_Rome, June 11, 1870._—If the new article of faith is accepted and
proclaimed throughout the Catholic world, what will be its retrospective
force? On what decisions and doctrines of previous Popes will it set the
seal of infallibility? What amplifications and corrections of Catholic
theology will it involve? These questions are naturally raised here, not
indeed by the Bishops of the majority but by many of the Opposition; only
no one is in a position to give even an approximately accurate answer from
want of the necessary books, and the Court party reckoned on this “penuria
librorum,” which Cardinal Rauscher has already complained of. A German
theologian who had previously examined and studied the subject, undertook
to answer the anxious question of the Bishops, and I send you his
collection, which makes no claim to completeness, as a not unimportant
contribution to the history of the Council.
The Jesuit Schrader, who is the most considerable theologian of his Order
since Passaglia’s retirement, and who has been employed both before and
during the Council for drawing up the _Schemata_, on account of the
special confidence reposed in him by the Pope, has shown, in his great
work on _Roman Unity_,(108) that, as soon as papal infallibility resting
on divine guidance and inspiration is made into an article of faith, it
must by logical necessity include all public ordinances, decrees and
decisions of the Popes. For every one of these is indissolubly connected
with their teaching office, and contains, whatever be its particular
subject, a _doctrina veritatis_ either moral or religious. Papal
infallibility is not a robe of office which can be put on for certain
occasions and then laid aside again. The Pope is infallible, because he
is, in the fullest sense of the word, the representative of Christ on
earth, and like Christ he teaches and proclaims the truth by his acts as
well as his words; in short no public act or direction of his can be
conceived of as not having a doctrinal significance. And thus Catholic
theology and morality will be enriched by the new dogma with not a few
fresh articles of faith, which will then possess the same authority and
dignity as those already universally received as such.
There are indeed former papal decisions which, in becoming themselves
infallible through the proclamation of infallibility, will in turn cover
and guarantee the infallible character of the collective Constitutions of
all Popes. The first of these decisions is the statement of Leo X. in his
Bull of 1520 against Luther, “It is clear as the noonday sun that the
Popes, my predecessors, have never erred in their canons or
constitutions.” The second is the declaration of Pius IX. in his Syllabus,
“The Popes have never exceeded the limits of their power.” This assertion
too will become an infallible dogma, and history must succumb and adapt
itself to the dogma. Let us however specify some of the new articles of
faith thus declared to be infallible.
1. According to the teaching of the Church, the validity of the
sacraments, and especially of ordination, depends on the use of the right
form and matter. The whole Church for a thousand years regarded the
imposition of the Bishop’s hands as the divinely ordained matter of
priestly ordination. But Eugenius IV., in his dogmatic decree, decided
that the delivery of the Eucharistic vessels is the matter of the
sacrament of Orders, and the words used in their delivery the form.(109)
If the doctrine of this decree, solemnly issued by the Pope _ex cathedrâ_
and in the name of the Council of Florence—which however was no longer in
existence—was to be accepted as true and infallible, it would follow that
the Western Church for a thousand years, and the Greek Church up to this
day, had no validly ordained priests. Nay more, there would at this moment
be no validly ordained priest or Bishop in the Church at all, for there
would be no succession. And Eugenius gave an equally false definition of
the form of the sacraments of Penance and Confirmation.
2. According to the teaching of Innocent III., in the decretal _Novit_,
and other Popes after him, the Pope is able and is bound, whenever he
believes a question of sin to be involved, to interfere, first with
admonition and then with punishments. He can on this ground reverse any
judicial sentence, bring any cause before his own tribunal, summon any
sovereign before him, simply to answer for a grave sin or what he
considers such, annul his ordinances, and eventually excommunicate and
depose him.(110)
3. God has given to the Pope supreme jurisdiction over all kings and
princes, not only of Christendom but of the whole earth. The Pope has
plenary jurisdiction over the nations and kingdoms, he judges all and can
be judged by none in the world, according to Paul IV. in the Bull _Cum ex
Apostolatus Officio_, and Sixtus V. in the Bull _Inscrutabilis_. It is
also a doctrine of faith, to be received on pain of eternal damnation,
that the whole world is subject to the Pope even in temporal and political
matters, according to the Bull of Boniface VIII., _Unam Sanctam_. Boniface
adds that the Pope holds all rights “in scrinio pectoris sui.”
