_Rome, July 5, 1870._—Rome is an excellent school for Bishops; a course of
seven months at the Council produces wonderful results. One illusion after
another is laid aside and an insight gained into the working of the huge
machine and the forces that put it in motion, and the Bishops learn at
last, though it be laboriously and not without tears, why they were
summoned and what services alone are demanded of them. The historian
Pachymeres relates that, when the people of Constantinople demanded a
Council in 1282 in order to judge the unionist Patriarch, Bekkus, Bishop
Theoktistus of Adrianople said that they treated Bishops like wooden spits
on which Bekkus might be roasted, and which might then be thrown into the
fire.(151) A very similar feeling has come over many Bishops here; they
know that if they say _Non placet_ at last, they will be cast into the
fire, after they have helped by their reluctant practical recognition of
both the first and second order of business—destructive as both are to all
real freedom—to forge the new spiritual yoke. And then they find their
schoolroom a very narrow and uncomfortable one, and have at last
discovered that it looks very like a prison cell.
It is but a game of moves and counter-moves as on a chessboard, only that
no one dares to incur the penalty of high treason by saying “Check to the
king,” or lifting a finger for such an audacious move. The minority were
so confounded and irritated by the abrupt closing of the general debate,
because they hoped to prolong it till prorogation became inevitable. For
nobody doubted in April and May that this would follow at the end of June,
and the notion was sedulously fostered by the official staff of the
Council—the Legates and Secretary Fessler—and by the Pope himself. It is
not long since Pius said to a French Bishop, “It would be barbarity on my
part to want to keep the Bishops here in July.” And thus the Opposition,
whenever they were shaken and disturbed by some violent act, let matters
be hushed up and never gave any practical effect to their protests and
complaints. But now the Court party say that it would indeed be tyrannical
cruelty to keep us here, under ordinary circumstances, imprisoned in this
furnace full of fevers, but it is justified by the abnormal situation. The
grand and saving act of the infallibilist definition, which is to quicken
the whole Church with new powers of life and introduce the golden age of
absolute ecclesiastical dominion, cannot any longer be held in suspense.
“You surely will not wish,” said Cardinal de Angelis to a Bishop who was
urging the necessity of a prorogation, “that the Pope, after spending so
many thousand scudi on the Bishops, should now be left alone in the
Vatican without any recompense.” And Antonelli thinks the Bishops have
only themselves to blame for their present suffering condition; why have
they wasted so much time in speeches?
Since that shocking saying of the Pope’s, which I referred to in my last
letter, has became known here, the Bishops have abandoned as hopeless the
design of making a direct appeal to him for the prorogation of the Council
on the score of the health and lives of its members. And this conviction
has been further strengthened by the insolence of the Court theologian,
Louis Veuillot. “Let yourselves be roasted, since it is only through this
fiery ordeal that the precious wine of infallibility can be matured,” he
exclaims to them, and they know now that they are inside a door over which
the inscription is written
“Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’ intrate.”
And now there is a new cause of alarm. It is said—perhaps the report is
spread on purpose—that at last no Bishop will be allowed to depart till he
has signed a bond laid before him declaring his entire and unconditional
submission. We actually hear that, by a recent decision, leave of absence
is only to be given to the Bishops in case of serious illness, that is,
when they are no longer equal to the journey. Several prelates therefore
have already inquired of the ambassadors of their Governments, what means
of protection they could afford them in case of such violence being
exercised. The ambassadors will be obliged to write home for further
instructions, as it seems no such case had been foreseen as possible to
occur. But so many astonishing and seemingly impossible things have
happened during the last seven months that such an act would no longer
excite even any particular surprise.
Guidi still appears in Council and shows himself in his votes an
independent thinker and by no means a humiliated or broken man, but in his
convent he is guarded like a prisoner and constantly urged by threats and
persuasions to recant. When a remark was made to the Pope about his harsh
treatment of this man, who still as Cardinal shares the numerous
privileges of his order, he is reported to have said, “I summoned him, not
as Cardinal, but as brother Guidi, whom I lifted out of the dust.” Guidi
had drawn great displeasure on himself before by joining Cardinals Corsi
and Riario Sforza in making representations to the Pope against the
alteration introduced by his order in the sequence of the subjects for
discussion, by which means the infallibilist _Schema_ was interpolated
before its time. He lived in the Minerva with certain Bishops of his
Order, Milella, Pastero, Alcazar and Manucillo, and their mutual
conferences led to the matured conviction that the personal infallibility
of the Pope is a novel doctrine, of late invention and unknown even to the
great Thomas and the Thomist school, chiefly introduced in substance by
the Jesuits. Guidi appeals to the fact that years ago he has taught this
at Vienna, as was or easily might have been known. If he keeps firm, and
Cardinal Silvestri, who often votes with the Opposition, joins their side
in good earnest—five dissentient Cardinals, including Mathieu, Rauscher
and Schwarzenberg—more Italian Bishops than the Court would like, may say
_Non placet_. It is already remarked that they earnestly inquire among
themselves whether the German and French minority are likely to remain
firm at the decisive moment and not melt away, in which case they would be
ready to vote with them. You may imagine how intensely Guidi is hated
here. For the moment he might make O’Connell’s boast his own when he said
he was “the best abused man in the British Empire.” What Persius said is
equally true of the clerical “turba Remi” now,—“sequitur fortunam ut
semper, et odit damnatos.” I may mention in illustration of the view
prevalent among the majority, that Manning the other day told one of the
most illustrious Bishops of the minority he had no further business in the
Catholic Church and had better leave it. Even in the Council Hall Bishop
Gastaldi of Saluzzo exclaimed to the minority that they were already
blotted out of the book of life.
