_Rome, Jan. 30, 1870._—A great deal has happened since my letter of
January 17. My last was exclusively devoted to the impression produced by
Strossmayer’s speech, and I must go back to several previous occurrences.
I will therefore enter directly on the most important facts of the last
few days. You have already heard from the telegrams that the Pope has
returned the addresses of the Opposition, of which there were several,
divided according to nationality. They will be at once handed over to the
Commission _de Fide_, composed of twenty-four members. These counter
addresses are subscribed by 137 Bishops, while 400 or 410 have signed the
first address in favour of the dogma. This document, I can now inform you
definitely, was the joint production of a committee consisting of Manning,
Deschamps, Spalding, the German Bishops Martin and Senestrey, Bishop
Canossa of Verona, Mermillod of Geneva, and perhaps one or two more. That
none of these gentlemen, or of the 400 signataries, have observed the
gross and palpable untruths and falsifications of which this composition
is made up, is marvellous, and justifies the most unfavourable inferences
as to the theological and historical cultivation of these Prelates. If the
names of the Bishops on either side are, not counted simply, but weighed,
and the fact is taken into account that the main strength of the
Infallibilist legion consists of the 300 Papal boarders who go through
thick and thin in singing to the tune of their entertainer—that all the
host of titular Bishops, with very few exceptions, and of the Romance
South Americans, who are even more ignorant than the Spaniards, are ranged
on the same side—and if we then compare the countries and dioceses
represented respectively by the 400 and the 137, we shall come to the
conclusion that the overwhelming preponderance in number of souls, in
intelligence, and in national importance, is wholly on the side of the 137
of the Opposition. It is besides affirmed now that the Address of the 400
was not really presented to the Pope at all, but withdrawn at the last
moment. If that is true, it must have been in consequence of a command or
hint from the Pope, either from his advisers even yet feeling ashamed of
exposing him by the reception of a document bristling with falsehoods, or
because they thought he could not in that case reject the hated counter
address, as he has done, without too glaring an exhibition of
partisanship. The Spaniards have drawn up an address of their own, which
harmonizes so well with the address of the 400, that Manning declared
himself quite ready to sign it.
The second important occurrence of the last few days is the treatment of
the Chaldean Patriarch, an aged man of seventy-eight. He had commissioned
another Bishop to deliver a speech he had composed, when translated into
Latin, in the Council, expressing his desire to preserve the ancient
_consuetudines_ of his Church and to lay a new compendium of them before
the assembly. He added, with indirect reference to the Infallibilist
dogma, a warning against innovations, which might destroy the Eastern
Church. The Pope at once ordered him to be summoned, he was to bring
nobody with him; only Valerga, whom the Pope has named Patriarch of
Jerusalem, one of the most devoted courtiers of the Vatican, was present
as interpreter. He found the Pope in a state of violent excitement,
trembling with passion, and after a great deal of vehement language he was
commanded either to resign his office on the spot, or renounce all the
prerogatives and privileges of his Church. His request for two days to
consider the matter was instantly refused, as also the request for leave
to consult his own suffragans then in Rome. Had he refused, he would
certainly have been incarcerated in a Roman prison; for it is notorious
that according to the Roman theory every cleric is the subject, not only
spiritually but bodily, of his absolute lord the Pope. So nothing was left
him but to subscribe one of the papers laid before him, and make his
renunciation.
The third recent circumstance to be mentioned is the confidential mission
of Lavigerie, Archbishop of Algiers, to Paris. I have spoken of this man
before as Bishop of Nancy, and forgot to add that he had been translated
to Algiers. He is to persuade the Emperor and the ministers Ollivier and
Daru to make no opposition to the passing of the Infallibilist dogma, and
to offer in return that the articles of the Syllabus on Church and State
shall be either dropped, or modified in their application to France. He of
course asserts that he has no mission of the kind, and is only going to
Paris about an educational question, just as Cardinal Mathieu professed to
have only gone to France to hold an ordination.(39) In Paris the
strangeness of the situation is remarked on, that the very State which
used always most vigorously to assert its independence against the
domineering pretensions of the Pope is now suffering, not only the
infallibility but the supreme dominion of the Pope, and his right of
interference in its political affairs, to be decreed under cover of its
bayonets. And in Rome it is understood that, if the French troops were
suddenly to disappear during the rejoicings and illuminations following on
the Infallibilist triumph, the situation might become very uncomfortable.
