_Rome, May 13, 1870._—The time for the most eventful decisions is come:
to-morrow the debate on infallibility commences. The opponents of the
dogma have taken every means to put off this decision, and now that they
are foiled, enter upon the question with the greatest repugnance and a
sense of being defeated by anticipation in the perilous contest. The
diplomatists too, who had presented notes from their Governments to the
Vatican or had been instructed to support the notes presented, made urgent
representations that the existing order of business should not be departed
from, so as to get the discussion of infallibility deferred. And then some
Bishops made an attempt to move the Pope’s conscience. They told him that
by this undertaking he was sowing divisions among the faithful, shaking
faith, preparing for the closing days of his life a terrible
disillusionizing and bitter reproaches, and kindling a fire which after
blazing up in various parts of the Catholic world would turn into a
frightful conflagration. He was urgently entreated to listen to some of
the Bishops, who were in a position to inform him of the real state of
things in different countries.
There has unquestionably for some time past been a certain vacillation
among the Pope’s counsellors, but never for a moment did they think of
giving up the whole enterprise, and confessing themselves defeated. And as
it was clear that, if the _Schemata_ preceding the infallibility question
were discussed in their regular order, the hot season would set in with
its miasmas, and the inevitable prorogation of the Council would most
seriously imperil the dogma, the resolve to proceed at once with the
matter, regardless of consequences, prevailed in the _Curia_. The
Opposition tried to hinder this intention by a solemn act. A deputation,
consisting of several Bishops of different nations—a German, a Hungarian,
and a Bohemian Bishop for Germany—was to be sent to the Pope, with
Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati for its spokesman, to make the most
earnest and direct representations to him. From fear of this
demonstration, and in order at once to cut off all hopes placed upon it,
the _Curia_ had the _Synopsis Animadversionum_ distributed in great haste,
_i.e._ a selection from the Opinions of the Bishops, partly in favour of
the dogma, partly against it. The opinions are about equally divided, but
some represent more than one author. Thus _e.g._ 4 Hungarians and 16
Dominicans, in one case 24 Bishops, gave in the same Opinion. They are all
printed without the names, but some of the writers are easily recognised,
as _e.g._ Rauscher, Schwarzenberg, Fürstenberg, Krementz, Dupanloup,
Clifford, Kenrick, etc. It is to be observed that some of these opinions
are printed word for word, while others—of the Opposition Bishops—are
cunningly tampered with, to the great disgust of their authors. But in
most cases the reader cannot tell whether he has the opinion of a man of
high position or of a nobody before him.
In consequence of this rapid manœuvre of distributing the Synopsis, the
Opposition did not think it well to send their deputation, which
accordingly fell through. The dogmatic constitution on infallibility was
known here on the 1st of May, but was not published for eight days
afterwards. The _Curia_ was evidently not yet quite clear about its
tactics; perhaps the season might not appear sufficiently advanced, and
they might feel more secure of carrying their point when the heat had
driven the foreign Bishops away and the Council was left to the Italian
and Spanish rump.
The minority however did not cease to labour for the postponement of the
infallibilist discussion. The certainty that the _Curia_ would be in
earnest about it gave them somewhat more energy than they had shown in the
debate on the Little Catechism. The voting on it on May 4 had been quite
unexpected. For it had been resolved that the amendments modifying the
text should first be voted on, and the whole text be decided afterwards,
when printed and brought forward in the definitive form it had received
through the voting on the amendments. But instead of that, amendments and
text were voted upon on the same day, so that many Bishops—including
Darboy and Kenrick—were absent, and the whole number of _non-placets_ and
conditional votes together did not reach 100. This voting on May 4 was
however provisional; the definitive voting takes place to-day, Friday, May
13. The _Curia_ of course does not wish to have so considerable an
Opposition left, and has therefore somewhat altered the text, but not in
their sense. All the German Bishops of the minority, amounting to about
40, will vote _Non placet_, as I hear, and the French also, with a single
exception, making some 30 more. Several others will join them, so that the
previous 56 _Non-placets_ will be augmented by most of the 44 prelates who
voted _juxta modum_. The opposition to the Little Catechism may thus reach
100 votes, and will certainly exceed 80.
