Chapter II

Threat of American Prelates--Acclamation again fails--New Protest--Decrees on Dogma--Ingenious connexion of Creation with the Curia--Serious Allegations of Unfair and Irregular Proceedings of the Officials--Fears at the Opening of the New Session--The Three Devotions of Rome--More Hatred of Constitutions--Noisy Sitting; Strossmayer put down--The Pope's Comments--He compares the Opposition to Pilate and to the Freemasons--He is reconciled to Mérode--The Idea of Charlemagne--Secret Change of a Formula before the Vote.

"That took effect," wrote Quirinus, for once, in noting a step of members of the minority. The step so spoken of was a simple one. Four American prelates sent in a declaration that if any attempt was made to carry infallibility by acclamation, as had been suggested, they would leave the Council, go home, and publish their reasons for so doing.

Whether this proceeding alone, or this together with other indications, influenced the majority, certain it is that when the General Congregations were resumed, on March 18, there was no acclamation. St. Joseph did not avail more for his day than the Immaculate had done for hers. All that we hear of any attempt to provoke an acclamation is the statement of Vitelleschi that one prelate tried to get infallibility carried "by chance," but received countenance only from very few. The minority gave in their protest against the new Rules to the Presiding Cardinals. We need not say that neither then nor at any later time did they receive an answer. The business now placed before the Fathers was the Draft of Decrees on Dogma as revised. The eighteen chapters had, under the hands of the committee, the sub-committee, and Kleutgen, shrunk to four. Even as they now stood, the chapters had to undergo considerable alteration before taking the shape in which they appear upon the _Acta_. As they stand there, they are not at first sight capable of interesting the theologian for their theology, or the politician for their bearing on politics. At the time, they led many to wonder why grave men should have spent years in formulating rudimentary principles, and that not very successfully. The alleged reason was that everything being wrong in the ideas of the age, the Church must commence by asserting the existence of a God, and the fact that He had created the world. An attempt was made to throw some dignity about this proceeding by quoting a prophecy of some saint, to the effect that an age would come when a General Council would have to do this. On the other hand, as Vitelleschi shows, Roman wit said that really, after sitting four months and a half, the Vatican Council would vote almost unanimously that God created the world. Friedrich, however, saw that the Curial system was insinuated in these Decrees, but it took a theologian to discern it, and one who was not a mere theologian. Yet when it was pointed out there could be no doubt of the fact. The simple headings, "God, the Creator of the World," "Revelation," "Faith," and "Faith and Reason," would to Protestant eyes seem very unlikely to cover any such purpose. Nevertheless, they are made to serve the purpose of laying a foundation for the dominion of the Church, over all science and knowledge, for the dominion of the Pope, ay, even that of the Roman Congregations, over the Church, and for the lifting of men out of civil control into the higher sphere of Christian liberty, or, as the world would call it, for placing them under the dominion of ecclesiastical law. The process by which this is done is simple, and had been clearly indicated in the officious expositions of those judgments of the Syllabus which condemned "naturalism." First, God, as a personal Being, exists, has created the world, and rules it. Secondly, He gives a revelation by which man is raised above natural knowledge and perfection to a higher knowledge and perfection. Thirdly, this revelation is a deposit committed to the Church, which holds in charge the Word of God, _written and traditional_; and all things are to be believed which she propounds as divinely revealed, whether they are propounded by solemn judgment, or by the ordinary teaching authority. Hence, naturally, all science must be held subject to this faith, and therefore subject to this Church; and _all things condemned in the Decrees of the Holy See_ are to be held as anathema, even though not specified in the present Decrees.

