He shall not find me ambiguous.” Thus he prided himself on the quality of aggressive speech. Among his favourite phrases is the term--“it is certain.” Six times in one page, applied to all manner of things--historical interpretations, future probabilities, indiscriminately. No shade of distinction exists. There might be no such thing conceivable as hesitation in the universe. He seems to grow, if possible, increasingly sharp, incisive, uncompromising, as his words speed on.

“The Ultramontane opinion is simply this, that the Pontiff, speaking
_ex cathedra_ on faith or morals, is infallible. In this there are no
shades or moderations. It is simply aye or no.”

Of qualifications, of restrictions, nothing is said. It is all sweepingly universal. Yet with all his heart, he says, he desires to find a mode of conciliation--“but not a _via media_ which is the essential method of falsehood.” Of the philosophic temper, the balancing of opposing truths, the holding truths unreconciled, through faith in their ultimate yet hitherto undiscovered synthesis, there is not a shadow in these amazing Pastorals.

Nothing can surpass the confidence with which Manning expressed his ideas of the work which the Council would effect.

“It is certain that upon a multitude of minds who are wavering and
doubtful ... the voice of a General Council will have great power.
The Council of Trent,” he tells us, “fixed the epoch after which
Protestantism never spread. The next General Council will probably
date the period of its dissolution.”[216]

[216] _Pastoral_ (1867), p. 90.

Not less singular, especially when read in the light of Manning’s incessant polemical correspondence on the doctrine, is the picture which he has drawn of the state of the Roman Church in this crisis.

There is universal excitement, he says, in the outer world, caused by the assembling of the Council at Rome; “not, indeed, within the unity of the Catholic Church, where all is calm in the strength of quiet and of confidence, but outside in the political and religious world”--the calm of the _Dublin Review_, for instance, and the passionate rhetoric of Ward.

Manning further predicts that if this doctrine were defined, it would be at once received throughout the world with “universal joy and unanimity.” Nothing can prove more clearly than these words how completely the theory with which he was identified fired his imagination, and warped his judgment.

Manning entirely failed to carry the English Romanists with him. The English Bishops at Rome elected Grant, not Manning, as their candidate for the Commission of Faith. And the Archbishop was adopted by the Italians. He complained of his English colleagues, that “of those who ought to have defended Infallibility not one spoke. The laity were averse and impatient They would not read.”[217] Some, however, did read, among them Lord Acton, who characterised those Pastorals as “elaborate absurdities.” They were read also by De Lisle, who was amazed at Manning’s theory on the case of Honorius.

[217] Purcell, ii. p. 454.

“Archbishop Manning denies that Honorius fell into heresy, but in
denying this he appears to me to injure the Catholic cause, for
he denies history, and what is worse, sets himself up against a
General Council which is universally received, and which in this very
particular was solemnly confirmed by Pope Leo II., Honorius’s next
successor but one.”[218]

[218] _Life of De Lisle_, ii. p. 73.

Most significant is the contrast of type between Manning and Newman within the Communion of Rome.

“Manning,” says Thureau Dangin, “like other converts in the ardour
of their new faith, and in reaction against the Protestant spirit
from which he had escaped, considered that he could not go too far in
conceptions designated ‘Ultramontane.’ The personal attractiveness
of Pius IX., who manifested a fatherly confidence in him, the
authority which thus accrued to him in the government of the Church,
the storm of controversy before and after the Vatican Council--all
confirmed him in this attitude. He was more concerned to extend
Infallibility than to determine its limits. He seemed to make it
a duty of conscience and a point of honour to offend the English
Catholics by presenting in uncompromising terms precisely those
features of Italian doctrine which scandalised them most. He was well
aware of his unpopularity, and consoled himself with an application
of the text, If I pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ.”

However, Manning pleased men, at least in Rome, where the larger sympathies of Newman were most distasteful, and where a hardy official went so far as to describe him as more Anglican than the Anglicans, and the most dangerous man in England.

Meanwhile Manning is found denouncing the English Jesuits to Rome as sympathisers with a watered version of Catholicism. Thus the Roman Catholics in England were being thoroughly schooled in Ultramontanism, and the Jesuits themselves Romanised by a convert from another Church.

The conclusions to which our investigations lead are: that the Roman Communion in England during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was Catholic in sentiment as opposed to Ultramontane; that the process of change was wrought by Italian influence, imposing Italianised Bishops upon a reluctant community, and by the suppression of the organs of independent thought, especially those which did not revise the facts of history in the interests of edification; that this conversion of the Roman body to Ultramontane ideas necessitated a rewriting of the English Roman literature, which was done on a very extensive scale, and constantly without any acknowledgment of the changes introduced into the author’s opinions; that this process of infiltration was vigorously resisted, and continued incomplete down to the Council of 1870, in which Irish and English Bishops openly opposed the theories of papal prerogatives which their Italianised rulers had laboured to force upon them.