_Rome, Feb. 16, 1870._—The order of business is now to be altered, which
means that an end is to be put to the speeches. The Bishops are to hand in
their views, scruples and suggestions in writing to the Commission for
revising motions, which will use its own discretion as to noticing or
leaving unnoticed the proposals made with a view to their being submitted
to the Council. There will then, in place of a discussion, be a mere
voting, which individuals may give their reasons for, if they have
previously stated the particular point they wish to speak on and obtained
leave for it. And in the new order of business, the Pope’s right to make
and promulgate decrees on faith with a mere majority is said to be
emphatically laid down. When this and the anticipated and dreaded _Schema_
“On the Pope” are promulgated, we shall see what attitude the Bishops will
assume towards them. Both are now suspended like two swords over the heads
of the Fathers. All at last depends on whether the Opposition remains
compact, or crumbles to pieces under the efforts of the curialists.
If the general war required by the principles of the new _Schema_ against
modern systems and governments, which conflict in numberless cases with
the laws of the Church, is to be undertaken, the question arises, Where is
the army to carry it on, and what weapons are to be employed? No doubt the
trumpeters of the army are ready at hand, viz., the Jesuits of the
_Civiltà_ and the monastery of Laach, but it seems a doubtful look-out
about soldiers. The Jesuits, indeed, command at present a considerable
number of distinguished and wealthy females, but that will not go far in
the great contest against laws, parliaments and governments. The Pope
himself must principally supply the arms, which can only be the old ones
of excommunication, interdict and processes of the Inquisition.
Excommunication was formerly very effective, when the excommunicated could
be proceeded against as heretics after a twelve-month, but that is no
longer feasible. Interdict, too, is become a blunted instrument, which no
Pope has ventured to make use of since Paul V. succumbed in his battle
with Venice. The Inquisition only survives now for the 700,000 souls of
the present States of the Church. That drastic means of giving up
refractory populations _en masse_ to slavery and spoliation, as applied by
Clement V., Nicolas V., Julius II., and Paul III., cannot easily be
adopted now. So they will be content for the time with establishing the
principle, and must await more favourable circumstances for realizing it.
But the Bishops are between two fires: they are discredited with Rome,
because they must continue to acknowledge the civil laws, which are in
fact condemned; they are exposed with their Governments and people to the
constant suspicion of being on the watch for some political complication
to secure the triumph, at least in particular cases, of the ecclesiastical
principles recognised as valid at Rome—in other words, the Decretals—over
the laws of the State.
It seemed to me important to ascertain more precisely the attitude of the
Dominicans—who are still a powerful corporation, through their possessing
such influential offices as the Inquisition, Index, Mastership of the
Sacred Palace, etc.—towards Infallibilism. They have always been the
standing rivals and opponents of the Jesuits, and before 1773 were often
able to resist them successfully. Now, of course, everywhere out of Rome,
they are out-flanked and repressed by the Jesuits, while in Rome they have
no influence with the Pope. Yet they too are all decided Infallibilists,
and that because of their great theologian, Thomas Aquinas. That he
himself became implicated in this notion only through means of the
forgeries in Gratian, and of another great fabrication, with spurious
passages of the Fathers, specially devised for his own benefit, they
neither know, nor are willing to believe when told of it. They say they
have once sworn to the doctrine of St. Thomas, and must therefore adhere
to the Infallibilist doctrine introduced by him into the schools, to avoid
perjury.(55)
A certain feeling of discouragement betrays itself among many
Infallibilists, and there is much in the occurrences of the last few weeks
to account for it. Thus the Archbishop of Milan, whose diocese nearly
equals in extent the whole States of the Church, has received an address
from his clergy and people expressing agreement with his work against the
dogma, which has greatly rejoiced him. And the news of the state of
feeling in Germany is disheartening. Golden results had been reckoned on
from the efforts of the Jesuits and their pupils there for the last twenty
years. It was supposed here that a very considerable number of people
