_Rome, Feb. 24, 1870._—Since my last letter, the Council, whose movements
for a long time were like those of a tortoise, has made gigantic strides.
The Goddess of Insolence (ὕβρις) rules here just as the Greek
tragedians—especially Sophocles—describe her. All rumours of an
adjournment of the Council were partly well-meant wishes of several
Bishops, partly produced by the fact of the Governments—the French in
particular—earnestly desiring it. Here in Rome no one of the Vatican party
has thought of it for a moment. All who know the real state of things and
persons here must be convinced that the Council will certainly be gone
through with to the end, either completely—in full accordance with the
well-calculated plan sketched out during the last two years for partly
Jesuitizing and partly Romanizing everything in the Church, in theology
and in the religious life, and carrying out centralization to the utmost
extent—or that, at least, there will be no adjournment till the most
precious jewel hitherto wanting to the Papal tiara, dogmatic
Infallibility, has been inserted there. Then, and not till then, will the
_Curia_ have obtained the irresistible talisman which opens every gate,
fulfils every desire and brings every treasure. That dogma is Aladdin’s
magic lamp for Rome.
There are three powers who wish to gain by the Council, and who decide on
its proceedings and destiny—the Pope, the Jesuits, and the _Curia_. Among
the members of the _Curia_ there are indeed very few who have not long
since made their calculations, with that appreciation of the realities of
life which is peculiar to the Italian nation, and who do not know as well
what a dogma is worth for Rome as people know what a man is “worth” in
England. Every assailant of the dogma is their personal enemy; he is
simply emptying their gold-mine. Nor is the doctrine less valuable and
indispensable to the Jesuits, at this day more than before, since they no
longer have to fear the rivalry of any other Order in making capital out
of the prerogative of Infallibility.
As regards the Pope, he has constantly changed in his official life and
vacillated from one side to the other, and those about him say that in
many, nay in most, things he follows capricious and momentary impulses.
But Pius is inflexible and immutable where he fancies he is a divine
instrument and has received a divine mission, and that is the case here.
He is persuaded that he is ordained by the special favour of God to be the
most glorious of all Popes. Among his predecessors there are three to whom
he seems to me to have a great likeness. I should say that he had chosen
them as models, if I could assume that he knew their history. But Pius has
never occupied himself with the past; he is purely the child of his age,
and lives only in the present. The three are Innocent X., Clement XI., and
above all Paul IV. He has in common with the first his strong experimental
belief in his own personal inspiration without any theological culture. He
resembles the second in giving himself up to the theological guidance of
the Jesuits, and in his highhanded treatment of such Bishops as dare to
have an opinion of their own. And just as Paul IV. used to boast that
hereafter men would be obliged to tell of the lofty plans conceived by an
aged Italian who, as being near his death, might have rested and bewailed
his sins,(56) so does Pius too desire in his old age to make great though
peaceful conquests, and to establish the Papal sovereignty as a “rocher du
bronze,” to borrow the phrase of another autocrat. With the help of the
Council he hopes to render the universal dominion of the Papacy an
impregnable fortress, by means of new walls, bastions and batteries, and
to hand it down to his successors as an omnipresent and omnipotent power.
He believes that the thoughts and desires of his soul are in reality the
counsels of God made known to him by inspiration, and that if by following
these counsels he accomplishes the deliverance of the Church and of
mankind, it is the Hand of God which uses him as an instrument. And why
should not Pius see a sign of his election to high and extraordinary
destinies in the circumstance of his having already sat longer than any of
his 256 predecessors, even Pius VI., on the apostolic throne? A history of
his Pontificate has already been written in this sense by one of the
Jesuits of the _Civiltà,_ and Pius has the chapters read to him one after
the other. I am told that a chapter on the Council is already written. The
French Court historiographer, Vertot, who had to describe a Belgian
campaign including the siege of a fortress, wrote the history of the siege
before it was finished, and said quietly, “Mon siège est fait.” And thus
the Jesuit historian of the Pope can already say, “Mon Concile est fait.”
And in one sense the Council is indeed finished since the 23d
inst.—finished by the new order of business.
If the merit of this clever invention is primarily due to the Cardinals on
the Commission for revising motions, and the Jesuits who were probably
taken into partnership with them, its introduction must be counted among
the most eventful acts of Pius, past or future. If it is carried out and
adhered to without opposition, it is unquestionably the most conspicuous
of all the victories of the Pope. Margotti, the editor of the _Unita
Cattolica_, will hardly be able to find words to do justice to the great
day, February 23, 1870, with its boundless wealth of happy results, in the
next edition of his work, _Le Vittorie della Santa Chiesa sotto Pio IX_. A
_Te Deum_ will have to be sung in every Jesuit College of the old and new
world.