4. According to papal teaching, it is the will of God that the Popes
should rule and “govern,” not only the Church, but all secular matters and
literally the whole world. Thus Innocent III. says; “Dominus Petro non
solum universam Ecclesiam sed etiam sæculum reliquit gubernandum.”
5. According to papal teaching, as proclaimed by Gregory VII. at the Roman
Council of 1080, the Popes with the Fathers assembled in Council under
their presidency are not only able, by virtue of their power of binding
and loosing, to take away and bestow empires, kingdoms and princedoms, but
can take any man’s property from him or adjudge it to any one.(111)
6. According to papal teaching the Pope alone can remit all sins of all
men. Thus Innocent III. says in his letter to the Patriarch of
Constantinople.(112)
7. According to papal teaching the Pope is ruler by divine right of
Germany and Italy during the vacancy of the Imperial throne, because he
has received from God both powers, the spiritual and the temporal, in
their fulness (_jura terreni simul et cœlestis imperii_). So John XXII.
has declared in his Bull of 1317.(113) On account of this doctrine
millions of German and Italian Christians, from 1318 to 1348, were placed
under ban and interdict and deprived of the sacraments by the Popes.
8. The Pope by divine right can give whole nations into slavery on account
of some measure of their sovereign. Thus Clement V. and Julius II. dealt
with the Venetians on account of territorial quarrels, Gregory XI. with
the Florentines,(114) and Paul III. with the English on account of Henry
VIII.’s revolting from him.
9. The Pope can also give full authority to make slaves of a foreign
nation merely because they are not Catholics. Thus Nicolas V. in 1454
authorized King Alfonso of Portugal to appropriate the property of all
Mahometans and heathens of Western Africa, and to reduce them to perpetual
slavery.(115) Alexander VI. in 1493 gave similar rights to the Kings of
Spain over all inhabitants of America, when bestowing on them that quarter
of the world with all its peoples.(116)
10. According to papal teaching it is just and in consonance with the
Gospel to rob innocent populations, cities, regions, or countries _en
masse_, with the sole exception of the infants and the dying, of divine
service and sacraments, by an interdict, merely because the Sovereign or
Government of the country has violated a papal command or some right of
the Church. Innocent III., Innocent IV., Martin IV., Clement V., John
XXIV., Clement VI., and others have done so.
11. The Popes as God’s vicars on earth can make a present of whole
countries inhabited by non-Christian peoples, and hand over all rights of
sovereignty and property in them to any Christian prince they please.
Alexander V. did this in his Bull addressed to Ferdinand the Catholic and
Isabella, as he declares, “auctoritate omnipotentis Dei nobis in B. Petro
concessâ ac Vicariatûs Jesu Christi, quâ fungimur in terris.”(117)
Historically it may be said with perfect truth, that the peoples of the
southern and middle regions of America have been made the victims of the
theory of papal infallibility. The Spanish Church and nation, as well as
the sovereigns, have willingly received and maintained this doctrine,
because their claim both to Navarre and America rested solely upon it,
primarily on the Bulls of Alexander VI. and Julius II. With the Gallican
doctrine both claims would fall through. Alexander had empowered the
Spaniards to make the Indians slaves. All Spanish theologians appeal with
Las Casas to “el divino poder del Papa,” as he calls it, as the basis of
the Spanish dominion in America, and no one dared to call in question the
divine right of the infallible vicar of God, by virtue whereof he had
given over millions of Indians to slavery, and thereby to extermination;
within eighty years whole countries were depopulated.
12. It is just and consonant with the Gospel to burn to death as heretics
those who appeal from the sentence of the Pope to a General Council. So
Leo X. declares in his Bull of 1517, _Pastor Æternus_ (issued in the fifth
Lateran Synod).
