_Rome, June 21, 1870._—What I have to communicate in this letter is so
important, that I find it desirable to take it out of the historical order
of events and let it precede the detailed account of what occurred between
June 8 and 17.
A circumstance occurred on Saturday, which has kept all who are interested
about the Council in breathless suspense ever since. Nothing in fact could
be more unexpected than that, at the moment when the Opposition, though
still maintaining the contest from a sense of conscientious duty, almost
despairs of success, a fresh ally should join its ranks in the person of a
Roman Cardinal, whose accession is the more valuable because he does not
only speak in his own name, but has concerted his speech with the fifteen
Bishops of his Order. In fact I hear his speech spoken of in many quarters
as the most important and unexpected event in the Council. It must not of
course be supposed that Guidi’s spirited speech represents adequately the
tendencies of the Opposition, but still it must be affirmed that it
involves a complete, and as we believe irreconcilable, breach with the
majority. In order to enable people to appreciate the full weight of the
speech it is of some importance to premise a brief account of the speaker.
Cardinal Guidi has belonged, almost ever since his entering the Dominican
Order, to the convent of the Minerva. For a long time he belonged to the
theological professoriate connected with the convent, and enjoyed, as
such, the well-earned reputation of great learning and strict orthodoxy.
When eleven years ago Pius IX. wished to send thoroughly trustworthy and
learned Roman theologians to the University of Vienna, to inculcate
genuine Roman science and views on the young clergy, his eye fell on
Father Guidi. After working there for some years he returned to Rome,
having been meanwhile appointed Cardinal, and was soon afterwards made
Archbishop of Bologna; and as the Italian Government promised to place no
impediment in the way of his residing there, he actually betook himself to
his See. But he soon found that it was not the place for him. The
Dominican Order had seriously compromised itself in the notorious Mortara
affair, and accordingly the Bolognese rabble broke out repeatedly into the
most deplorable demonstrations against the new Archbishop as a member of
the hated Order. He therefore returned to Rome, and administered his
diocese from hence. And here he was one of the Pope’s favourites, only
during the last year he has lost favour through his freedom of speech.
Since then he has been prosecuting his theological studies in retirement,
and it was pretty well known what he thought about the personal
infallibility of the Pope. Several months ago he had assembled the
Dominican Bishops at the Minerva about this affair. His view prevailed,
and when Father Jandel, the General imposed on the Order by the Pope and
reluctantly accepted, tried to put a pressure on them, they replied that
they were Bishops, and were bound, as such, to consult their consciences
when called to act as judges of faith. Then began a notable agitation in
the Order, which was already divided into two camps. One arbitrary act
followed another. A so-called academy of St. Thomas was opened, and hardly
had the President taken his seat, when he made a long speech, expounding
the doctrine of St. Thomas and the Order on papal infallibility in the
most tactless and violent manner to his episcopal audience. A Dominican
Bishop delighted the Pope by getting up an infallibilist address among his
episcopal colleagues. Then followed a series of writings defending St.
Thomas against _Janus_. A member of the Order was forbidden by the
General, Jandel, “to speak either publicly or privately about
infallibility,” and the _Civiltà Cattolica_ of June 18 praised the General
for prefixing to the infallibilist writing of a Dominican the approbation
that in the Dominican Order papal infallibility has always been held as a
Catholic truth.
