_Rome, March 20, 1870._—At last the greatest theologian of Catholic
England, in fact the only man of learning there who would be called in
Germany a real theologian, has spoken out in the great controversy. Dr.
Newman is superior of the Birmingham Oratory. It has long been notorious
that he deplored the condition of the English (Catholic) Church, which has
for many years been brought under the convert yoke, and sympathized with
the old Catholics, both clergy and laity, who are now crushed under it; so
much so, that the convert party there tried to brand him with the
reputation of heterodoxy, and strangers intending to visit the illustrious
Oratorian were warned not to incur suspicion by doing so. Newman had
accordingly maintained a persistent silence in the controversies going on
in England, desirous as everybody was and is to know his judgment upon the
question which is now “gladius animam Ecclesiæ pertransiens.” But in the
midst of this silence he had opened his heart, in a letter to a Bishop who
is a friend of his own, on the uncomfortable and dangerous position into
which an “aggressive and insolent faction” has brought the Church, and
disturbed so many of the truest souls. He says:(66)
“... Such letters, if they could be circulated, would do much to reassure
the many minds which are at present distressed when they look towards
Rome.
“Rome ought to be a name to lighten the heart at all times, and a
Council’s proper office is, when some great heresy or other evil impends,
to inspire hope and confidence in the faithful; but now we have the
greatest meeting which ever has been, and that at Rome, infusing into us
by the accredited organs of Rome and of its partisans (such as the
_Civiltà_ [the _Armonia_], the _Univers_, and the _Tablet_) little else
than fear and dismay. When we are all at rest, and have no doubts, and—at
least practically, not to say doctrinally—hold the Holy Father to be
infallible, suddenly there is thunder in the clearest sky, and we are told
to prepare for something, we know not what, to try our faith, we know not
how. No impending danger is to be averted, but a great difficulty is to be
created. Is this the proper work of an Œcumenical Council?
“As to myself personally, please God, I do not expect any trial at all;
but I cannot help suffering with the many souls who are suffering, and I
look with anxiety at the prospect of having to defend decisions which may
not be difficult to my own private judgment, but may be most difficult to
maintain logically in the face of historical facts.
“What have we done to be treated as the faithful never were treated
before? When has a definition _de fide_ been a luxury of devotion and not
a stern, painful necessity? Why should an aggressive, insolent faction be
allowed to ‘make the heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made
sorrowful’? Why cannot we be let alone when we have pursued peace and
thought no evil?
“I assure you, my lord, some of the truest minds are driven one way and
another, and do not know where to rest their feet—one day determining ‘to
give up all theology as a bad job,’ and recklessly to believe henceforth
almost that the Pope is impeccable, at another tempted to ‘believe all the
worst which a book like Janus says,’—others doubting about ‘the capacity
possessed by bishops drawn from all corners of the earth to judge what is
fitting for European society,’ and then, again, angry with the Holy See
for listening to ‘the flattery of a clique of Jesuits, Redemptorists, and
converts.’
“Then, again, think of the store of Pontifical scandals in the history of
eighteen centuries, which have partly been poured forth and partly are
still to come. What Murphy inflicted upon us in one way M. Veuillot is
indirectly bringing on us in another. And then again the blight which is
falling upon the multitude of Anglican ritualists, etc., who themselves,
perhaps—at least their leaders—may never become Catholics, but who are
leavening the various English denominations and parties (far beyond their
own range) with principles and sentiments tending towards their ultimate
absorption into the Catholic Church.
“With these thoughts ever before me, I am continually asking myself
whether I ought not to make my feelings public; but all I do is to pray
those early doctors of the Church, whose intercession would decide the
matter (Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Basil)
to avert this great calamity.
“If it is God’s will that the Pope’s infallibility be defined, then is it
God’s will to throw back ‘the times and moments’ of that triumph which He
has destined for His kingdom, and I shall feel I have but to bow my head
to His adorable, inscrutable Providence.
“You have not touched upon the subject yourself, but I think you will
allow me to express to you feelings which, for the most part, I keep to
myself....”
Thus writes Newman in most glaring contrast to Manning. The latter was
long nothing but his admiring disciple, and does not possess a tenth part
of the learning of his master. He owes simply to his infallibilist zeal
acquired in Rome his elevation to the Archbishopric of Westminster, to
which the Pope appointed him, in anticipation of his present services,
against the will of the English Catholics and the election of the Bishops.
The Roman correspondent of the _Standard_ having published extracts from
Newman’s letter, he took occasion to come forward and say that he had no
wish to conceal that he “deeply deplored the policy, the spirit, the
measures of various persons lay and ecclesiastical, who are urging the
definition of that theological opinion” (of papal infallibility), while on
the other hand he has “a firm belief that a greater power than that of any
man or set of men will overrule the deliberations of the Council to the
determination of Catholic and Apostolic truth, and what its Fathers
eventually proclaim _with one voice_ will be the Word of God.”