13. Leo X. declared in another Bull, _Supernæ Dispositionis_, also
published in the Lateran Synod, that all clerics are wholly exempt by
divine right from all civil jurisdiction, and therefore not bound in
conscience by the civil law.(118)
14. According to the teaching of the Church, every Christian is bound
before God to do penance for his sins by ascetic exercises of abstinence,
self-denial and almsgiving. On Church principles no one can dispense from
this obligation, because it rests on divine ordinance. But the Popes teach
that it may be relaxed or superseded by means of plenary or particular
indulgences granted by themselves. They teach that to take part in a war
against enemies of the Holy See and in the extermination of heretics is an
effectual means for gaining pardon of sins, and a complete substitute for
all works of penance. Thus did Paschal II. instruct Count Robert of
Flanders in 1102, that for him and his warriors the surest means of
obtaining forgiveness of sins and heaven was to make war upon the clergy
of Liége and all adherents of the German Emperor, Henry IV.(119) Innocent
III. charged King Philip Augustus of France with the conquest of England,
after he had deposed King John, as a means for obtaining remission of
sin.(120) Martin IV. again impelled the French in 1283 to make war on the
Aragonese by the promise of plenary remission of their sins.(121) And
whenever there was a war to be undertaken in the territorial interests of
the Holy See, or for the extermination of heretics, the Popes urged men to
take part in it as the surest and most effectual means for cleansing them
from all their sins and attaining eternal happiness.
15. The Inquisition, both Spanish and Italian, is so pure a product of
papal teaching on faith and morals, that there never was an Inquisitor who
did not exercise his office by virtue of Papal authority and in the Pope’s
name, or whose power the Pope could not at any moment he chose have wholly
or partially withdrawn. All essential laws and regulations of the
Inquisition—the accused being deprived of any advocate to defend him, the
admission of infamous and perjured witnesses, the frequent application of
the torture, the obliging the civil magistrates to carry out capital
sentences of the Inquisitors, the prohibition to spare the life of any
lapsed heretic even on his conversion—all this emanates from the direct
and personal legislation of the Popes, and has always been confirmed by
their successors.
16. Gregory IX., Innocent IV., and Alexander IV. teach that it is in
accordance with the principles of morality and the Gospel to condemn a
heretic seized by the Inquisition, who has recanted, to lifelong
imprisonment.(122)
17. Alexander IV. teaches that it is lawful for the Pope to have the goods
of those condemned for heresy sold by his inquisitors, and to take the
proceeds for himself.(123)
18. Innocent III., Alexander IV., and Boniface VIII. teach that it is just
and consonant with the Gospel to deprive the sons and daughters of
heretics, though themselves Catholics, of their hereditary property. But
if the sons themselves accuse their parents and get them burnt, then their
inherited property, according to papal doctrine, is exempt from
confiscation.
19. According to papal teaching torture is an institution thoroughly in
harmony with morality and the spirit of the Gospel, and should be employed
particularly against those accused of heresy. Thus Innocent IV. and many
later Popes have directed, and Paul IV. ordered the rack to be very
extensively used.
20. It is especially just and Christian, according to the teaching and
regulation of Pius V. in 1569, to torture persons who have confessed or
been convicted of heresy, in order to make them give up their
accomplices.(124)
21. This same canonized Pope has ordered in a Bull that even the sons of a
man who has once offended an inquisitor should be punished with infamy and
confiscation of their goods.
22. There is a whole string of papal decrees declaring it a duty of
conscience for every Christian to denounce even his nearest relations to
the Inquisition, and give them up to prison, torture and death, if he
perceives any trace of heretical opinions or of anything forbidden by the
Church in them.(125)
23. The same Popes have declared it to be just and evangelical, and have
ordered, that a relapsed heretic, even if he recants, should be put to
death.(126) They have further declared it to be moral and Christian-like
that in trials for heresy witnesses should be admitted to accuse or give
evidence against the accused, whose testimony would not be admitted in any
other court on account of their former crimes or their infamy.(127)
24. According to papal teaching it is just and Christian forcibly to
deprive heretics of their children, in order to bring them up Catholics.
