_Rome, May 27, 1870._—New speakers are continually inscribing their names
for the debate on infallibility. And as only four can usually speak in one
sitting, it is impossible to foresee the end of the general debate, after
which the detailed discussion of the separate chapters is to follow. The
minority seem resolved at this second discussion to enter thoroughly for
the first time on the numerous separate points, exegetical, dogmatic and
historical, which offer themselves for consideration. If the majority and
the Legates allow this, the end will not be near reached by June 29; and
after that date residence in Rome is held to be intolerable and the
continuation of the Council impracticable. This last assumption I conceive
to be mistaken. The Pope can very easily go to Castel Gandolfo for his
summer holidays, while he leaves the Council to go on here. That it should
consist of hundreds of Bishops is quite unnecessary; former Popes have
known how to manage in such cases. Eugenius IV. had his Florentine Council
nominally continued, after the Bishops were all gone except a handful of
Italians; Leo X. was content with about sixty Italians at his so-called
fifth Lateran Council. What is to hinder Pius IX. from keeping on the
Council, after the Northern and distant Bishops are departed, with the
Bishops of his own States and the titular episcopate resident in Rome,
together with a host of Neapolitans and Sicilians? Some too would be sure
to remain of the leaders and zealots of the majority. But the Court party
can cut short the discussion and push matters to a vote whenever they
like. The order of business enables them to do so, but of course this
imperial policy will only be applied when the Pope gives the signal.
Nearly the whole sitting of May 25 was taken up by a speech of Manning’s,
who justified the expectations formed of him by assuring the Opposition
that they were all heretics _en masse_. But he left the question
undecided, whether they had already incurred the penalties of heresy
prescribed in the canon law. Ketteler’s speech made a precisely opposite
impression. Men were in a state of eager suspense as to what he would say,
for he was known to have passed through a mental conflict. Ten months ago,
in his publication on the Council which was then convoked, he had come
forward of his own accord as the advocate of papal infallibility; he had
come to Rome full of burning zeal and devotion for the Pope, though at
Fulda he had declared the new dogma to be inopportune. I omit the
intermediate steps of the process of disillusionizing and sobering he has
gone through. His speech has shown that, like many others, he has become
from an inopportunist a decided opponent of the dogma itself.
Such a change of mind based on a conscientious weighing of testimonies and
facts is inconceivable and incredible to a regular Roman. When some of the
Vicars Apostolic who are supported at the Pope’s cost signed the
representation against the definition, the indignation was universal among
the Monsignori and in the clerical world here. “Questi Vicari, che
mangiano il pane del Santo Padre!” they exclaimed in virtuous disgust.
That a poor Bishop, and one too who is maintained by the Pope, should yet
have a conscience and dare to follow it, is thought out of the question
here; and this view comes out with a certain _naïveté_. The anxiety of the
German Bishops about the new dogma perplexing so many Christians and
shaking or destroying the faith and adherence to the Church of many
thousands can hardly be mentioned here, so impatient are the Monsignori
and Cardinals at hearing of it. People here say, “That does not trouble us
the least; the Germans at best are but half Catholics, all deeply infected
with Protestantism; they have no Holy Office and have little respect for
the Index. Pure and firm faith is to be looked for among the Sicilians,
Neapolitans and Spaniards; and they are infallibilists to a man. And even
in Germany your women and rustics are sound. Why do you have so many
schools, and think every one must learn to read? Take example from us
where only one in ten can read, and all believe the more readily in the
infallible living book, the Pope. If thousands do really become
unbelievers, that is not worth speaking of in comparison with the
brilliant triumph of the Papacy now rendered infallible, and the
inestimable gain of putting an end to all controversy and uncertainty in
the Church for the future.” When I look at the careless security of the
majority, I could often fancy myself living in the year 1517. The view
about foreign countries and Churches prevalent here is just what Molière’s
Sganarelli expresses about physicians and patients: “Les veuves ne sont
jamais pour nous, et c’est toujours la faute de celui qui meurt.”
The finance minister has had the bad condition of the papal treasury
communicated to the Bishops; a standing annual deficit of 30 million
francs, and the Peter’s pence decreasing! Some new means of supply must be
discovered, and the extremest extension of ecclesiastical centralization
and papal absolutism has always been recognised at Rome as the most
productive source of revenue. Every one here believes that the new dogma
will prove very lucrative and draw money to Rome by a magnetic attraction.
