_Rome, June 6, 1870._—There have been indications for some time past that
the _dénouement_ was likely to be precipitated. The Pope himself declared
that it was impossible to keep the Bishops here in July. The great debate,
with 106 speakers inscribed, wearied every one, and the tropical heat
increases the exhaustion and disgust. But the minority maintained their
resolve to carry on the general debate to the end, while the majority
counted on its absorbing the discussion of the separate chapters of the
_Schema_, and accordingly Fessler announced that the speakers were at
liberty to treat of points which belonged properly to the special debate.
His party considered that, if the general and special debate were mixed up
in this way, they might insist at the end that the separate chapters
required no further discussion, since everything had been said already,
and so they might come sooner to the decision they so earnestly desired.
Very few speakers have attempted any theological argument—perhaps only
Conolly, Dinkel and Maret; and this made it easier to mix up the general
and special discussion, which again has helped to give a vague and
rambling character to the debate. It was clear that after 106 or more
speeches on the preliminary question, there were still five weary debates
to come on the preamble and each of the four chapters, so that, unless the
discussion was to be forcibly closed, it must either last on through the
whole summer, or a prorogation be allowed while the main question was
still unsettled. The first expedient seemed hardly practicable, and could
only be held out _in terrorem_, so that the Court really had to choose
between an act of arbitrary power or a prorogation of the Council, which
last would be equivalent to a great victory of the minority. There was no
want of attempts to get up an agitation for an adjournment. It seemed a
happy escape from grave embarrassments to those secular and untheological
counsellors of the Pope, who have given up the notion of infallibility,
and on the contrary are convinced that the definition involves the
separation of Church and State, the fall of the temporal power and the
loss of the accustomed resources of the Papacy. These men do not expect an
isle of Delos to rise out of the sea for the Pope when the States of the
Church are swallowed up, but they are excluded from any influence on the
Council. The more full the Pope is of the one grand subject of his
infallibility, the less will he listen to Antonelli, to whom the mysteries
in which he is not initiated are a nuisance, and who hates the line taken
by Manning and the French zealots and apostolic Janissaries, and would
like nothing better than an ambiguous formula leaving things just where
they are.
But as soon as the majority became aware that some of the more colourless
Bishops of the middle party were working for the prorogation of the
Council, they resolved to be beforehand with them. Their _postulatum_ for
closing the debate with its 150 signatures was got ready on Thursday the
2d, but was not meant to be presented till the Saturday. But the great
excitement at the close of Maret’s speech gave them the opportunity for
striking the blow on Friday, when the close of the general debate was
carried by a large majority. The order of business undoubtedly gave the
Presidents the right of putting it to the vote, and moreover they have
more than the letter of the law on their side. They might have urged that,
as the general and special debates were not kept separate, most of what
was now omitted might be supplied afterwards, and the Fathers who had
missed their turn would have five other opportunities of speaking. They
might have also alleged, in excuse of hurrying the proceedings, the
constantly growing impatience and disgust generally manifested in the
assembly, and the uselessness of all minute discussion of details. It is
enough to mention as indicative of the prevalent feeling of the majority,
that they received the Bishop of Pittsburg with derisive laughter when he
ascended the tribune, and that they muttered at every affectionate or
respectful allusion to the Pope by an Opposition speaker, “Et osculatus
est Illum.”(107) Under these circumstances Conolly omitted nearly half his
manuscript. The majority might have urged the further excuse that far more
of their own speakers than of their opponents were excluded by the close
of the debate. Some 27 of the latter had as yet spoken against 36
infallibilists, which however, considering that the minority are only a
fourth of the Council, tells in their favour.
