_Rome, Feb. 28, 1870._—Our last letter closed with an account of a scene
in the Session of February 22, occasioned by some attacks on the Roman
Breviary. The Bishop of Namur had maintained that no one who attacked it
could be a good Christian.
Haynald was one of those who had censured the present condition of the
Breviary, and he now replied to Bishop Gravez that in criticising it he
had the Fathers of Trent and the Popes themselves for accomplices
(_complices_). A tempest broke out at these words. But Haynald went
further and said, with reference to Bishop Langalerie of Belley, that the
majority, with their proposals for new dogmas, were the cause of the
disunion which had broken out in the Church, and that it would be much
better for the heads of the Church to confine themselves to preserving the
ancient doctrines in their purity, instead of adding new ones. The Church
had succeeded very well with the old doctrines. At this first open attack
in Council on the Infallibilist project the storm grew fiercer, and
Capalti seized the bell of the President, De Angelis, rung it violently
and forbade the speaker to proceed. “Taceas et ab ambone descendas,” he
exclaimed. When Haynald went on all the same, a wild cry broke from the
majority. The Archbishop of Calocsa at last came down, and so great was
the excitement that the sitting was closed and the next postponed to March
2.
Meanwhile more attention and care than before has been devoted in Paris to
what is going on at Rome. The Emperor and his present ministers understand
the gravity of the situation; they know what would be meant by such
journals as the _Monde_ and the _Univers_ daily appealing to infallible
Papal decisions, and under their authority calling in question every
institution and law of France, and proving beforehand to their readers
that there is no obligation in conscience to submit to them, because the
Pope has directly or indirectly signified his disapproval. Archbishop
Lavigerie of Algiers brought back word to Cardinal Antonelli, on returning
to Rome from his mission, that France was in no condition to tolerate the
definition of Infallibility, which might lead to a schism, since not only
the whole body of State-officers, but the writers, and even the Faubourg
St. Germain, were opposed to the new dogma. Antonelli is not apt to be
much influenced by such representations, which he views as mere idle
threats; he is spoilt by the courtly flatteries of the ever obsequious M.
de Banneville, whom he has managed completely to disarm. He has three
devices of domestic diplomacy by which he knows how to make excellent use
of both Banneville and Trautmansdorff. At one time he says, “It is not
we—Pius, the _Curia_ and I—who want the dogma, but the foreign Bishops,
and we should be encroaching on the freedom of the Council by impeding
them. And we ought not to subject ourselves to that reproach.” Then, for a
variety, he adopts another line. “The Pope,” he says, “has all he wants
already, and the dogma of Infallibility would not give him anything more.
As it is, and with a Council assembled, all the decrees emanate from him
and receive from him their validity, and he can summon or dissolve the
Council at his pleasure, so that it only exists by his will and would
crumble into dust without him. It is therefore the interest of the
Bishops, not ours, that is in question here, and they will know well why
the dogma is so valuable to them.” His third formula is, “Every good
Christian believes the doctrine already, and therefore little or nothing
will be changed in the Church by defining it, and we have not the least
desire to use the new decree for calling in question the existing compacts
and Concordats. We shall gladly leave alone the concessions we have
already granted.” These resources of the Cardinal have hitherto sufficed.
But new powers and demands seem to be coming to the front, which his
diplomatic counters will no longer satisfy. I have copies of two letters
of Count Daru, of January 18 and February 5. These official expressions of
opinion from Paris have made the _Civiltà_ Jesuits bitterly angry, and
their famous article on the _Policastri_, in its original form, contained
a violent attack on the French statesmen, who were classed with the other
ministers and diplomats in such ill repute at Rome. But this roused the
alarm of the supreme authority, and so the Jesuits had to eat their own
words, and to substitute for their attack a high commendation of Count
Daru and the loyalty of France to the Concordat. There is some good in
having the articles of the _Civiltà_ regularly revised in the Vatican. I
understand that it is intended at Paris to send a special ambassador to
Rome to the Council.