The four chapters containing these principles would not fix the attention of any student if he took them up in a village of the Campagna or of Connaught as the work of the priest of the parish. He would be tempted to doubt whether the worthy man who faced Atheism and Pantheism with these weapons had ever really met with them face to face in either their ancient or modern forms. He might even be tempted to think that the intellectual life of the author had been passed within walls, and that so far as concerns the books and the minds which really sway contemporary thought in either of the directions indicated, he had scarcely ever felt their grip. But when we look at this document as the work of a great society, on the preparation of which had been employed the leisure of years by a few, and then the united counsels of a large yet elect number, it certainly does not exalt our idea of human gifts. But it is not well to let the critical contempt which German scholars especially have displayed for the Drafts while under discussion, and for the Decrees when ultimately framed, blind us to the practical success of this late but adroit creed. For the purpose of laying a colourable theological basis under a municipal arrangement for governing mind and knowledge, belief and morals, laws and institutions all over the world, by a college of Augurs called Christian priests, it was not a mere superfluity of the professors, as many seemed to think. Sambin, Guérin, and other writers, not to mention prelates in abundance, struck a note, which is now taken up in colleges, seminaries, and schools. These compact chapters, being once exalted to the level of the Word of God, formed a short and easy method for connecting the Creator and the creation of the world with the last edict of the Vatican.

One of the startling statements in the secret memorandum, _La Liberté du Concile_, touches this Decree. A conclusion to it was proposed which to many appeared to include infallibility. This was strongly opposed. The committee withdrew it, saying that it would be reserved to the end of the final chapter on Faith. This step was applauded. The next day, or the next but one, however, the reporter announced that the vote upon it would be taken then and there. Eighty-three, in voting, demanded modifications; which, according to the Rules, compelled a consideration by the committee of the amendments they proposed. The committee finally resolved, with one dissentient, to substitute a new wording which would satisfy all. But when the moment came to vote, before the reporter mounted the pulpit, a communication was put into his hands. This attracted the attention of the Fathers. He mounted the pulpit, but did not report what the committee had adopted! He did report what it had set aside! The vote was instantly called for--no one could speak, the Rules did not allow it. The majority did its duty; and the wording, surreptitiously reported, was made "of Faith."[352]

Strong and circumstantial confirmation of this incredible statement is given in Kenrick's unspoken speech.[353] Incidentally he says, "The reporter, while we wondered what was the matter, suddenly recommended this conclusion, which had been first submitted and then withdrawn." This he says only on his way to tell Archbishop Manning that if the sense put by him upon this famous conclusion was the true one, the reporter was either himself deceived or had, knowingly, deceived the bishops. Deceiver or deceived, his declaration had won many votes. To get the clause passed, the reporter said it taught no doctrine, and was only a conclusion to round off the chapters. But when once passed, Manning cited it as concluding the question of infallibility, and making it improper for the bishops to discuss that question any longer.[354] Kenrick confesses that at the time he feared a trap. The writer of _La Liberté du Concile_ declares that if the liberty of the Council was doubtful, this incident proved the liberty of the committees to be more doubtful still.

The sitting was opened with evident anxiety on both sides. The minority feared the threatened attempt at acclamation; the majority feared that the minority would formally refuse to enter on deliberation under the new Rules. When, however, instead of action, the paper protest was given in, and the reporter for the committee, Simor, Primate of Hungary, had mounted the pulpit, and things had resumed their course, the majority were evidently relieved. They knew that the minority had now committed themselves to the new Rules; and that, however they might recalcitrate hereafter, they would no more be able to shake off the meshes of the net than they had been in the past to shake off those of the old Rules. Five speakers had inscribed their names. They were supporters of the committee. It proved that the acoustics of the Hall had really been improved by a boarded partition which had been substituted for the curtain. When three had spoken the bell of the President rang, and the speaker then in possession was stopped. The Pope was descending to view the sacred relics, and the Fathers had to break up to form a procession in his train. Not one of them had been called to swell that train in the morning when he went, not to see and to be seen, but to the mass for "a certain Charles." At the close of this anxious sitting Bishop Pie congratulated Cardinal Bilio, "It has gone off well." So it had; the minority were now fairly enclosed in the net.