Great anxiety was felt beforehand about the new order of business. It was
said that the Sessions were to be something more than mere votings, that
there would still be speeches made, that the written memorials would not
be so directly thrown into the waste-paper basket, but would be considered
and—if they approved of them—made use of by the Commission. But everything
will be settled by the Commission and by a simple majority of votes; the
minority may talk, but only so long as the Commission and the majority
choose to listen to them. _Væ victis!_ The Council belongs to the Italians
and the Spaniards, who are in close alliance with them: from henceforth to
wish to reject any _Schema_ or decree brought before it, is like wanting
to stop water from flowing downwards. All the proposals of the minority
for a change in the order of business have been left unnoticed. It had
already been resolved that a debate could only be cut short by the votes
of a majority of two-thirds, but this has been reversed. What will the
French and Germans do now? This is naturally the question which trembles
on every lip and is written on every countenance. Will they simply
acquiesce in the _fait accompli_ with a good grace, and obediently assume
the rôle of the Greek Chorus in the drama of the Council—simply to reflect
and moralize, but take no active part in the proceedings? The next few
days will show. So much every one perceives; the order of business is the
noose which, once fixed on the minority, cannot be got out of, and will
only be drawn tighter and tighter till it strangles them at last. It is
clear that the majority has the hide of a rhinoceros, from which every
arrow shot by the Opposition, however skilfully aimed, glances off
harmless. Where are now the wise and foolish virgins? “Give us of your
oil, for our lamps are gone out,” must the Germans, French, and Spanish
say henceforth to the Italians, and the answer will be more friendly than
in the Gospel: “You need not buy any more oil; come over to our side and
be content to use our store.”
It is hardly necessary to observe to your readers that everything which
takes place here turns on the question of Infallibility. The new order of
business is merely the outer covering for this kernel. “With Infallibility
we have all we desire or need,” say the Italians, if that is gained we may
“let the nigger go,” and can dispense with his services for the future.
But for German theologians, whose hair stands on end at the new order of
business and all it involves, I can find no other consolation than what
they may derive from the following Persian tale. An English ambassador
sent to Persia—I think it was Morier—paid the usual visits at Teheran, and
was introduced to the younger son of the Shah. He found him groping about
blindfold in the room, and feeling for the furniture in it. The Prince
explained this strange business by telling him that it was the rule for
the younger sons to be blinded at the death of the Shah, in order to make
them incapable of succeeding, and that he wished to prepare and practise
himself beforehand for the fate impending over him. “Go ye, and do
likewise.”
If the German theologians should still have courage to present an address
to their Bishops, the subscription might be, “Morituri vos salutant.” Why
have these theologians come to such utter discomfiture?
Here one already hears shouts of triumph; the day of retribution will soon
come for those proud Transalpines, when they must bend their necks under
the Caudine yoke of the new dogma, or await suspension, degradation, etc.
If German theology had long been decried and hated by the _Curia_ and the
Italian Jesuits, and if the _Civiltà_ gladly took occasion to pour out its
wrath on the scholars of “foggy” Germany, you may conceive the extent this
fury has reached in Italian clerical papers and curialist circles, since
it has become known that the most influential theologians have pronounced
against Infallibility, and that not one—with the exception of a couple of
pupils of the Jesuits—has said a word to defend it. It is well that one of
the most distinguished Italians, a man whose devotion to the Church is
unimpeached even in Rome, and whom the Pope has commissioned to write a
history of the Council—I mean Cantù—has some years ago confessed and
censured this characteristic of his countrymen. “To call laziness
superiority, and evade the trouble of examining questions by depreciating
them, this is only too much the habit of Italians, and then they mock at
the ponderous, long-winded, hair-splitting Germans. But we must endure the
reproach of negligence and thoughtlessness from the Germans, while we
blindly accept falsified documents.”(57)
Cantù has hit on the sore place there; for it is precisely their having
pointed out the long line of numerous and systematic forgeries, on which
the Roman claims of Infallibility are based, and which are used to further
other aims of the Italians, that is the main ground of the hatred of the
Germans. And now Frenchmen too, like Gratry, come forward and publish
these facts over land and sea in their cosmopolitan tongue and clear
incisive style.
To return to what preceded the publication of the new order of business;
in the last sittings of the Council coming events threw their shadows
before. The Bishops of Carcassonne and Belley declared roundly that
Infallibility must be proclaimed, and in order, said the latter, to
restore the menaced or broken unity of the Church. The impatience and
vexation of the authorities are constantly on the increase. Manning said
there was only one way of stopping the definition, and that was to cut the
throats of half the 500 Bishops of the majority. Of course the Prelates
who heard him cried out, like the Emperor Charles V. at the Diet of
Augsburg, when Count George of Brandenburg wanted to cut off heads for
another doctrine, “No heads off! no heads off!” At the last sitting on the
_Schema de Catechismo_, on the 22d, a scene occurred which presages what
is to become the regular practice. The Bishop of Namur had said, in
reference to some previous attacks on the Breviary, that no one who spoke
against it could be a good Christian. For the information of your readers
I must premise a few words here. The Breviary is a collection of prayers
and lections for the clergy, introduced by Rome, consisting chiefly of
psalms and passages from the Bible and the Lives of the Saints.(58) The
_Curia_ has used this, like so many other things, as an _instrumentum
dominationis_, and a number of fables and forgeries devised in the
interest of the Papal system have been interpolated into it. The French
Church had long since adopted the precaution of employing a Breviary of
her own, much better and purer than the Roman. It was against observations
made about this in the Council that the harsh comment of the Bishop of
Namur was directed.