But if we examine the matter more closely, the Opposition has lost all it
had left by the close of the general debate, viz., freedom of speech. It
has been sacrificed to the caprice of the majority, for the subsequent
debates may be closed in the same way: that on the primacy because it is
no new subject, and that on infallibility because the general debate
turned wholly upon it. So the Opposition had nothing left them but to
protest, unless they would summon courage for a decisive act. But their
protest is as feeble as the last; it is simply directed against the abuse
of an order of business they had already protested against, and then
themselves accepted by continuing to take part in the Council. A party
intoxicated with success cannot be restrained or conquered by these paper
demonstrations, nor even the sympathy of the Catholic world be gained; a
definite and firm principle is requisite for that. After all their
experiences it may be called a harmless amusement for the minority to
present protest after protest, with the certainty that they will be laid
by unnoticed and unanswered.
The French Bishops of the minority held a meeting on the 3rd, from which
they came away troubled and undecided. The Germans take the matter less
seriously. Their past presses heavily upon them. They had an opportunity,
when the second _regolamento_ was issued at the end of February, and again
at the Solemn Session at the end of April, of either getting their views
accepted or bringing the Council to an end. But they were not then strong
enough for that. Now at the eleventh hour a last though less favourable
opportunity is offered them. But at the international meeting at Cardinal
Rauscher’s last Saturday, their views were again set aside, for the
assemblage of the whole body of Opposition Bishops brought to light the
unpleasant fact of a gulf between the intellectual leaders and the mass of
the minority, which makes any real leadership impossible. And this is the
more lamentable, because the men who since the opening of the Council have
risen to so important a position were almost unanimous; for Hefele and
Rivet, Bishop of Dijon, were almost the only ones among them, except
Ketteler, who rejected the energetic measure of holding aloof from the
debates for the future and protesting by silence. It seems that Hefele
wanted to recognise the Council as still having some claim. The other
leaders succumbed, unwillingly and predicting evils, to the will of the
majority, who were satisfied with the protest drawn up by Rauscher.
But all is not yet lost, and the tactics actually adopted may perhaps in
skilful hands be made as effective as the rejected policy. Between
Pentecost and the feast of the Apostles from 80 to 90 speakers might make
their voices heard. If we consider that more than 100 speakers had
enrolled their names for the first and tolerably irregular debate, and
that 49 speeches were suppressed, it is clear that the great question of
the primacy and infallibility of the Pope would require a much longer time
for uninterrupted and complete discussion, and thus the adjournment would
remain as probable and as inevitable as before. The Court and the majority
would perhaps shrink from depriving the proceedings of all dignity, weight
and completeness by a fresh _coup d’église_, as such an attempt might
appear even to them too bold and dangerous in the special debate on the
principles of the Church. And if such an attempt was made, it would
perhaps exhaust at last even the patience of the patient Germans, and lead
them to muster all their forces for the last contest. One must admit that
if orthodox Catholicism is only to be saved by an adjournment of the
Council this is not much to the credit of the Church. But the reason why
so many prefer a prorogation to a decisive conflict is because they fear
that many present opponents of the doctrine might at last vote for its
definition and betray their consciences through fear of men, and that many
who vote against it and insist on the necessity of unanimity would
ultimately accept and teach a dogma false in itself and carried by
illegitimate means.
I will merely mention, in illustration of this, that it was lately thought
very necessary to distribute a _Disquisitio Moralis de Officio
Episcoporum_, discussing whether a Bishop does not greatly violate his
conscience by voting for a decree to define the personal and independent
infallibility of the Pope, without having any previous conviction of its
being a revealed doctrine always held and handed down in the Church as
such. The treatise is well written, but no such bitter irony against the
Episcopate is contained in the pasquinades, and it is obvious that the
author has not underrated their weakness from the fact that many Bishops
would vote differently if the voting was secret. There are some among them
too who doubt if papal absolutism and a power which kills out all
intellectual movement is not better than truth and purity of doctrine, and
if the responsibility of individual Bishops is not superseded by a decree
of the Pope, at least when issued “sacro approbante Concilio.”
