_Rome, Feb. 5._—On reviewing the situation, I believe I may venture to say
that it has become better, far better, than it was a few weeks ago. For
this the Christian world is mainly indebted to the noble, dignified and
united attitude of the German and Hungarian Bishops. These men,—I speak of
course only of the majority of the forty-six—while taking frequent and
most conscientious consultation with one another, and knowing the three
German Cardinals to be in substantial agreement with them, have gained
almost daily in clearness of view, confidence and decision; and their
example, again, has encouraged the Bishops of other nations. If, as many
fear, Ketteler should, at the critical moment, go over to the Papal side,
and let his sympathy for the convenient Infallibilist doctrine get the
better of his love for the German Church and nation, his loss will be more
than made up by forces newly gained. Hefele, who is the first living
authority about Councils, has signed the Opposition address, and would, I
believe, have still more gladly signed a stronger one. Three Cardinals of
one nation who don’t want to have anything to do with Papal Infallibility!
“It is an unheard-of, an abominable thing,” say the Romans. “O that we
still had Reisach! his loss is bitter at so critical a moment, and that we
should have to console ourselves for his death by the living voices of
Martin, Senestrey, Leonrod and Stahl, is still bitterer!”
The Hungarians are greatly influenced by knowing that they would find
themselves isolated in their own country, if they, the representatives of
ecclesiastical reform, were to return from Rome conquered, and as forced
believers in Papal Infallibility and the complete system of ecclesiastical
despotism. Their position is one of close union, and by its union is
imposing; whereas the fifteen or sixteen Bishops of Austrian Germany are
somewhat weakened by the desertion of Martin and the three Bavarians and
the approaching apostasy of Ketteler, who is already preparing the way for
it in the _Mainzer Journal_. From thence, as I perceive, has the falsehood
gained currency, that the Opposition are ready to accept Spalding’s
(professedly) modified proposals, and thus to acknowledge Infallibility in
its grossest form and vote the whole third _Schema_—that Magna Charta of
ecclesiastical absolutism—absolutely and without any change. That would
indeed be a catastrophe almost without precedent in Church history. We
should have to assume that the Opposition Bishops had resolved to verify
in their own case Mazarin’s saying about Parliaments, that their policy is
always to say “No,” and act “Yes.” Ketteler, moreover, has special grounds
of his own for gaining or preserving the particular favour of the Pope;
for remembering his retirement from the candidature for the Archbishopric
of Cologne, he might effect the abolition of the compact of Rome with the
Governments, which secures a veto to the latter, and the introduction of
either entirely free elections with Papal confirmation, or, still better,
of simple nomination of Bishops by the Pope. He has spoken in Congregation
in this sense, and was of course cheered by the Infallibilists.
No less strong and dignified is the attitude of half the French Bishops,
who have attached themselves to men like Darboy, Dupanloup, Landriot of
Rheims, Meignan of Châlons and Ginoulhiac of Grenoble. On the other side,
there are about twenty decided Infallibilists, while the rest of the
French Bishops wait or avoid speaking out. The party of Darboy and
Dupanloup have the double advantage of being supported by their
Government—while the Austrian ministry assumes a wholly apathetic and
indifferent position,—and of belonging to the nation whose troops make the
Council and the civil Government of the Pope possible, and whose Bishops
therefore the _Curia_ is obliged to treat with respect. A French Bishop
can say a good deal without, as a rule, having to fear being called to
order by the Legate’s bell.
The North American Bishops too are being gradually educated to
ecclesiastical maturity in the school of Rome and the Council, and have
already grown out of that naïve belief in the disinterested generosity and
superhuman wisdom of the _Curia_ which most of them brought here. To-day
the Pope paid them a visit at the American College, conversed in a
friendly way with the Bishops individually, said obliging things, and, in
a word, displayed those well-known powers of fascination he has such a
command of. “A month ago this would have taken effect,” said an American
priest who was present, “but now it comes too late.” He also assured me
that not five of the forty-five American Bishops would sign the
Infallibilist Petition or vote for the dogma.
I have heard many, and especially French, Prelates say, during the last
few days, sometimes in obscure hints, sometimes clearly, that the Council
will soon—in a few weeks—be closed or dissolved; an opinion all the more
surprising, because nothing as yet has been done. In that case the Bull
with the many Excommunications will have to be treated as issuing from the
Council.(43) But the only relation of the Bishops to that Bull is as the
suffering and punished party.
The third Solemn Session was to have been held on February 2, but had
again to fall through from the want of any materials. And there are still
mountains of work and numbers of elaborate _Schemata_ awaiting the
Council; for the decrees it is summoned to make, or rather which Pius IX.
intends to proclaim to the world, “with the approbation of the Council,”
are to be veritable pandects embracing the entire doctrine and
constitution of the Church, regulating all relations between Church and
State, and restoring the Papal supremacy over the bodies and souls of all
men. The domain of morals, properly so called, is alone excluded; for
there the Jesuits have good reasons for wishing to keep their hands free.