It is therefore thought that a couple of articles of the Syllabus might
the more easily be surrendered, as the shield of Infallibility would cover
the whole Syllabus, and no one could hinder an infallible Pope from taking
the first opportunity, in spite of all secret promises, of again utilizing
the principle now made into a dogma. The Roman clerics, whether high or
low, are unable to comprehend that not only the German but the Latin
nations feel so decided an antipathy to the domination of the priesthood
over civil and social life, and on that account only must resist the
Infallibilist theory, because it involves the doctrine that the Pope is to
encroach on the secular and political domain with commands and
punishments, the moment he can do so without too great prejudice to his
office and fear of humiliation. It seems so natural and obvious to a Roman
Monsignore or Abbate that the chief priest should rule also over monarchs
and nations in worldly matters; from youth up he has seen clergymen acting
as police-officers, criminal judges, and lottery collectors, and has no
other experience than of the parish priest, the Bishop, and the
Inquisition, interfering in the innermost concerns of family life, and the
“paternal government” often taking the shape of a strait-waistcoat; he
lives in a world where the confusion of the two powers is incarnated in
every college, congregation, and administrative office. Nowhere but in
Rome would it have been possible for Leo XII., with universal consent of
all the clergy, high and low, to re-introduce the Latin language into the
law courts after it had been abolished under the French occupation.
Lately, for the first time, a local priest, Leonardo Proja, in a work
published here, has openly expressed his confidence that the Council will
at once condemn the shocking error of setting aside the supreme dominion
of the Pope over the nations, even in civil matters (“vel in civilibus”)
as an invention of the Middle Ages.(40)
The Court of Rome and the Bishops are at present studying in a school of
mutual instruction. The _Curia_ studies the Bishops individually,
especially the more prominent among them, and watches for their weak
points and the ways of getting at them and making them pliable, and, above
all, of dissolving national ties. They don’t always manage matters
skilfully, for the want of all real freedom, the use of coercive measures,
and this apparatus of bolts and bars, cords and man-traps, by which the
Prelates are surrounded and threatened at every step in Council, by no
means produce a _couleur de rose_ state of feeling, and the contrast
between the title of Brother, which the Pope gives officially to every
Bishop, and his way of treating them all, both individually and
collectively, like so many schoolboys, is too glaring. Even the boasted
freedom of speech does not extend very far, for every Prelate speaks under
threat of interruption by the bell of the presiding Cardinal, directly he
says anything displeasing to Roman ears. On the other hand, the Bishops,
during their stay here of six or seven weeks, have learnt a good deal more
than the curialists, and many of them have really made immense advances,
before which the Romans would recoil with a shudder, if they could see how
things stand. A great many of these Prelates came here full of absolute
devotion to the Pope, and with great confidence in the integrity of the
_Curia_ and the purity of its motives. When they found themselves
oppressed and injured at home by its measures or decrees, they still
thought it was so much the better in the other branches of ecclesiastical
administration. But now, and here, scales have, as it were, fallen from
their eyes, and they are daily getting to understand more clearly the two
mighty levers of the gigantic machine. The dominant view in Roman clerical
circles here is, that the Church in its present condition needs, above all
things, greater centralization at Rome, the extension and deepening of
Papal powers, the removal of any limitations still standing in the way in
national Churches, and the increase of the revenues accruing from Papal
innovations. This it is the business of the Council to accomplish. When,
therefore, two Bishops lately attacked in their speeches the abuse of
expensive marriage dispensations, it was at once said, “Well, then, if any
change is made, what is to become of our Congregations and the revenues of
their members?”
The Bishops will return home poorer in their happy confidence, but richer
in such impressions and experiences. They will also carry back from Rome
with them a fuller knowledge of the Jesuit Order, its spirit and
tendencies. They now see clearly that the grand aim of the Order is to
establish at least one fortress in every diocese with a Papal garrison,
and to hold bishops, clergy, and people under complete subjection to Rome
and her commands. A French Bishop observed the other day, “If matters go
on in this way, we shall have even our holy water sent us ready-made from
Rome.” And the Jesuits’ business is to see that things do go on in this
way. The Bishops have now an opportunity of seeing through the tacit
compact, perfectly understood on both sides, between the _Curia_ and the
Order. The Pope accepts the Jesuit theology, and imposes it on the whole
Church, for which he requires to be infallible; the Jesuits labour in the
pulpit, the confessional, the schoolroom, and the press for the dominion
of the _Curia_ and the Romanizing of all Church life. One hand washes the
other, and the two parties say, “We serve, in order to rule.” So far the
relations of parties are clear enough, and result from the nature of the
case. It is less easy to define the attitude and disposition of the
Bishops towards each other.(41)