To judge from to-day’s debate on the preamble, one would imagine the
Opposition neither knew how to speak nor how to keep silence. None but the
French, who have put down their names to speak, appear to have much desire
to take any further part in the discussion. Perhaps they think it
ludicrous to take any serious part in a debate which may be suddenly
broken off, and speak, as it were, with a halter round their necks. And
those who had thought the right plan was to keep silence henceforth were
the best speakers of the Opposition; they do not therefore fall readily
into a policy they disapproved. Their view is that, as the majority has
done its worst and the minority has not the spirit to follow the counsel
of its leaders, it is no longer worth while to fight against a result
which cannot be permanent.
This weak and vacillating attitude may possibly only be a momentary
consequence of the sudden commencement of a discussion which seemed
distant and for which they were unprepared. On the other hand the
confidence of the majority increases, and they announce the close of the
debate on Corpus Christi. If the minority remain as undecided as they were
at the Conference at Cardinal Rauscher’s, an unfavourable issue must be
feared, and this will be their own fault, for sacrificing their cause at
the very moment they have for six months been preparing for, through some
of them not choosing to be silent and the others not choosing to speak.
The main argument urged against taking further part in the discussion is
that the historical and traditional evidences against infallibility had
been prepared by men who lost their turn through the closing of the
general debate, and cannot be brought forward in the special debate which
is only about changes in the text of the decree. The majority have thereby
testified their refusal to listen, not to certain speakers, but to a
certain portion of the theological argument, and thus they prevent the
investigation of tradition which is so unwelcome to them. Only secondary
matters can be discussed now, while the main point is left untouched. To
many, and especially the Hungarians, this seemed a betraying of the cause.
The Hungarians absolutely refuse to take any further part in the debates,
for in their eyes the Council has already condemned itself, and they
cannot too soon publish their opinion to the world by recording their _non
placet_. They are therefore dissatisfied with the Germans, who prevented
stronger measures being adopted, and some of them—like Simor, who would
not go on attending the sittings—have even refused to sign the Protest to
the Pope, because it involves too much deference to the Council. There are
accordingly only 81 signatures, for the Archbishop of Cologne has also
refused to sign, but on grounds precisely opposite to those of the
Archbishop of Gran.
Meanwhile the Vicar-General here is organizing all sorts of demonstrations
for the happy result of the Council in the sense of the Court party. There
were to be three processions this week, and no pains were spared to induce
persons of rank, including ladies, to take part in them. In many cases the
attempt failed, for it is idle to deny that a large portion of the Roman
citizens of all ranks turn away with indifference and contempt from St.
Peter’s, and of course from all religion too.
The _Unita Cattolica_ predicts with triumphant confidence that God will
yield to their pious importunities (_Iddio obbedira_), the Holy Ghost will
fill the Council Hall, descend upon each of the Fathers and work the
miracle of making them all boldly confess the infallibilist doctrine. As
in the year 33 the people, who surrounded the house where the Pentecostal
miracle was wrought, asked, in amazement at the new tongues of the
Apostles, “Are these who speak Galileans?” so in 1870 they will hear the
Bishops and Cardinals proclaim papal infallibility and will ask
themselves, “Are not these the men who wrote as zealous Gallicans?” The
Spirit of God will work this “noisy miracle” (_strepitoso miracolo_).
A remarkable Petition has for some time been hawked about, begging the
Pope to promote St. Joseph to be General Protector of the Catholic Church.
Many have objected that it is unfair to disturb the “riposo di San
Giuseppe,” but the notion finds much favour in the Vatican.
It is impossible to foresee at this moment how the great decision will
turn out. The majority are evidently consolidating their plans, and the
argument may be heard among them that, if papal infallibility were an
error, the devil would not have stirred up the war which is being carried
on against it. But one may still always assume that 120 Bishops will say
_Non placet_, unless some miserable formula of compromise is hit upon. But
the real decision will be when the Pope determines to ignore these 120
opponents and proceed to the order of the day.