M. Veuillot cries, "There are three great devotions in Rome: the Holy Sacrament, the Holy Virgin, and the Pope. Rome is the city of the Real Presence, and the city of the Mother of God, and the city of the Vicar of Jesus Christ."[355] That saying sheds a clear light on the effect of materializing and localizing the idea of the _divine presence_ by such notions as that of transubstantiation. The show of constitutional reforms just then being made in Paris by Napoleon III, contrasting as it did with what was being done in Rome, naturally disgusted M. Veuillot. He said that the title of Emperor now seemed grotesque. It was sad to witness the crown turned into a curiosity of the museum, or an accessory of the theatre. This was his idea of a constitutional crown. He consoled himself, however, by the thought that the tiara remained to us. Happily it was more solid than the crown. Pius IX., he said, would bequeath it to his successor more brilliant and more indestructible. Scandal of the world! kingdoms everywhere and no kings! Here is a king, but no kingdom! Let Liberals come to the Vatican and attempt to take liberties with the constitution. Let even universal suffrage attempt it; let it try to make any change here in which the guardian of the constitution does not concur.[356]

The noisy sitting of March 22 has had its echoes all over the world. The contradictions given by inspired writers to the uninspired ones appear to be even less definite than usual. We may content ourselves with giving that of Cardinal Manning as the sum of them all:--

Having from my earliest remembrance been a witness of public
assemblies of all kinds, and especially of those among ourselves,
which for gravity and dignity are supposed to exceed all others,
I am able and bound to say that I have never seen such calmness,
self-respect, mutual forbearance, courtesy, and self-control, as
in the eighty-nine sessions of the Vatican Council. In a period
of nine months the Cardinal President was compelled to recall
the speakers to order perhaps twelve or fourteen times. In any
other assembly they would have been inexorably recalled to the
question sevenfold oftener and sooner. Nothing could exceed the
consideration and respect with which this duty was discharged.
Occasionally murmurs of dissent were audible; now and then a
comment may have been made aloud. In a very few instances, and
those happily of an exceptional kind, expressions of strong
disapproval and of exhausted patience at length escaped. But the
descriptions of violence, outcries, menace, denunciation, and even
of personal collisions, with which certain newspapers deceived the
world, I can affirm to be calumnious falsehoods, fabricated to
bring the Council into odium and contempt.[357]

_La Liberté du Concile_ confirms that portion of this statement which says that the speakers were often allowed to deliver irrelevant matter, when, in other assemblies, they would have been called back to the question. It says that no bishop of the majority could be named who was ever interrupted, although some of them strayed from the question so far that, in the first stages of the proceedings, they rushed into the question of infallibility.[358]

The first speaker in the celebrated sitting of March 22, was Schwarzenberg. He was not favourable to the Curia, their proceedings, or their plans. He had not felt an impression in the Congregations as if a Council was being held. At last the terrible bell was heard. It was faint, but it was certainly sounding. What! a Cardinal rung down?--and Schwarzenberg, with his princely rank, his historical name, his age, and his majestic presence! Even among the Cardinals, it is said, there was a slight murmur--a greater one among the bishops. But Schwarzenberg himself heard bravos for the President.[359] But the stately old man held his own.[360] After two other prelates had succeeded to the precarious honour in which the Prince Cardinal had been challenged, Strossmayer mounted the pulpit.