The internal history of the minority since the end of June consists mainly
of their endeavours to avert the departure of the timid and home-sick and
those attacked by fever. Hitherto leave has been given them readily enough
when asked, but it is said this will not be so for the future. The Prince
Bishop of Breslau, Förster, was urgently entreated to remain, and he
seemed to be persuaded, but now he is gone,(152) and so are Purcell of
Cincinnati, Vancsa, Archbishop of Fogaras, Greith of St. Gall, and
others—a serious loss under present circumstances. The feeling of
self-preservation at last overpowers every other; and what answer can be
given to a man who says, when required to stay and help to save the truth,
“If I am ill in bed with fever on the critical day, my vote is lost”?
Moreover the burning atmosphere peculiar to Rome, impregnated with
exhalations from the Pontine marshes, oppresses and enervates mind as well
as body and cripples the energy of the will.
So on the 1st July an understanding was arrived at among the Opposition
Bishops. It was felt more and more clearly that to go on with the speeches
was a sterile and dreary business. For one solid and thoughtful speech
from, _e.g._, Darboy, Strossmayer, Haynald, Guidi, Dupanloup, Ginoulhiac,
Ketteler or Maret, one had to listen for long hours to the effusions of
Spanish, Sicilian and Calabrian infallibilists, and the speeches of this
party sound as if their authors had first studied the dedicatory epistles
to the Popes which the Jesuits prefix to their works, and strung together
the sonorous phrases contained in them. Moreover the conduct of the
Legates had become palpable partisanship. For several days they offered
demonstrative thanks to every speaker who gave up his turn; the bitterest
attacks of the majority on their opponents passed unrebuked, and the
murmurs and signs of impatience whenever infallibility was called in
question grew more and more pronounced. It became evident that there was
nothing really to be gained by prolonging the speeches, when all hope of
getting the Council prorogued had to be abandoned.
At the sitting of July 2 the affair was to have been brought to a
settlement. The minority had sketched out a notice in the Council Hall,
stating that all speakers on their side withdrew, and handed it to
Cardinal Mathieu to communicate to the French, but they declined to accept
it, saying every one should be free to decide for himself. And so, on that
day, out of twenty-two Fathers only four spoke, including Meignan of
Chalons and Ramadie of Perpignan.
But it soon became irresistibly evident to both parties that it was
advisable for them to put an end to the oratorical exercises. The Legates
had frequently used the formula of the Index when a speaker gave up his
turn, saying, “laudabiliter orationi renunciavit,” or “magnas ipsi agimus
gratias.” The majority had two reasons for wanting the speeches to go
on—first the wish of particular individuals to signalize themselves and
lay up a stock of merits deserving reward; and secondly, that the Northern
Bishops might succumb to the rays of the July sun, as Homer’s Achæans sunk
under the arrows of Apollo. But they were made to understand that the Pope
would account their simple “_Placet_, sans phrase” a sufficient service,
and reward it according to their wish.
Moreover they felt secure about the eventual attitude of the minority, or
at least a considerable portion of them, for it was known that two German
Bishops had said, “We shall resist to the last moment, but then we shall
submit, for we don’t wish to cause a schism.” This gave great joy to the
Court party. I heard a monsignore say, “These are our best friends, more
so than those who already vote for and with us, for their coming over at
the critical moment can only be ascribed to the triumphant and
irresistible power of the Holy Ghost poured out through the Pope upon the
Council; each of them is a Saul converted into a Paul, who has found his
Damascus here at Rome, and becomes a living trophy of the vice-godship of
the Pope and the legitimacy and œcumenicity of this Council. We can desire
nothing better for our cause than these late and sudden conversions.” And
thus at last an understanding satisfactory to all parties was come to; on
July 4 all the speakers enrolled withdrew, only reserving their right of
presenting their observations in writing to the Deputation.