In short, the projected work that still remains to be done would occupy at
least a year and a half. And for this end everything has been chosen and
sharpened into the form of canons, which can only introduce complications,
provoke conflicts with the civil Governments, embitter the relations of
rival Confessions, prejudice the position of the Bishops, and foster the
hatred of the lay world against the clergy. And accordingly, with many
Bishops, the wish to escape taking any part in these discussions may be
father to the thought, and a speedy end of the Council may appear to them
a sort of conciliar euthanasia. To many a Bishop has the old proverb
already occurred, in reference to the Council, that the best thing would
be not to have been born and the next best to die early. It is not the
Swiss only who have a home-sickness. And then there is the treatment; I
heard a French Count here say to-day, “On les traite d’une manière
brutale.”
I have just received the last number of the Paris _Correspondant_, with
its article by the Viscount of Meaux, Montalembert’s son-in-law, who is
here. His account of how the Council is treated is so much to the point,
and so thoroughly confirms my own statements, that I will quote it for
you.
“The _Schemata_,” he says, at p. 347, “are prepared beforehand, the order
of business is imposed by authority (_imposée_), the Commissions are
elected before any consultation, from official lists, by a disciplined
majority which votes as one man. On these Commissions the minority is not
represented, and there are no other deliberations except in Congregation.
Before these Congregations the subjects are brought in all their novelty
and laid before the 700 members, without any previous explanations. It is
difficult to understand the speeches, and there are no reports which the
Fathers can inspect, so that no Bishops have the opportunity of submitting
their thoughts to the deliberate examination of their colleagues.
Moreover, they are forbidden to have anything printed here for the
Council. All these characteristics indicate an assembly summoned to
approve, not to discuss, intended to exalt, not to moderate, the power
which has summoned it. And with what haste does it push on in this
direction! How impatiently does the majority press for a declaration of
Papal Infallibility!” So far the Viscount. Matters must indeed have come
to a pass when so cautious and strictly Catholic a journal as the
_Correspondant_ presents its readers with this picture of the Council.
There are two serious dangers to which we are always exposed. The first I
have already spoken of, which is introducing the plan of passing the
_Schemata_ by majorities, so that the desired dogma would be carried as it
were by assault. The second danger—and it seems to me far more
threatening—is that one of those involved and disguised formulas which the
Infallibilists vie with one another in devising, in order to deceive and
catch the votes of the less sharp-sighted Prelates and thus incorporate it
into the third _Schema_, may really succeed with the greater number of the
hitherto opposing and protesting Bishops. This notion is in fact implied
in the phrase one has heard so often, that a middle party must be formed
among the Bishops; for the programme or shibboleth of this middle party is
to be an elastic formula, or one only expressing the thing metaphorically,
or, again, one not sharply dogmatic but rather pious and edifying in
sound. By the help of this middle party the formula might be made
acceptable to the rest of the Prelates, and the desired end be happily
attained. Thus Mermillod and two others have to-day invented a phrase,
which seems to them suited to square the circle and to satisfy and unite
all. They say they wish to declare that the Pope, whenever he speaks on
doctrine, speaks _tanquam os et organum Ecclesiæ_. And by this they
understand that the Church has no other mouth than him and without him is
dumb, from which it obviously follows that he is infallible. I doubt if
many Bishops will be detained in the meshes of a net so coarsely spun. No
better is the formula invented by Spalding, which might be called a pretty
downright one,—that everybody must inwardly assent to every doctrinal
decision of the Pope on pain of everlasting damnation.(44) That goes far
beyond even the Manning-Deschamps Address, which limits his infallibility
to decrees addressed to the whole Church, while this formula of Spalding’s
declares every conceivable Papal utterance (_judicium_) infallible; for a
Christian can only give the assent of inward belief, when there is no
possibility of error and when there is a really divine authority and
revelation. Every theologian must declare this invention of the Archbishop
of Baltimore’s to be the most monstrous demand ever made on the conscience
and understanding of the Catholic world. It is as if a courtier at Teheran
were to say, “I will not indeed affirm that our Shah is almighty, but I do
assert confidently that he can create out of nothing whatever he will and
that his will is always accomplished.” The reverend Fathers who torment
themselves with inventing such devices would perhaps do best if they were
to make a collection among themselves, and offer a prize of 100 ducats for
that form of circumlocution or involution most securely adapted for
entrapping the innocent souls of Bishops. Then the most ingenious heads
from all Europe would compete in sending in their suggestions, and the
right bait might be discovered among them.