_Rome, Jan. 15, 1870._—On Sunday last the Pope gave audience to a great
crowd of visitors,—some 700 or 1000, it is said,—at once, and took
occasion to express before them his displeasure at the Opposition Bishops.
He said there were some Prelates who lacked the temper of perfect faith,
and hence arose difficulties, which however he, the Pope, should know how
to overcome. In Church matters no attention was to be paid to the judgment
of the world, as he himself despised it, for the Church’s kingdom is not
of this world. It has hitherto of course been held in the Church that the
judgment of the world—that is, of their flocks, who constitute their own
immediate world—is exactly what the Bishops ought to attend to very much,
and to avoid giving offence to them and perplexing their consciences in
matters of religion.
The prohibition to hold large episcopal meetings, communicated to the
French Bishops only through Cardinal Bonnechose, is not obeyed either by
the French or Germans, who continue to take counsel together. The united
Germans and Hungarians have accepted in substance an address drawn up by
Cardinal Rauscher, and on Sunday, January 9, bound themselves by a
reciprocal obligation, with forty-three signatures, to vote against and
combat in all conciliar methods the erection of Papal Infallibility into a
dogma. The Austrian Prelates stand foremost in clearness, decision, and
courage. Rauscher, Schwarzenberg, Haynald, and Strossmayer know what they
want, are full of true love for the Church, understand the greatness of
the danger, and are perfectly aware that no positive gain, nor any of the
important reforms so urgently needed, can be expected from this
Council—the Spanish and Italian phalanx is too strong and impenetrable for
that,—but they hope, at least, by energetic resistance to ward off
positive mischief from the Church.
The French on their part are active; Cardinal Mathieu, who returned to
Rome, January 5, has opened a saloon in his house for the deliberations.
Next to Dupanloup, Bishop Place of Marseilles, Meignan of Châlons,
Landriot of Rheims, and Ginoulhiac of Grenoble, speak most decidedly.
There are some thirty-five like-minded with them, and the inopportunists
among them and the Germans are gradually coming to perceive that their
position is quite untenable, and that to persist in treating Infallibility
as a mere question of time and convenience, is to give their adversaries a
safe and easy victory. But the Germans are further advanced in this
conviction than the French. The now famous Infallibilist Address seems to
have been simultaneously hawked about from two quarters, viz., by the trio
of Manning, Deschamps, and Spalding, and by Martin and Senestrey. Who
composed it, and how many Bishops have signed it, is still uncertain; the
movement has come to a dead-lock, perhaps because the Spaniards, who talk
of presenting an address of their own, don’t want to sign it. Several
Italians too refused to sign, and so the result has not been as
satisfactory as was hoped, although it can hardly be doubted that the
dogma will have 450 or 500 votes when it is laid before the Council.
It is a characteristic feature of the case, that throughout Italy prayers
are offered in all the monastic communities still surviving, and in all
zealously Catholic families, for the definition of the new dogma. The fact
is mentioned in English journals, and I have heard it confirmed here. It
reveals the patriotic feeling, that Papal Infallibility is an Italian
possession more or less profitable to every member of the nation. “The
Pope,” as one hears it said here, “will always feel and think above all as
an Italian; his decrees are manufactured by a Court nine-tenths of whom,
at least, are Italians, and with his infallibility under our management,
we Italians shall be able to dominate and make capital out of all other
nations, in so far as they desire to be Catholic.” The Italian is
generally a good calculator. However, Italian priests and prelates feel
and know right well what every nation and national Church owes to itself.
If the Papacy belonged to any other nation, the Italians would never dream
for a moment of acknowledging the system of Papal absolutism with its
grand prop of Papal Infallibility. One soon observes, in conversing with
these Monsignori, how they despise in their hearts the French and German
Ultramontane Bishops, while at the same time admitting the correctness of
their views, and praising them liberally for rolling in the dust before
the infallible _Curia_, and crying out to the Romans, as that orator
Ekebolius cried out to the Emperor Julian, “Only trample us under your
feet, the salt that has lost its savour.”
Thirty-five German Bishops have declared at the beginning, that they are
ready to subscribe the above-mentioned counter address against the dogma
of Infallibility, pretty fully expressed in the form of a petition to the
Pope, and among them are included those who were before of opinion that
they had sufficiently discharged their duty by the letter they sent to him
from Fulda. This is a praiseworthy example of harmony, but at the same
time the greatness of the danger, which has now become evident to even the
most trustful mind, is shown by the fact that all present at the
consultation on this address bound themselves in writing to subscribe it.
It is needless to say that the Tyrolese and the pupils of the Jesuits,
with Bishop Martin, held aloof from the meeting.
Another proof was given on this occasion of the very different measure
dealt to the two parties. The Infallibilist Address was at once printed,
though everything else here has first to undergo the most rigorous
censorship. The Roman censors would, of course, have refused their
_imprimatur_ to the counter address, and there was some scruple felt about
printing it out of the country, as though by an evasion of the Papal laws,
and so it cannot be printed at all. Even Bishop Dupanloup has been refused
permission to print his answer to Deschamps. The address will probably be
subscribed by the Bishops of each nation in separate batches, so that
there will be five addresses, coinciding in substance. Forty-seven Germans
and Hungarians are reckoned on—so many have subscribed already—and
thirty-five French. The Anglo-Americans have somewhat altered the wording
of the address, and say they can command twenty-five signatures. But what
is most remarkable is, that a considerable section of the North-Italian
Bishops from Piedmont and Lombardy now come out as opponents of
Infallibilism, and give promise of twenty-five signatures for the counter
address. The decisive point with them is their relation to the Italian
nation and government, for the Infallibilist dogma must inevitably lead to
a hopelessly incurable rupture between it and the Church. To these must be
added six Irish and four Portuguese, making in all an Opposition of from
140 to 150 votes.
The great question daily mooted in the Vatican is now, how Infallibility
can be erected into a dogma in spite of the resistance of the Opposition
minority, for there is no longer any illusion as to an obstinate residue
of anti-Infallibilist protesters being sure to be left, after allowing for
the fullest effects of all the alluring seductions used. Precedents are
sought for in the history of Councils where the majority has passed
decrees according to its own will, without regard to the opposite
representations and negative votes of the minority. But no such precedents
are to be found. At all Councils from Nice downwards the dogmatic decrees
have always been passed only with entire or approximate unanimity. Even at
Trent, where the Italians, commanded from Rome through the legates,
dominated everything, many very important decrees were abandoned after
being drawn up, as soon as a few Bishops only had pronounced against them.
If only this fatal precedent of the Tridentine Synod could be got rid of!
The Jesuits investigate and refine, but, unluckily for them, one of their
own body, Father Matignon, in 1868, when an Opposition was still believed
to be impossible, himself established the fact, and justified it on
doctrinal grounds;(36) and that is made use of now. So there is nothing
left but to labour indefatigably for the conversion of opponents. But
people in Rome seem not to know “qu’on ne prend pas les mouches avec du
vinaigre;” and that methods of coercion, intimidation, and discrediting
character, are not quite the most effectual means, psychologically, for
converting adverse Bishops, is clear from the tone again and again
manifested in the speeches on the _Schema_, which has gained conspicuously
in sharpness and explicitness. On January 10, a Northern Prelate,
distinguished for gentleness and refinement, but accustomed to
parliamentary contests, said he had been obliged to speak in the vigorous
style usual in his own country of the entire absence of real freedom in
the Council, for the insolence of the other party was becoming daily more
intolerable.