One might be tempted to ask why the Opposition, when it is so numerous,
has no confidence of victory and is always shrinking from decisive
measures. It is idle to suppose that the cancerous ulcer of infallibilism
can ever be once for all cut out of the body of the Church, except by a
scientific demonstration of its falsehood, or its adherents subdued
without a decisive contest. This uneasy attitude of the minority arises
from the want of sympathy and confidence among its various elements. The
inopportunists are afraid of their allies not only hindering the
definition but undermining belief in the doctrine and upsetting the whole
Jesuitical system and school of lies, and thus exposing the contrast
between the primacy as Christ founded it and as it has since been
perverted. And the others judge from what they themselves say that their
resistance will not be firm and persevering, and that they already think
of yielding sooner or later. And even for those who hold the doctrine to
be thoroughly false and unecclesiastical, it is much more convenient not
to proclaim their conviction so roundly and maintain the opposition at all
hazards, after the Pope has solemnly and formally committed himself and
done all in his power to get the dogma defined and all condemned who
reject it. For all who openly declared the doctrine to be an error would
be declaring the Pope to be an innovator; and he must appear to every
decided opponent of infallibilism no common innovator either, like any
“doctor privatus,” but the most fearful and dangerous enemy of revealed
truth and the pure doctrine of the Church, since he abuses his supreme
authority to impose a false doctrine on consciences by terrorism, anathema
and excommunication. But it is too much to demand of the Bishops to
express such judgments, or give occasion for such conclusions and
alternatives. While they wish to hold aloof from so tremendous a conflict,
it is their interest to avoid a collision which must involve such
considerations. The more many of them are ensnared in the delusion of the
present papal system, the more vivid is their desire not to be forced into
so public and decisive an announcement.
It is exactly those Bishops who are not the strongest dogmatically who
display the most zeal in hindering the discussion on infallibility, and
they have done a good deal to rehabilitate a force capable of resistance
even after the abject surrender of April 24. This fact shows how little
the astute and practised Roman Court has succeeded in gaining over the
Fathers separately. The Hungarian primate notoriously signed the
_postulatum_ against infallibility with reluctance, and he has since
openly adhered to the majority as spokesman of the Deputation _de Fide_,
after he had previously retired from the assembly of German Opposition
Bishops. He has a good right to reckon confidently on a Cardinal’s Hat;
and yet it is known that he, like almost all the Hungarians, will come
forward to oppose the definition, and will probably speak against it
to-morrow. Ginoulhiac, Bishop of Grenoble, who is perhaps the most learned
Bishop in France, after Maret, though his learning is of a somewhat narrow
and old-fashioned kind, is by nature and education one of those who are
anxious to find some middle way, by which they may at once bow to
authority and escape the consequences of an inexorable logic. The _Curia_
has long believed his theologian’s heart could be won by well-selected
citations, but other means have been also employed. After he had been
named to the Archbishopric of Lyons, the Pope refused him the desired
audience and also the preconisation, so that the diocese will have to
remain many months without a chief pastor. But he continued firm, and took
part in the compilation of a document, which might well become the most
important in its results of all the declarations of the Opposition. The
Bishop of Mayence was predisposed by all his sympathies and antipathies to
support the cause of Rome in this Council, and he has often, as well at
Fulda as here, repudiated the notion that the Pope’s claim to
infallibility is an encroachment on the divine prerogatives. For a time he
was a drag on his colleagues, but the policy of the Court and its
treatment of the Opposition has more and more alienated him from the
curialists; so that from seeming at first in Roman eyes to be divided by
an immeasurable gulf from men like Dupanloup, he has become a powerful
influence in the minority. The pamphlet on infallibility, written at his
suggestion, and addressed from Solothurn to the Bishops, showed his
changed attitude. This publication is well known to have been for a time
kept back, and it was only after a contest of some weeks with the
authorities that he succeeded in getting it issued. As the contemporaneous
writings of Rauscher, Schwarzenberg and Hefele met with no particular
opposition, this hostile treatment of Ketteler was ascribed to the belief
that the greater sharpness of the German protest against the order of
business, as compared with the French, was due to him. Where the French
text speaks of the Bishops as representing the Churches, the Germans added
the remark that this was the more important to insist upon in the case of
the Vatican Council, where so many Bishops were admitted to vote, whose
claim to vote by divine right was doubtful.(99) This historical
consideration has since been urged with great effect by Kenrick, whose
decisive weight in fixing the value of the Vatican Council will only be
known later. It was universally believed that Ketteler had co-operated in
getting this passage inserted in the German Protest, and so one is not
surprised that he should have taken a leading part in the last move of the
Opposition. To-day a declaration, signed by 77 Fathers, has been presented
to the Presidents, protesting energetically against the inversion of the
established order in the interests of infallibility. It contains the
severe remark that they well know no answer can be expected, but they are
unwilling to let any doubts be cast on the freedom of the Council, and to
have the Bishops made a public laughing-stock.
