_Rome, June 30, 1870._—In the middle ages ecclesiastical controversies
were decided by the ordeal of the cross. The representatives of both
parties placed themselves before a large cross, with their arms stretched
out in the form of a cross, and he whose arms first sank, or who fell
exhausted to the ground, was conquered. The heat and the Roman fever have
replaced this ordeal at the Council. The process which is to test the
result has been going on for six weeks, and the majority will evidently
come out of it with flying colours. It is composed chiefly of Italians and
Spaniards of both hemispheres, who can bear such things much better than
northerners, and as it is four times as numerous as the minority, gaps
made in its ranks by sickness and death are soon filled up, and the
phalanx remains firmly closed, while the Opposition receives the news of
the sickness or departure of one of its members as heralding its growing
discouragement and final defeat. How well the authorities understand the
inestimable value of this new ally, the heat and mephitic exhalations, is
shown by the laconic but significant words of the papal journalist,
Veuillot, in his 125th Letter on the Council, “Et si la définition ne peut
mûrir qu’au soleil, eh bien, on grillera.” As before, so now again Roman
orthodoxy seems to have called fire to its aid, and for Bishops, who do
not wish to be roasted according to Veuillot’s wish, flight is the only
alternative.
Cardinal Guidi has received the most peremptory orders from the Pope to
make a formal retractation of his speech in Council. The form and occasion
of making it he may arrange with the Legates. He has already had an
interview with Bilio. The Pope has forbidden him to receive visits, that
he may be free to consider without distraction the greatness of his error.
Solitary confinement is adopted in the penal legislation of other
countries too as an efficient instrument of reformation. Guidi has told
the Presidents that he is ready to give an explanation of his speech in a
public sitting, if they will announce beforehand that he does so by the
Pope’s desire; but he can make no retractation. Jandel, the Dominican
General, intends now to deliver a speech in refutation of Guidi’s theory,
which has been composed for him in the Gesù. Many think that Guidi will be
deterred from letting things come to extremities by the terrible example
of Cardinal Andrea, who was worried to death. A Cardinal, who lives out of
the Roman States, may maintain a certain independence or even opposition,
as the precedent of Cardinal Noailles shows, but in Rome this is
impossible. As Archbishop of Bologna Guidi would be under the protection
of the Italian Government, but thither he will never be allowed to return.
Heat, fever and intrigues—this is a brief description of the state of
Rome, as regards the Council. The heat and pestilential miasmas are
unendurable for foreigners from the north; already six French and four
American Bishops have been obliged to save their lives by departure, and
of those who stay in Rome a third are unable from their bodily ailments to
attend the sittings. A Petition to the Pope is now in course of signature
praying for a prorogation, on account of the danger to the lives of many
foreign and aged prelates at this season of the year. I give you the text,
but will observe that I hear most refuse to sign, some thinking the case a
hopeless one, others of very ill repute in the Vatican fearing their
adherence would only make it more so. The Petition runs thus—
“Beatissime Pater! Episcopi infrascripti, tam proprio quam aliorum
permultorum Patrum nomine a benignitate S. V. reverenter, fiducialiter et
enixe expostulant, ut ea, quæ sequuntur, paterne dignetur excipere:
“Ad Patres in Concilio Lateranensi v. sedentes hoc habebat, die XVII.
Junii, Leo X. Papa ‘Quia jam temporis dispositione ... concedimus’
simulque Concilium Pontifex ad tempus autumnale prorogabat.—Pejor certe
inpræsentiarum conditio nostra est. Calor æstivus, jam desinente mense
Junio, nimius est, et de die in diem intolerabilior crescit; unde RR.
Patrum, inter quos tot seniores sunt, annorum pondere pressi, et laboribus
confecti, valetudo graviter periclitatur.—Timentur inprimis febres, quibus
magis obnoxii sunt extranei hujusce temperiei regionis non assuefacti.
“Quidquid vero tentaverit et feliciter perfecerit liberalitas S. V., ut
non paucis episcopis hospitia bona præberentur, plerique tamen relegati
sunt in habitationes nimis augustas, sine aëre, calidissimas omninoque
insalubres. Unde jam plures episcopi ob infirmitatem corporis abire coacti
sunt, multi etiam Romæ infirmantur et Concilio adesse nequeunt, ut patet
ex tot sedibus quæ in aulâ conciliari vacuæ apparent.
“Antequam igitur magis ac magis creverit ægrotorum numerus, quorum plures
periculo hic occumbendi exponerentur, instantissime postulamus, B. Pater,
ut S. V. aliquam Concilii suspensionem, quæ post festum S. Petri
convenienter inciperet, concedere dignetur.
“Etenim, B. Pater, cum centum et viginti episcopi nomen suum dederint, ut
in tanti momenti quæstione audiantur, evidens est, discussionem non posse
intra paucos dies præcipitari, nisi magno rerum ac pacis religiosæ
dispendio. Multo magis congruum esset atque necessarium brevem aliquam, ob
ingruentes gravissimos æstatis calores, Concilio suspensionem dari.
“Nova vero Synodi periodus ad primam diem mensis Octobris forsitan
indicari posset.
“S. V., si hoc, ut fidenter speramus, concesserit, gratissimos sensus
nobis populisque nostris excitabit, utpote quæ gravissimæ omnium
necessitati consuluerit.
“Pedes S. V. devote osculantes nosmet dicimus S. V. humillimos et
obsequentissimos famulos in Christo filios.”