beyond the Alps must be inspired with zeal for Papal Infallibility. When
the impulse given by Döllinger evoked so many and such weighty expressions
of opinion on the other side, it was confidently expected in Rome that a
strong popular demonstration in favour of the dogma would burst out, like
a mighty hurricane, from every district in Germany, as the 800 Jesuits at
work there would easily be able to bring that to pass. But now it is
evident that no single man of influence in the whole country will make
himself responsible by name for this opinion, and that all who are eminent
for authority and knowledge—especially historians and theologians—protest
against the proposed new dogma. Even the Jesuit Catechism has not been
able to effect everything in this respect. Can a new dogma be fabricated
for Spaniards, Italians and South Americans exclusively? And even in North
Italy an opposition is being manifested. It is a questionable policy to
show to the German people so openly the gulf between their religious
thoughts and desires and those of the Latin nations, and even to widen
that gulf. And in what position would the episcopal signataries of the
Fulda Pastoral find themselves, after giving such an explicit assurance to
Catholic Germany, “that the Council would establish no new or different
dogmas from those already written by faith on the hearts and consciences
of all German Catholics”? The faith and conscience of the German
Catholics, both theologians and laity, have now spoken loudly and
unequivocally enough. And it is utterly impossible for a German Bishop to
return home from the Council with the new dogma ready-made in his hand,
and say to his flock, like St. Paul, “Ye foolish Germans, who hath
bewitched you?” “You don’t know yourselves what you have hitherto held in
your faith and conscience. See, here is the true bread for your souls,
just brought fresh from the bake-house of the Council. This is what you
ought long ago to have believed; be converted, and confess that to be
white which you have thought was black, and that to be a divine truth
which you have taken for an invention of man.” It cannot be presumed that
a Bishop would willingly contemplate exposing himself to the ridicule of
all Germany.
The rumour of a speedy prorogation of the Council is constantly growing
more definite. As this depends on one capricious will, it is quite
possible in itself. But some striking result would have first to be
attained, some conspicuous act accomplished by the Council; or else the
fraud would be too glaring, the nakedness of the land too strikingly
exhibited to the whole world. To the question, why ten precious weeks had
been idly wasted without a single decree being achieved, the only answer
would be, that the desire to deprive the Council of all independent action
had led to the machine being cramped and fettered till it was brought to a
standstill altogether. In accordance with the advice of the Jesuits the
whole Council had in fact been pre-arranged, and nothing was to be left to
the Fathers on their arrival at Rome but to affirm the thoughts and
formulate the decrees suggested by others. The _Schemata_ prepared shall
be read one after the other, and the Fathers shall say _Placet_, and to
prevent their having any temptation to criticise and mangle and curiously
dissect and combat the motions laid before them, the Sessions shall be
held in a Hall where the speeches cannot be heard, and all discussion is
impossible. That was the programme; the result has proved that the Court
had judged rightly of about 500 out of the 700 members, but had deceived
itself as to the remaining 200. Veuillot, who communicates the correct
views about the Council daily to the French, has declared that it was
right to deprive the Bishops of the freedom of evil (_qu’il ne fallait pas
laisser aux Évêques la liberté du mal_). This beneficent care for the
health of the Bishops’ souls has however been extended a little too far.
Many of them are so ungrateful as to think they are treated too much like
automatons, and that with the “liberté du mal” they have also been
deprived of the “liberté du bien.” The Roman lists of names from which the
Commissions had to be chosen are not forgotten. The right of proposing
motions has been made illusory by the composition of the Commission
appointed for examining them, and the arrangement for making the
permission to bring them forward dependent on the pleasure of the Pope.
And thus great uneasiness, not to say exasperation, prevails among the 200
Bishops. And on the other hand, the Pope has been for several weeks past
in a chronic state of mingled indignation and astonishment at finding so
many Bishops—even at Rome, in his own immediate neighbourhood—daring to
think and say the contrary to what he, Pius IX., thinks and says.