It will make the Pope _de jure_ supreme lord and master of all Christian
lands and their resources. The ultramontane jurists and theologians have
long maintained that he can compel States as well as individuals to pay in
to him such sums as are required for Church purposes. And there is no more
urgent need for the Church now, than that an end should be put to the
deficit of the Roman Government. And if it should be impossible or
unadvisable to put in force these supreme monetary rights of the Papacy at
once, still, when the temporal supremacy of the Pope is made an article of
faith, Rome possesses the key which may be used at the right moment for
opening the coffers and money-bags. And therefore the opponents of the
dogma are regarded as enemies of the Roman State economy and the wealth of
the Roman clergy; and the variance between the two parties is embittered.
Meanwhile the Pope is never weary of carrying on his personal
solicitations for the votes of the Bishops; he has the right of being a
persevering beggar. But one hears less of conversions to the majority than
of men going over to the Opposition; and the effluences from the Tomb of
the Apostles close to the Council Hall, of which such great expectations
were formed, seem to act in the opposite direction.
A new system of tactics has been for some time adopted, in France
principally, and is now to be introduced into Germany. The clergy in the
dioceses of Opposition Bishops are to be seduced into signing addresses
expressing strongly their belief in papal infallibility and desire for its
speedy promulgation. This device has been pursued with great success
through means of the Paris nunciature and the _Univers_. The French parish
priests who, since the Concordat, have been removeable at the will of the
Bishops and have suffered sufficiently from their arbitrary caprice in
transferring or depriving them, see their only resource in the _Curia_,
and the notion has lately been disseminated among them that the
infallibilist dogma will procure their complete emancipation from
episcopal authority. Accordingly almost every number of the _Univers_
contains enthusiastic addresses, which might be tripled by making all the
nuns subscribe, as they would do with the greatest pleasure.
The plan which has proved so successful in France is to be adopted now in
Germany also. The nuncio at Munich reports that there is a swarm of
red-hot infallibilists there, and that the clergy are eagerly awaiting the
news of the definition; the diocesan organs of Munich and Augsburg,
together with the clerico-political daily papers, are quoted as
indubitable testimonies, and the Bishops of Cologne, Augsburg, Munich,
Mayence, etc., are told on high authority that they have nobody behind
them, and that their claim to represent the faith of their dioceses is in
contradiction with facts. There are indeed no numerously signed addresses
to show in Rome, but the daily papers give weighty evidence. Silence, it
is thought here, implies consent, the women and the rustics are certainly
for the Pope. The Pope says in his supreme self-satisfaction, “Scio
omnia.” He knows the true state of things beyond the Alps far better than
the Bishops; the Jesuits and their pupils and the nuncios take care of
that. Hugo Grotius says, with reference to Richelieu, “Butillerius Pater
et Josephus Capucinus negotia cruda accipiunt, cocta ad Cardinalem
deferunt.” So it is here, the Jesuits do what the Fathers Boutillier and
Joseph did in Paris. Pius receives only what is “cooked,” and twice
cooked, first in the Cologne and Munich kitchen and then in the Roman. The
German Bishops remember with some discomfort that they themselves sharply
rejected and censured every declaration of adhesion, and violently
suppressed the movement only just beginning.
The Cardinal General-Vicar has ordered public prayers for a fortnight by
the Pope’s command: the faithful are to invoke the Holy Ghost for the
Council, since the whole world presents so wretched an appearance
(_miserabile aspetto dell’ orbe_), and the longer the conflict (of the
Council) with the world increases, the more glorious will be the victory,
and then, it is said, will all nations behold miracles—which appears from
the context to mean that, considering the opposition of the world (and of
so many Bishops), the erection of the new article of faith must be
regarded as a miracle of divine omnipotence, but a miracle which will
certainly be wrought. Many interpret this to mean that people must be
prepared for a conciliar _coup d’état_. But as matters stand, it can
hardly be supposed that the Court party will let matters come to a _non
placet_ of at least 120 Bishops, nor would anything be gained by cutting
short the debate. In the last analysis the main ground of the dogma with
the majority always resolves itself into this—that the present Pope and
his predecessors for many years past have held themselves infallible. That
is the only ground on which the Dominicans, Jesuits and Cardinals have
interpolated it into the theology of the schools. Pius might certainly
define it in a Bull to the entire satisfaction of the majority, and
thereby put an end to the contention of the Bishops. An end? it may be
asked. Well, yes—the end of the beginning.