Thus Innocent XII., by a sentence of the Holy Office at Rome, pronounced
null and void the edict of Duke Victor Amadeus of Savoy in 1694 ordering
their children, who had been forcibly taken from them, to be restored to
the unfortunate and cruelly persecuted Waldenses under his
government.(128)
25. The Popes teach that a sentence once pronounced for heresy can never
be mitigated, nor pardon ever granted to any one sentenced to death or
perpetual imprisonment for heresy. Thus Innocent IV. rules in his Bull _Ad
Exstirpanda_.(129)
26. Up to 1555 it was the teaching of the Popes that only those should be
burnt who persisted obstinately in maintaining a doctrine condemned by the
Church, and those who had relapsed after recanting into the same or some
other heresy. But in that year Paul IV. established the new principle that
certain doctrines, if only just put forward and at once retracted, should
be punished with death. Thus whoever rejected any ecclesiastical
definition on the Trinity, or denied the perpetual virginity of Mary and
maintained that the scriptural language about “brothers of Jesus” was to
be taken literally of children of Mary, was to be classed with the
“relapsed” and to be executed, even though he recanted.
27. Up to 1751, theologians, especially Italians, who defended trials for
witchcraft and the reality of an express compact with Satan, together with
the various preternatural crimes wrought thereby and the carnal
intercourse of men and demons (_incubi et succubi_), used to appeal to the
infallible authority of the Popes, the Bulls of Innocent VIII., Sixtus V.,
Gregory XV. and several more besides, in which these things are affirmed
and assumed and the due penalties prescribed for them.(130)
28. If an oath that has been taken is prejudicial to the interests of the
Church (_e.g._, in money matters), it must be broken. So teaches Innocent
III.(131)
29. The Popes can dispense at their pleasure oaths of allegiance taken by
a people to their King, as Gregory VII., Alexander III., Innocent III.,
and many others have done.
30. They can also absolve a sovereign from the treaties he has sworn to
observe or from his oath to the Constitution of his country, or give full
power to his confessor to absolve him from any oath he finds it
inconvenient to keep. Such a plenary power Clement VI. gave to King John
of France and his successors.(132) Thus Clement VII. absolved the Emperor
Charles V. from his oath restricting his absolutism over popular rights in
Belgium, and again from his oath not to banish the Moriscos from their
home. And Paul IV. announced to the Emperors Charles and Ferdinand that he
dispensed their oath to observe the Augsburg religious peace.(133)
31. In 1648 a prospect of toleration was held out to the sorely oppressed
Catholics of England and Ireland, if they would sign a renunciation of the
following principles, (α) The Pope can dispense any one from obedience to
the existing Government; (β) The Pope can absolve from an oath taken to a
heretic; (γ) Those who have been condemned as heretics by the Pope may at
his command, or with his dispensation, be put to death or otherwise
injured. This renunciation was signed by fifty-nine English noblemen and
several ecclesiastics, but Pope Innocent X. declared that all who had
signed it had incurred the penalties denounced against those who deny
papal authority, _i.e._, excommunication, etc. And so the penal laws
against Catholics remained in force for another century. Paul V. had
previously condemned the oath of allegiance prescribed by James I. for the
English Catholics, and the execution of a considerable number of them was
the result.(134)
32. The Popes teach that they can absolve men from any vow made to God or
empower others to do so, and can even give them powers prospectively for
dispensing vows to be made hereafter. And thus they have empowered royal
confessors to absolve kings from any future vow they may find reason to
repent of.(135)
33. The Popes have declared, by granting indulgences, that their
jurisdiction extends over Purgatory also, and that it depends on them to
deliver the dead who are there and transfer them into heaven. Thus Julius
II. bestowed on the Order of Knights of St. George, restored by the
Emperor Maximilian, the privilege that, on assuming the habit of the
Order, the Knights “confessi et contriti, a pœnâ et a culpâ et a carcere
Purgatorii et pœnis ejusdem mox et penitus absoluti et quittandi esse
debeant, planè et liberè Paradisum et regnum intraturi.”(136) Then or
shortly before (1500) the doctrine was first propounded in Rome, that the
Popes could attach to certain altars by special privileges the power of
delivering one or more souls from Purgatory.