This rebellion of thought has not indeed yet been directly and openly
manifested in the Council Hall. But when the _Schema de Ecclesiâ_, and
with it Infallibility, really come to be discussed, then even within the
sacred precincts of St. Peter’s, and close to the Tomb of the
Apostles—which the Pope had assured himself would inspire very different
thoughts into the Bishops’ heads—bold utterances of contradiction will be
heard, and will resound throughout Europe, for “publicity discloses the
Acheron of the Council.” The expected and decisive sealing up of 3000
mouths is at an end once for all, and even that most correct and devoted
of Romanists, Veuillot, has declared in his _Univers_ that such a silence
of the grave is impossible, especially for the French, and has accordingly
blurted out such of the secrets of the Hall as seemed to him desirable
without scruple. Nor have the authorities taken it at all ill of him. But
to hear Bishops publicly in Council, and in the hearing of the Papal
Legates, proclaiming views diametrically opposed to those of the Pope—and
that, too, in a question so fundamental and so completely dominating the
whole future life of the Church—would be a scandal which must be averted
even at the heaviest cost. Some time before the Indiction of the Council,
in 1866, Pius himself formally asserted, in the most significant terms,
and in presence of a numerous assemblage of foreigners who had come to
offer him their homage, his true attitude towards the world and the
Bishops, whether assembled or dispersed. He spoke in French, and in words
carefully prepared beforehand, and I give the speech precisely as it was
reported, with the reporters’ names subscribed, in the _Monde_, the
_Union_, and the _Observateur Catholique_ of April 1, 1866, p.
357:—“_Seul_, malgré mon indignité, _je suis le successeur des apôtres_,
le vicaire de Jésus Christ; _seul_, j’ai _la mission de conduire et de
diriger la barque de Pierre, je suis la voie, la vérité, et la vie._ Il
faut bien qu’on le sache, afin de ne pas se laisser tromper et aventurer
par la parole de gens qui se disent Catholiques, mais qui veulent et
enseignent tout autre chose que ce que veut et enseigne l’Église.”
Whether he really intended thereby to deny the office of the Bishops as
successors of the Apostles, which has always hitherto been recognised in
theology, I cannot say. But this much is clear, that every Bishop who in
any important question of faith differs from the views of Pius, departs
from “the way,” swerves from “the truth,” excludes himself from “the
life.” Nothing of the sort has ever been suffered at Rome; no dissent has
ventured into the light of day. The censorship and the Inquisition have
taken care of that. It would be a supremely dangerous precedent if that
were now to happen for the first time, and with many Bishops of different
nations for the dissidents. The contradiction between the Liberal Bishops
and the Pope would be the more glaring, as Pius has only in the last few
days addressed a very categorical letter to the Liguorian Jules Jacques on
his own infallibility. He praises this man for having collected from the
writings of Liguori his statements about Papal Infallibility, and thus
exhibited the “sound doctrine.” The “unsound” doctrine cannot be freely
proclaimed in St. Peter’s, and besides it has such a peculiar power of
infection, that for centuries Rome has surrounded herself with a threefold
_cordon_ and all sorts of disinfecting remedies against this epidemic. And
accordingly, from the Roman standpoint, the adjournment of the Council
must obviously appear to be in any case the lesser evil in comparison with
so unheard-of a scandal. Just think of a philippic in the Council Hall
against the infallibility of the Pope, an exposure of the errors of
Popes—there in St. Peter’s, close to the Vatican, and before 700 Prelates!
That would indeed be, in the words of Daniel, the abomination of
desolation in the holy place.
Moreover, an adjournment and subsequent reassembling would have this
advantage, that the order of business and the locality could be changed.
So long as these remain unchanged, it is impossible to speak seriously of
a Council, and if the Roman censorship prevents any complaints on the
subject being heard, the _Curia_ cannot conceal from itself that after the
close of the Council the real state of the case will be universally
recognised as a notorious fact, and the entire want of freedom or
examination or discussion be insisted upon as a ground and justification
for rejecting the decrees. But a Council universally questioned or
rejected would be an endless source of embarrassment and distress for the
_Curia_ themselves. They would have at last to exclaim, “All I have gained
is a loss.”
These and the like thoughts are now occurring to many. The advice of the
French Government, which would on all accounts gladly welcome an
adjournment, the admonitions of Austria, which has at last, at the twelfth
hour, receded from its attitude of coldness and indifference, and the
knowledge that the two Protestant powers, Prussia and England, maintain
the same views on the threatened decrees and intended ecclesiastical
conquests, though without making any direct representations on the
subject—all this more or less contributes to the gravity of the crisis.
There are some drops of wormwood mingled with the joyous goblets quaffed
daily to the Pope by the majority of 500 obsequious and courtly Latins. As
the obedience of these Bishops and the Vicars-Apostolic, who can at any
moment be deposed by Propaganda, is unlimited, they will vote the
_Schemata_ exactly as the Pope desires; but most of them do it at least
with an inward repugnance, and say, like the Aragonese Cortes of old, “We
obey, but we don’t execute.”