He attacked the statement contained in the Draft Decrees, that Protestantism was the source of the several forms of unbelief specified in that Draft. Strossmayer showed that the worst revolutions and the worst outbursts of infidelity had not been in Protestant countries, and that Catholics had not produced better refutations of atheism, pantheism, and materialism than had Protestants, while all were indebted to such men as Leibnitz and Guizot. The Senior President, Cardinal De Angelis, cried, "This is not a place to praise the Protestants"; and having got so far in Latin, he declined into some other tongue.[361] No, says Quirinus, it was not the place, being within some few hundred paces of the Inquisition. The excitement had now become great. Strossmayer proceeded, amid partial clapping of hands and general murmurs of disapproval, to demand how they meant to apply the principles embodied in the new Rules, of making a dogma by a majority. When he cried "That alone can be imposed on the faithful which has in its favour a moral unanimity of bishops," up rose Cardinal Capalti, rang the bell, and, in a voice anything but courteous, as Vitelleschi says, ordered the speaker to stop. Strossmayer replied that he was tired of being called to order, and of being thwarted at every point; that such proceedings were incompatible with freedom of debate, and that he protested.[362] Then burst out an uproar that alarmed all who were outside in the church. Strossmayer stood, lifted up his hands, and thrice cried solemnly, "I protest! I protest! I protest!" Some one shouted, "You protest against us, and we protest against you." As the Archbishops of Rheims afterwards related, one of the majority stood up and shouted to Strossmayer, "We all condemn thee!" Bishop Place, of Marseilles, cried, "I do not condemn thee." Some one called Strossmayer a cursed heretic. Some shook their fists, some crowded round the pulpit, some cried "Pius IX. for ever!" some cried, "The Cardinal Legates for ever!" and others, as Vitelleschi adds, made noises equally serious and serene. _La Liberté du Concile_ speaks of the unheard of violence, of the cries which rang through the basilica outside, and of the menaces of a large number who rushed to the tribunal and surrounded it.[363] Friedrich speaks of clenched fists, and of fears lest the prelates should tear one another's hair.

The people in the church interpreted the commotion each man according to his own mind. Some--and that wild interpretation is laid to the door of the English--thought the Garibaldians had attacked the Fathers; some, that the long looked for dogma had at last sprung, full armed, out of the head of the assembly, and that all the uproar was caused by alarm at the portent. These raised cries of "Long live the Infallible Pope!" The crowd pressed round the door of the Hall, and there was danger of a tumult in the church. The servants of the bishops tried to enter the Council Chamber, fearing that their masters were being harmed in the disturbance. But the _gendarme_, whom Vitelleschi calls the most effective instrument of every sort of infallibility, cleared off the throng, resisted only by the servants, who clung to the door in the hope of rescuing their masters.

An American bishop said, with some patriotic pride, "Now I know of an assembly rougher than our own Congress."[364] Archbishop Landriot, of Rheims, said he was quite in despair.[365] Even Ketteler said, "It is too bad, the way they handle us here. I do not know how we shall go back to our dioceses and exist there."[366] Namszanowski, the Prussian military bishop, said to Friedrich that he had told an Italian prelate, "Things are more respectably done with us in a meeting of shoemakers, than here in the Council." Going on to express his impression that the only hope for the Church was in the fall of the temporal power, and the assumption of control over patronage and Church affairs by a temporal government, which would get rid of the excessive number of clergy, he continued, "The most humiliating thing for us German bishops is, that here we are forced to learn that it is the Freemason and Liberal papers that are correct, and that our Catholic ones, if we must call them Catholic, _lie_, LIE."

The Pontiff soon made his voice heard as to the scene of this loud resounding Tuesday. On the following Friday he had the missionary bishops, numbering a hundred, assembled in the Sala Regia. There the pictures of St. Bartholomew, of Barbarossa, and of the League against the Turks, had time to suggest hopes of future triumph before the Pontiff made his appearance. No sooner had he done so, than all fell on their knees. He had gathered them for a practical purpose. The Dorcases of the Church had been making, not coats and aprons for the widows, but raiment rich and rare for the prelates, and costly attire for altars and images. It was to distribute these goodly garments that his Holiness had now convoked them, but, of course, the great thing was the speech. Pointing clearly to the Opposition, he said, "We are surrounded by great difficulties, for some, like Pilate when terrified by the Jews, are afraid to do right. They fear the revolution. Though knowing the truth, they sacrifice all to Cæsar, even the rights of the Holy See, and their attachment to the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Wretches! what a fault they commit! The warfare of bishops," he went on to say, "is to defend the truth with the Vicar of Christ. My children, do not forsake me. Attach yourselves to me. Be with me. Unite yourselves to the Vicar of Jesus Christ."

We follow the version of M. Veuillot (vol. i. p. 372). Vitelleschi reports one of the Pope's expressions as "Be united to me, and not with the revolution" (p. 129), and asks, Who could have imagined that the good bishops who had been all their lives fighting the revolution should now be accused of revolution? He adds, "Rulers who endeavour to degrade Strossmayer to the level of a Rochefort, not unfrequently reverse the intended result, and raise a Rochefort to the height of a Strossmayer" (p. 130).