Meanwhile the Bishops of the minority are consulting how they shall deal
with the new order of business. It was announced to the Fathers at the
Session of February 22 that, in accordance with these new regulations,
they must hand in all their observations on the first ten chapters of the
_Schema de Ecclesiâ_ in writing within ten days.
Archbishop Spalding of Baltimore has not receded from his ludicrous notion
that his Infallibilist formula is milder and more tolerable than that of
the 400. He has laid it before the thirty-five French Bishops (of the
minority), who have unanimously rejected it. Its essence consists, as was
mentioned before, in asserting that everybody must receive with
unconditional inward assent every Papal decision on every question of
faith or morals or Church life. On all theological principles such faith
can only be accorded in cases where all possibility of error is excluded,
or, in other words, where a revealed truth is concerned; and therefore to
accept this formula would be to set aside the limitation of Papal
Infallibility, hitherto recognised even in Rome, to decisions pronounced
_ex cathedrâ_. And thus, in the crush and confusion of the innumerable and
often contradictory decisions of Popes, theology would degenerate into a
lamentable caricature of a system—“science” it could no longer be
termed—involved in hopeless contradictions. If the good Spalding had the
slightest acquaintance with Church history, he would know that he was
bound, in virtue of his inward assent paid to all Papal decrees, first of
all to reject his own orders as invalid.(59)
And now I must notice more particularly what Bishop Ketteler has published
against me in some German newspapers. He says that in the telegram of
February 13, published in the _Allg. Zeitung_ of February 15, he has found
the opportunity he had long desired for convicting the writer of the
_Letters from Rome_ of building up “a whole system of lying and
deceit.”(60) It is “an indescribable dishonesty,” a “detestable untruth,”
etc. His short letter bristles with such accusations. The untruths he
complains of are the following:—
(1.) The telegram called the statement made by Bishop Ketteler and his
ally, Bishop Melchers, a “proposal.” He replies that it was only a
“communication.”
(2.) It treats the occurrence as a “negotiation,” whereas it was only a
“short conference.”
(3.) There was no debate with “a serious opposition.” The Bishops indeed
had expressed different views, and some had disapproved Döllinger’s
pronouncement, while the others thought only certain individual Bishops
might have occasion to come forward against it. (They accordingly
understood Ketteler’s “communication” just as my informant did, and
therefore spoke out against accepting it.)
(4.) Ketteler did not hear any Bishop say, as stated in the telegram, that
Döllinger really had the majority of (German) Bishops with him.
And now let us compare Ketteler’s account, deducting the abusive comments
subjoined to every sentence, with the—of course extremely
compressed—account in the telegram, and we shall find the two in
substantial agreement. The Bishop is obliged to interpolate something into
the telegram, in order to find fuel for the fire of holy indignation his
delirious fancy has betrayed him into. He quarrels with me fiercely for
saying there was a debate and a negotiation, whereas there was only a
conference; but I never made use of those words. He says he made no
motion, but he himself recounts statements of the Bishops which show
clearly that they understood his “communication” as an invitation to do as
he did. Only one somewhat important point of difference remains, viz.,
whether the Bishops named in the telegram said what they are there
reported to have said or not. Bishop Ketteler can only say that he did not
hear them say it. But considering that in an informal meeting of forty or
forty-five persons, broken up into groups, a great deal is said which
every one in the room does not hear, and that I received my information
the same day from one who was present, I still adhere to my assertion that
they did say it. For the rest, I am much indebted to Bishop Ketteler; he
assures us that he has long desired an opportunity for saying all the evil
he can of me and my Letters. He has now made a grand onset. If he had
found anything in the eighteen long Letters before him better suited to
his purpose, he would certainly not have taken refuge in such petty
trivialities and, like a boy with snowballs, have flung what has turned
into water in his hand. He has thus unwillingly given testimony to the
truthfulness of my Letters. And for this I pardon him his exaggerated
rhetoric, but will not suppress the remark made by an Englishman who knows
mankind well: “There are certain women, says Fielding, always ready to
raise a cry of ‘Murder, fire, rape’ and the like, but that means no more
in their mouths than any one else means in going over the scale, Ut, Re,
Mi, Fa, Sol,” etc.