Attempts have already been made by word of mouth to secure some compassion
from the Pope for the severe sufferings of the Bishops, but wholly in
vain. His comments on the members of the minority, if rightly reported
here, are so irritable and bitter that I scruple to mention them. But I
must relate what occurred to-day at a farewell audience given to some
Maltese Knights, who had come to exercise their privilege of keeping guard
at an Œcumenical Council. The Pope first turned to an English member of
the Order and wished him success in the scheme for introducing it into
England, and then expressed his sympathy for that nation in his confident
expectation of the speedy and innumerable conversions promised by Manning,
adding the remark that the Italians were somewhat volatile. And the
mildness of the expression, compared with former ebullitions of anger,
proved that the infallibilist line of the Italian Bishops had covered in
his eyes the political sins of the nation. But then he turned to the
Germans, who were present in the greatest number, with the words, “I piu
cattivi sono i Tedeschi, sono i piu cattivi di tutti, lo spirito Tedesco a
guastato tutto.” Even that was not enough, but a Bohemian knight who was
present had to listen to a stream of invectives against the conduct of
Cardinal Schwarzenberg, which made a very unpleasant impression on him. As
a French Bishop said to me to-day, it is a humiliating spectacle to see a
man who, at the very moment when he is assimilating his office to the
Godhead, recklessly displays the little weaknesses and passions which
people are generally ashamed to expose to view.
It was clearly shown in the Congregations of 23d and 25th June that the
majority only continue to tolerate the speeches of the Opposition as an
almost unendurable nuisance. Loud murmurs alternated with the ringing of
the Presidents’ bell. When Bishop Losanna of Biella, the senior of the
Council, was speaking against burdening the Christian world with the new
dogma, the Legate tried to ring him down. He entreated that at least out
of regard for his advanced age they would let him finish the little he
still had to say. In vain. The Legate went on ringing and the Bishop
speaking, so that the assembly for some time was regaled with a duet
between a bell and an—of course inaudible—human voice.
In the Congregation of the 23d Bishop Landriot of Rheims made a long
speech in the interests of mediation and mutual concessions, which showed
careful study, but was received with every sign of displeasure by the
majority: he also proposed what Errington had wanted, that a Commission
formed from both parties should examine the whole tradition on the subject
and report the result to the Council. At this cries of “Oho, oho!” rose
from the majority. Discouraged and intimidated the Archbishop concluded
with the declaration that, if the Pope pleased to confirm the _Schema_, he
submitted by anticipation, at which the faces which had grown black
brightened up again and the apology for the French Church which he ended
with was condoned.
The most remarkable speeches in the sitting of 25th June were those of the
Bishop Legate of Trieste and Ketteler of Mayence. The first had the
courage to say plainly that the manipulation of Scripture texts, which
were pressed into the service of the new dogma in glaring contradiction to
the authentic interpretation of the Church, was a sin. Ketteler’s speech
created the greatest sensation from its decided tone, and its not
betraying the contradiction in which he seems to find himself involved
after his public declarations in Germany. I must indeed reckon on my
report again displeasing and angering him, for this “mobile ingegno usato
ad amar e a disamar in un punto” is wont to take it very ill if his bold
transitions do not leave the same impression on others which floats before
his own memory. But I will fulfil my duty as historian of the Council in
spite of this. Ketteler urged that nobody had alleged any clear evidence
for a personal and separate infallibility of the Pope being really
contained in Scripture, Tradition and the consciousness of all Churches;
it was only the opinion of a certain school—“placita cujusdam scholæ” he
repeated several times emphatically. The Pope certainly had the right of
proscribing doctrines which contradicted the dogmas already decided by the
Church, but by no means the totally different right of formulating a new
dogma without the consent of the episcopate. It was the greatest absurdity
to believe or say “Pontificem in pectoris sui scrinio omnem traditionem
repositam et infusam habere.” At these words murmurs arose in the
assembly; all had shortly before heard and repeated to one another the
Pope’s assertion, “La tradizione son’ io.” Then Ketteler attacked the
theory of Cardinal Cajetan, the well-known first opponent of Luther, that
Peter alone among the Apostles had a “potestas ordinaria” to be
transmitted to his successors, while the “potestas specialis” conferred by
Christ on the rest expired at their death, so that the Bishops are not
successors of the Apostles but derive all their authority from the Pope.
This mischievous system had been adopted by a certain school, and the
_Schema_ before them was drawn up in accordance with it and in
contradiction to all Catholic tradition. It placed the Bishops in the same
relation to the Pope as priests occupied towards Bishops, which was
unheard of. He protested against the whole system, and desired that in
every dogmatic decree Holy Scripture and Tradition should be taken full
account of: the Pope needed the co-operation of the Bishops as
representatives of tradition. It was utterly wrong to believe that the
_depositum fidei_ was committed to the Pope alone.
If the force and clearness of Ketteler’s speech evoked deep and serious
reflection, an amusing episode occurred at the close of the sitting. The
Irish Bishop Keane of Cloyne ascended the tribune. There is a story told
of a German city whose sapient councillors carried the sunlight out of the
street in sacks to light their town-hall, which had no windows; and so
Keane informed his hearers that St. Peter brought the whole body of
tradition with him to Rome well stored up; here and here alone it was
still kept, and every Pope took what was required from the stock which he
possessed as a whole genuine and entire.
Those who wish to prosecute psychological and ethical studies should come
to Rome. Here they may observe how the three great powers of the world, as
St. Augustine calls them, “Errores, amores, terrores,” work together in
full harmony and activity; the last especially will aid the victory of the
first—for how long He only knows who rules the destiny of man.