"And you, my dear Orientals," said the Pope, "I have ornaments also for you, but not enough of them. I give you what I have." Then he tried to calm their fears, excited by recent collisions. He concluded by the supreme disclosure, "We have in the Council the organs of the Liberal party, whose word of command is to gain time by opposing everything, and to wear out the patience of the majority." The allusion of the Pope was understood. Bitter, indeed, was it for the bishops of the minority to find themselves thus stigmatized before all men by the sovereign. But the effect was practical. The day following, ten Orientals announced their adhesion to the denunciation of Gratry by the Archbishop of Strasburg. Presently, forty-three missionary bishops published their concurrence in the profound discovery of Bonjean, of Ceylon, that the dogma of infallibility would conduce to the conversion of Buddhists, Brahmans, Protestants, _and other difficult religionists of the East_.[367]

As the Pope went to St. Cross of Jerusalem for the _Agnus Dei_, M. Veuillot heard cries of "The Infallible Pope for ever!" and said that this was a reply to the objections raised about the heresy of Pope Honorius. Hefele had unpleasantly brought this heresy into notice in a Latin pamphlet, which he had been obliged to print at Naples. Of inopportune things, few had been more inopportune of late than the appearance in Paris of a new edition of the _Liber Diurnus_, by Rozière. This ancient monument, with its simple formula? and infallible evidence, enabled every one to lay his finger on the fact that for centuries Popes had on oath abjured the heresy of Pope Honorius. But M. Veuillot heard an answer to all this in the cries of "The Infallible Pope for ever!"

But of all that the Pope passed on his route to Holy Cross, that which most excited the imagination of M. Veuillot was the Holy Stair and the _triclinium_, where Charlemagne received the sword kneeling. Charlemagne, he says, ruled only long enough to indicate the place and form which he wished to give to his throne; but now, after a thousand years, his conception is one of the victorious apparitions.

When the world merits to re-enter on the path of unity, God will
raise up a man, or a people, which will be Charlemagne. This
Charlemagne, man or nation, will be seen here, at the Lateran,
kneeling before the Pope, returned from dungeons or from exile; and
the Pope will take the sceptre of the world off the altar, and put
it into his hands.[368]

M. Veuillot knows better than he here seems to know. Charlemagne's conception was that of Constantine over again--a State Church; and over a State Church Charlemagne reigned. The conception of Hildebrand, now to be acted out, was that of a Church State, for which any Charlemagne might conquer, but over which no second head should reign. Unity, as M. Veuillot well knew, was now to comprehend not only one _fold_, but also one _shepherd_. No more dualism! no more two-headed monsters! We had come to the dispensation of the spiritual David, Shepherd and King in one. It is, however, clear that the vision revealed to M. Veuillot, as in 1867, still disclosed a struggle to come before the victory; for his Pope, on taking his place as disposing of the sceptre of the world, comes back from dungeons or from exile. Moreover, Veuillot still smothers the poor kings in ambiguity. The new and final Charlemagne is to be a man _or a nation_.

The sittings which followed the stormy one were remarkably still; and it is said that Haynald and Whelan from Wheeling were allowed to say very strong things without interruption. It might be supposed that a short chapter on God the Creator of the World, could hardly give rise to a discussion on the Curial system; but when Rome set out to speak about the Creator, she first of all made mention of herself. The opening words of the chapter were, "The Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church." To this form exception was taken. One proposed that the word "Roman" should be omitted, which was, of course, offensive to the Curia, the municipal spirit always forcing into view the shibboleth, quite unconscious that it marred the show of universality. Indeed, it is asserted by many that the extreme Curialists wanted the words "Roman Church" alone, without Catholic. Others proposed that the word "Catholic" should stand before "Roman," or at least that a comma should be inserted between the two. It is a singular fact that a vote of the Council was actually taken on this question of the comma. On this great question of the comma the committee for once did not tell the majority how to vote. _La Liberté du Concile_ thinks that the majority voted for the comma. The numbers, however, were not reported in that sitting; and when the next one was opened, and all waited to hear on which side was the majority, lo! the reporter gets up, and, contrary to all rule, usage, and decency, quietly sets aside the vote as if it had never taken place; does not, indeed, mention it! He simply says that the committee has rejected the comma! Now the majority, knowing how it ought to vote, did its duty faithfully. So even about a tittle, in the literal sense, the writer of _La Liberté du Concile_ was highly incensed, contending that the rights of deliberation were ridden over roughshod. Finally, the phrase came out as "The Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church." Friedrich thinks that this phraseology compromises the claim to represent the Universal Church, and must be taken as only professing to represent the Roman Patriarchate.