They cannot take much by this move. The arguments against inverting the
purely arbitrary order of business, previously introduced, are weak in
comparison with the objections to the definition on principle, and to
insist on them is simply beating the air. The majority only see proofs of
their weakness and grounds for increased confidence in the obstinate
holding aloof of the Opposition from the main question, and in the fact
that men who are not real assailants of the dogma play a prominent part in
its proceedings. Wherever there has been any talk of hesitation, it has
been only in the Vatican and the Commission _de Fide_, never among the
mass of the party. Pius may for a moment have shared the scruples
suggested to him by two of the Legates, and the Deputation may have
believed that the dogma could be established without any violent
precipitation, and regretted the indecent zeal of the French, but the
ardent infallibilists—French, English, Belgian, Swiss, etc.—have never
slackened in their confidence or their assiduity. They still affirm, as
they ever have done, that infallibility has no real opponents or hardly
any, and that the leading members of the Opposition privately hold the
view or at least have never openly rejected it; there are but few even
among the _Animadversiones_ which deny the admissibility of the
definition. So they think that there is a bait for every one of these
troublers of peace, and that they can all either be won over by
concessions or frightened into submission. The example of the Prince
Bishop of Breslau, who is known to have suspended a priest for attacking
the doctrines of the Syllabus, is very interesting in this point of view.
If the Pope were to issue a Bull condemning the opponents of his
infallibility, and to deal in the same way or—as he easily might—more
solemnly and harshly with other doctrines than the Encyclical of 1864,
Prince Bishop Förster would at least punish all malcontents as severely as
he punished the contemner of the Syllabus.(100) Yet in spite of all this,
he is a member of the Opposition, and the majority believe it would
probably soon melt away, if the Pope could resolve on adopting this
policy. Moreover their leaders speak as though the Opposition had already
incurred censures. They expect to make short work with the German Bishops
who signed the Fulda Pastoral. In that document it is said, “The Holy
Father is accused of acting under the influence of a party, and desiring
to use the Council simply as a means of unduly exalting the power of the
Apostolic See, changing the ancient and genuine constitution of the
Church, and setting up a spiritual domination incompatible with Christian
liberty. Men do not scruple to apply party names to the head of the Church
and to the Episcopate, which hitherto we have been accustomed to hear only
from the lips of professed enemies of the Church. And they plainly avow
their suspicion that the Bishops will not be allowed full freedom of
deliberation, and will themselves be deficient in the knowledge and
straightforwardness requisite for the discharge of their duties in
Council. And they accordingly call in question the validity of the Council
and its decrees.”
Here in Rome the Bishops have to listen to these and similar observations
_usque ad nauseam_, which their adversaries use only to remind them of
this Pastoral. While denying before the world that the definition of
infallibility was the object of the Council, or was intended at all by the
holy Father, they at the same time wrote to Rome to deprecate it, being
perfectly well acquainted with the designs of the _Curia_, and
corresponded with friendly prelates on the means of averting it. And thus
the other party may now say to them, “You acknowledge yourselves that the
unity and strength of the Church is to be preferred to strict veracity,
and that in so sacred a cause some measure of deception is allowable.
Don’t choose then to be better than your neighbours. You have already
abandoned the ground of objective truth, and you may as well come over to
us altogether.” But the chief means of breaking the Opposition consists in
the Pope’s making the Bishops feel the full weight of his authority and
compromising himself yet more deeply.
The _Curia_ has succeeded in setting aside the attempted intervention of
the Governments, and the battle will have to be fought out, as is fitting,
by the Bishops themselves. In the mind of the majority it is already over;
the Deputation has issued a reply to the objections of the minority, which
deserves the most careful attention of the theological world. It contains
a flat denial of the force of historical evidence, and closes with a
repudiation of the necessity of moral unanimity.(101) This points out the
road which the loyal Bishops of the Opposition must follow.
_Postscript._—I have just heard that the definitive voting on the Little
Catechism, which was announced for to-day’s sitting, has not taken place.
The _Curia_ had discovered that the German and French Opposition Bishops
would vote _en masse_ against it. No regard had been paid to the
representations and objections of those who voted _juxta modum_ on May 4,
and accordingly this stronger resistance was foreseen, and the _Curia_
shrank from appealing to a new vote. Matters remain as the voting of May 4
left them, and it is hoped that before the next Solemn Session the
minority will be split up by a more important controversy.