Under these circumstances people were the less prepared to find Cardinal
Guidi, in contrast with his numerous sympathizers in the College of
Cardinals, venturing boldly on a step which must embitter his whole
existence at Rome. The very first sentence of his momentous speech must
have concentrated the anger of the majority on a Cardinal, as they
thought, so confused and oblivious of his duty. Guidi began by affirming
that the separate and personal infallibility of the Pope, as stated in the
amended chapter of the _Schema_, was wholly unknown in the Church up to
the fourteenth century inclusive. Proofs for it are vainly sought in
Scripture and Tradition. The whole question, he added, reduces itself to
the point whether the Pope has defined even one dogma alone and without
the co-operation of the Church. No man could claim divine inspiration
(_doctrina infusa_). An act might be infallible, a person never. But every
infallible act had always proceeded from the Church herself only, either
“per consilium Ecclesiæ sparsæ,” or “per Concilium.” To know “quid ubique
credatur, si omnes Ecclesiæ cum Romanâ Ecclesiâ concordent,” information
is indispensably required. After this examination the Pope sanctions
doctrine “finaliter,” as St. Thomas says, and only so can it be rightly
said “Omnes per Papam docent.” He then showed from the works of the
Jesuits Bellarmine and Perrone, “in definendis dogmatibus Papas nunquam ex
se solis egisse, nunquam hæresim per se solos condemnâsse.” As Guidi
uttered these words the majority began to make a tumult under the lead of
the Italian Spaccapietra, Bishop of Smyrna. The Cardinal saw he could not
continue his speech. One bishop cried “birbante” (scoundrel) and another
“brigantino.” But Guidi did not let himself be put out of countenance; he
answered with astonishing firmness and calmness that he had a right to be
heard, and that no one had given to the Bishops the right of the
Presidents. “However, the time will come yet for saying your _Placet_ or
your _Non placet_, and then every one will be free to vote according to
his conscience.” Here for the first time his speech was interrupted by
loud applause, and the words “Optime, optime” resounded from every side
among the Opposition Bishops. Manning was asked by one of them, who stood
near him, “Etes-vous d’accord, Monsigneur?” He replied, “Le Cardinal est
une tête confuse.” On this a high-spirited Bishop could not refrain from
observing to the powerful Archbishop of Westminster, “C’est bien votre
tête, Monseigneur, qui est confuse et plus qu’à moitié Protestante.”
After this pretty long interruption Guidi went on to require a change in
the chapter on infallibility “ut clare appareat Papam agere
consentientibus episcopis et illis occasione errorum qui sparguntur
petentibus, factâ inquisitione in aliis Ecclesiis, præmisso maturo examine
et judicio et consiliis fratrum aut collecto Concilio.” This was the true
doctrine of St. Thomas; “finaliter” implied something to precede, and the
words “supremus magister et judex” pre-suppose other “magistri” and
“tribunalia.” He concluded by proposing these canons:—
(1.) “Si quis dixerit decreta seu constitutiones a Petri successore
editas, continentes quandam fidei vel morum veritatem Ecclesiæ universæ ab
ipso pro supremâ suâ et apostolicâ auctoritate propositas non esse
extemplo omnimodo venerandas et toto corde credendas vel posse
reformari—anathema sit.
(2.) “Si quis dixerit Pontificem, cum talia edit decreta, posse agere
arbitrio et ex se solo non autem ex consilio episcoporum traditionem
Ecclesiarum exhibentium—anathema sit.”
On sitting down he gave his manuscript to the Secretary, and was soon
surrounded by the leaders of the Opposition, some of whom complimented him
on his speech, while others expressed their admiration of his courage in
resisting the attempts to interrupt him. When a learned Italian Bishop
asked Valerga, Patriarch of Jerusalem, what he thought of this speech, he
replied audibly with the pun, “Si e squidato,” and on his interrogator
rejoining that anyhow the speech contained nothing but the truth, Valerga
let slip an expression very characteristic of himself and his party, “Si,
ma non convien sempre dir la verità.”
After this speech a large number of Bishops left the Council Hall, and
excited groups of prelates might be seen standing about in all directions.
Cardinals Bonnechose and Cullen addressed their very pointless speeches to
empty benches. Both pleaded for the proclamation of the fourth chapter, as
it stood. Bonnechose, from whom Ginoulhiac and others had expected a very
moderate speech, proved that he had completely gone over into Manning’s
camp, which cannot surprise any one in the case of a man who himself made
no secret of his having no clear views on the question. Cullen destroyed
by his last speech the impression made by the first, which had been
admired, not for its contents but for its strictly parliamentary form.
Cardinal Guidi’s courageous speech was destined soon to bear its fruits.
The Pope—the dearest object of whose heart is the perfect freedom of the
Council, as the official journal stated the other day—sent for him at
once, and next day boasted to several Cardinals of having energetically
rebuked their undutiful colleague for his heresy and ingratitude, and
threatened him with being called on to renew his profession of faith. But
the Cardinal may consider himself indemnified for these hard words of the
Pope by the homage he received the day after his speech from almost the
whole body of the Opposition Bishops who came to visit him. And he knows
that the best of them were even worse treated by his Holiness than
himself, where it was possible.