No one knows better than Newman that, next to the Jesuits, two of his old
Oxford friends and disciples, Manning and Ward, are the chief authors of
the whole infallibilist agitation. Well for him that he does not live in
Manning’s diocese! In the English clerical journals, _e.g._, the _Weekly
Register_, the fact has lately several times come to light, that English
priests who utter a word against infallibility are promptly reduced to
silence by threats of suspension and deprivation. Every infallibilist, who
has the power, is also a terrorist, for he feels instinctively that free
and open discussion would be the death of his darling dogma. Under these
circumstances it is very significant that some of the English Bishops are
bold and honest enough to speak their minds plainly, to the effect that
the English Catholics had gained all their political rights on the
repeated assurance, and with the express condition, that the doctrine of
papal infallibility would not be taught and received in the English
Church, and that on that ground they have felt bound to repudiate this
opinion. The chief among these Bishops are Clifford, Bishop of Clifton,
and Archbishop Errington.(67)
I can give you the precise facts of the affair about Montalembert’s
Requiem from the most authentic sources, and it is worth while to do so,
for it speaks volumes on the present state of things. The news of his
death had reached Rome some hours, when a considerable number of
foreigners, chiefly French, were admitted to an audience with the Pope.
Immediately after the first words of blessing and encouragement, which
they had come to request of him, Pius went on to speak of the man whose
death had just been announced to him, saying that he had done great
services to the Church, “mais il était malheureusement de ces Catholiques
libéraux qui ne sont que demi-catholiques. Il y a quelques jours il
écrivait des paroles”—here the Pope made a pause, and then
proceeded—“Enfin, j’espère qu’il est bien mort”—or probably “qu’il a fait
une bonne mort”—“L’orgueil était son principal défaut, c’est lui qui l’a
égaré.”
While this was going on in the Vatican, Bougaud, one of the Vicar-Generals
of the Bishop of Orleans, was inviting his countrymen from the pulpit of
the French church of St. Louis to a Requiem for the illustrious dead, to
be held next day in the church of Ara Celi. Archbishop Merode, Grand
Almoner of the Pope and brother-in-law of Montalembert, had so arranged
it, because it is an ancient privilege of the Roman patricians to have
funeral services solemnized for them in this church, and Montalembert had
been named a patrician by Pius IX. in recognition of his services in
restoring the States of the Church and bringing back the Pope to Rome. He
had contributed more than any of his contemporaries to that restoration,
and it was he whose speech in the National Assembly at Paris in 1848 had
decided the question of the Roman expedition. Bougaud had also mentioned
that. Many had heard on the day before the service that it had been
suddenly forbidden; nevertheless at the appointed hour in the morning
about twenty French Bishops appeared with many priests and a large
assemblage of laymen, the _élite_ of the French visitors now in Rome.
There before the entrance of the church they found M. Veuillot, the old
and implacable opponent and accuser of Montalembert, standing among a
group of sacristy officials, who announced to all comers that the Pope had
forbidden any service being held or any prayers offered there for the
departed Count. They thought this incredible and forced their way into the
church, and here the sacristans informed them that, by special order of
the Pope, not only was the intended Requiem stopped but the usual masses
must be suspended, as long as the French remained in the church. By
degrees the congregation broke up, and about an hour afterwards, when the
church was empty, a French priest contrived to say a low mass in a side
chapel.
It was probably Banneville who intimated to the Pope, at his audience for
taking leave on the 17th, what a feeling this had created in French
circles in Rome, and what impression it must produce in France. So on the
morning of Friday the 18th, to the amazement of the court officials, the
Pope went to Sta. Maria Transpontana, an out-of-the-way church, without
his usual cortége. Several Bishops passed the church on their way to the
Council, and were surprised to see the Pope’s carriage waiting at the
door, as they knew nothing of what had taken him there. In the church the
Pope sent orders to a Bishop to say mass “for a certain Charles,” at which
he assisted, and the following notice then appeared in the _Giornale di
Roma_: “His Holiness, in consideration of the former services of Count
Montalembert, ordered a mass to be celebrated for him in Sta. Maria
Transpontana, and himself assisted at it from the tribune.” Meanwhile the
journalists were instructed to say in their correspondence columns, that
the prohibition had been issued, because the Requiem was meant to be made
into a demonstration.(68) That insinuation implicates Archbishop Merode
also, who resides in the Vatican, for he had given the order. The charge
of pride, which the Pope brought against Montalembert, will excite
astonishment and something more in France, where it was precisely his
gentleness and modesty that had made him so universally beloved.