34. The Pope can dissolve a marriage by placing one of the parties under
the greater excommunication, and thus declaring him a heathen and infidel.
Urban V. did this in 1363, when he excommunicated Bernabó Visconti, Duke
of Milan, depriving him and all his children of all their rights and
property and absolving his subjects from their allegiance to him, and at
the same time pronouncing his wife free to marry again: “Uxorem ejus uti
Christianam a vinculo matrimonii cum hæretico et infideli liberavit.”(137)
35. Innocent III. had paved the way for this by establishing the doctrine
that the bond between a Bishop and his diocese is stronger than the
marriage bond between man and wife, and therefore as indissoluble by man
as the latter, and that God alone could dissolve it, and the Pope as God’s
vicegerent.(138) It followed that the Pope, and he alone, could also
dissolve a validly contracted marriage.
36. According to papal teaching it is praiseworthy and Christian for a
man, who has promised a woman with an oath to marry her, to deceive her by
a sham marriage, and then break the bond and retire into a monastery. This
recommendation (to commit an act of treachery at once and of sacrilege)
was given by Alexander III. in 1172, and it has been incorporated in the
code of canon law drawn up by command of the Popes.(139)
37. The Popes teach that anyone attending a service celebrated by a
married priest commits sacrilege, because the blessing he gives turns to a
curse. So Gregory VII. teaches, in direct contradiction to the doctrine of
the ancient Church, and even to modern theology.(140) The notion has long
since been exploded.(141)
38. The Popes teach that they have the power of rewarding services done to
themselves with a higher degree of eternal beatitude. Thus Nicolas V.
promised all who should take up arms against Amadeus of Savoy (the
antipope Felix) and his adherents, not only remission of all their sins,
but an increase of heavenly happiness, and gave his lands and property at
the same time to the King of France.(142)
39. The Popes teach that it is false and damnable to maintain that a
Christian ought not to abstain from doing his duty from fear of an unjust
excommunication. Clement XI. declares the contrary to be true in his Bull
_Unigenitus_, prop. 91.
40. Those who die wearing the Carmelite scapular have papal assurance,
resting on a revelation granted to John XXII., that they will be delivered
on the next Saturday after their death by the Virgin Mary from Purgatory
and conveyed straight to heaven. So says the Bull _Sabbathina_, confirmed
by Alexander V., Clement VII., Pius V., Gregory XIII., and Paul V., by the
last after long and careful examination, and with indulgences attached to
it.(143)
41. According to papal decisions it is an excess of extravagance and
folly, and a detestable innovation, to translate the Roman missal into the
vernacular. It is to violate and trample under foot the majesty of the
ritual composed in Latin words, to expose the dignity of the holy
mysteries to the gaze of the rabble, to produce disobedience, audacity,
insolence, sedition and many other evils. The authors of such translations
are “sons of perdition.” Alexander III. says this _totidem verbis_ in his
Brief of Jan. 12, 1661.(144) Nevertheless the translated missal is in
general circulation in France, England and Germany, and is daily used by
all the most pious persons.
42. To receive interest on invested money is a grievous sin according to
papal teaching, and any one who has done so is bound to make restitution.
Papal legislation makes it, under the name of usury, an ecclesiastical
offence to be judged by the spiritual tribunals. The principle established
by the Popes was, that it is unlawful and sinful to ask for any
compensation for the use of capital lent out. And under the head of usury,
which was strictly forbidden, was included anything whatever received by
the lender in compensation for his capital, every kind of interest,
commercial business and the like. Thus Clement V. pronounced it heresy to
defend taking interest, and liable to the penalties of the papal law
against heresy.(145) His successors, Pius V., Sixtus V., and especially
Benedict XIV., adhered to this condemnation of all taking of interest. The
results were that real usury was greatly advanced thereby, that all sorts
of evasions and illusory contracts came into actual use, that the wealth
of whole countries was damaged, and commercial greatness, banished from
Catholic countries, became the monopoly of Protestant countries.(146)