Meantime the minority held anxious deliberations. They doubted whether they should not require a positive promise that no Decree touching faith should be carried by a majority, and whether if this was denied they should not refuse to take part in voting. They finally resolved that they would reserve their opposition, as completely as possible, for the all-important question of infallibility. They hoped by this means to secure the double end of showing a conciliatory disposition in everything in which they could give way with a good conscience, and of preventing a precedent from being established for carrying articles of faith by majorities. The last piece of strategy seemed specious. It, however, obviously laboured under the infirmity that they were all the time giving strength to the Rules which established the principle of majorities.

The preamble to the revised Draft of Decrees on Dogma contained not only the passage about Protestantism which Strossmayer had criticized, but also a clause suggested by the Bishop of Moulins, which virtually contained the doctrine of infallibility. This was strongly resisted by the minority, but all attempts to get it withdrawn had proved vain. In the sitting of the 26th, the order and method of voting, which was now for the first time to be put in practice, was fully read out. But before the vote was taken, a paper was sent in to the Presiding Cardinals, said to proceed from Bishop Clifford of Clifton. The Presidents left the Hall, and on their return to the surprise of all, the preamble, instead of being put to the vote, was withdrawn. When it reappeared, the objectionable passage about infallibility was removed, and the phrase as to Protestantism was moderated; and so the impending collision was averted. But the way of doing this showed that majority and minority were equally far from possessing the guarantees of legislative freedom. What would a powerful majority in our Parliament say if, after the clauses in a Bill had been settled in Committee, the Ministers should retire and decide on altering them, and without a word present them in a new form to the House for the final vote when no one could speak?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 352: _Doc._, i. 176.]

[Footnote 353: _Ibid._ i. 225.]

[Footnote 354: Kenrick's words are: Dixit verbis clarioribus, per illud nullam omnino doctrinam edoceri; sed eam quatuor capitibus ex quibus istud decretum compositum est imponi tanquam cis coronidem convenientem; eamque disciplinarem magis quam doctrinalem charactererem habere. Aut deceptus est ipse, si vera dixit Westmonasteriensis; aut nos sciens in errorem induxit, quod de viro tam ingenuo minime supponere licet. Utcumque fuerit ejus declarationi fidentes, plures suffragia sua isti decreto haud deneganda censuerunt ob istam clausulam; aliis, inter quos egomet, dolos parari metuentibus et aliorum voluntati hac in re ægre cedentibus.]

[Footnote 355: Vol. i. 389.]

[Footnote 356: Vol. i. p. 398 ff.]

[Footnote 357: _Pet. Priv._, iii. 27, 28.]

[Footnote 358: _Doc._, i. p. 172.]

[Footnote 359: _Tagebuch_, 277.]

[Footnote 360: _Lib. du Con._, Doc. i., p. 172.]

[Footnote 361: _Tagebuch_, 278.]

[Footnote 362: _Vitelleschi_, 128.]

[Footnote 363: _Doc._, i. p. 172.]

[Footnote 364: _Quirinus_, 388.]

[Footnote 365: _Tagebuch_, 278.]

[Footnote 366: _Ibid._ 278.]

[Footnote 367: _Ce Qui se Passe au Concile_, 163.]

[Footnote 368: Vol. i. p. 443.]