_Rome, July 16, 1870._—As I had to report in my last letter, the attempt
of the Legates and the Deputation to outwit and catch the minority by a
violation of their own order of business had all but succeeded. Darboy and
Strossmayer frustrated this plot, on which it is literally true that the
fate of the Church was staked. For the third canon of the third chapter
had been brought forward in so enlarged and altered a form, that it
involved in substance the abolition of the entire episcopate, as an
integral constituent of the Christian Church, and substituted for it the
papal “totality,” as the theologians of the seventeenth century called it;
_i.e._, the theory that in the whole Church there is one sole individual
who is in exclusive possession of all plenary powers and all
ecclesiastical rights. The weight and importance of the doctrine thereby
designed to be for the first time imposed on the Church cannot even be
made intelligible in a few words. Most readers are naturally unaware of
the sense attached in canon law and the language of the _Curia_ to the
words, “potestas immediata et ordinaria.” Well! they mean that all
Christians, whether laymen or clerics, are personally subjects, body and
soul, of their lord and master, the Pope, who can impose on them without
restriction whatever commands seem good to him. There are, besides the
Pope, who exercises immediate authority by virtue of his universal
episcopate, papal commissaries in the separate dioceses, who call
themselves Bishops, and are so named by the Roman Chancery. They exercise
the powers delegated to them by the one true and universal Bishop, and
carry out the particular orders they receive from Rome. According to this
view the whole Church has, properly speaking, no other right or law or
order but the pleasure of the reigning Pope. This is the most perfect form
of absolutism ever yet excogitated in any man’s brains.
The order of business prohibits any alteration in the text of the decrees
being voted upon without previous discussion in Council. That however was
now attempted, and the violation of the order of business by the Legates
themselves was so flagrant, the design of fraud so palpable, that the
incident continued to be the subject of general conversation up to the
12th July. When the plot had miscarried, it was alleged in excuse that the
previous discussion had been forgotten!—forgotten precisely in the case of
the most important article yet brought forward, and of a change of such
immeasurable weight that one may truly say no discussion of equal weight
and influence has been passed in any Council during 1800 years. The affair
of course made a great sensation. The words “deceit” and “lying” were used
more than once in the national meetings of the Opposition Bishops, and it
was urged that the whole Deputation _de Fide_ were accomplices of the
Legates in this unworthy trick, and that the Bishops were being compelled
in a truly revolting manner to vote on alterations of the most
comprehensive kind, which had only been communicated to them the day
before. A short memorandum was issued by the French Bishops, which
recommended that this opportunity should be seized for leaving Rome. It
runs as follows:—
“(1). L’heure de la Providence a sonné: le moment décisif de sauver
l’Église est arrivé. (2.) Par les additiones faites au III. canon du 3me
chap. la Commission _de Fide_ a violé le règlement qui ne permet
l’introduction d’aucun amendement sans discussion conciliaire. (3.)
L’addition subreptice est d’une importance incalculable; c’est le
changement de la constitution de l’Église, la monarchie pure, absolue,
indivisible du Pape, l’abolition de la judicature et de la co-souveraineté
des évêques, l’affirmation et la définition anticipée de l’infaillibilité
separée et personnelle. (4.) Le devoir et l’honneur ne permettent pas de
voter sans discussion ce canon, qui contient une immense révolution. La
discussion pourrait et devrait durer six mois, parce qu’il s’agit de la
question capitale, la constitution même de la souveraineté dans l’Église.
(5.) Cette discussion est impossible à cause des fatigues extrêmes de la
saison et des dispositions de la majorité. (6.) Une seule chose, digne et
honorable, reste à faire: Demander immédiatement la prorogation du Concile
au mois d’Octobre, et présenter une declaration, ou seraient énumérées
toutes les protestations déjà faites, et où la dernière violation du
règlement, le mépris de la dignité et de la liberté des évêques seraient
mis en lumière. Annoncer en même temps un départ, qui ne peut plus être
différé. (7.) Par le départ ainsi motivé d’un nombre considérable
d’évêques de toutes les nations, l’œcuménicité du Concile cesserait et
tous les actes, qu’il pourrait faire ensuite, seraient d’une autorité
nulle. (8.) Le courage et le dévouement de la minorité auraient, dans le
monde, un retentissement immense. Le Concile se réunirait au mois
d’Octobre dans des conditions infiniment meilleures. Toutes les questions,
à peine ébauchées, pourraient être reprises, traitées avec dignité et
liberté. L’Église et l’ordre moral du monde seraient sauvés.”
But the majority of the Opposition did not assent to this; they resolved
to present another Protest, which the Court party might apply, like its
predecessors, “ad piper et quidquid chartis amicitur ineptis.” It was
drawn up by Bishop Dinkel of Augsburgh, and signed, so far as I know, by
all of them.
On the evening of the 9th July a proposal of a new formula of
infallibility was distributed to the Bishops; it was apparently designed
to split up the Opposition, and was broad, declamatory, full of
quotations, and lavish of assurances that the Roman See has always
administered its supreme teaching office in the most excellent manner and
proclaimed nothing but truth. Now, it was added, since there has been a
great deal of contradition, it is necessary to define that its _ex
cathedrâ_ decisions are infallible, and its decrees on faith and morals
irreformable by virtue of the divine promise given to it. This new
production was discussed in the French and German conferences and
rejected, although one of the most influential German Bishops, Ketteler,
had taken it under his protection. He assured them that the Deputation had
unanimously resolved that no change or concession by a hair’s-breadth
should be allowed in this form of words, for to deny papal infallibility
involved a denial of the primacy altogether.
Meanwhile the Jesuit Franzelin had received orders from the highest
authority to revise afresh the formula adopted by the Deputation, with
which Schrader is said to be very ill satisfied.
In the sitting of July 11, first the Bishop of Trevisa, as a member of the
Deputation, defended the notorious decree in the third canon of the third
chapter, which is to revolutionize the whole constitution of the Church in
the sense of papal absolutism. Then the votes were taken, by rising and
sitting down, on the weightiest and most pregnant article that has been
laid before any Council for 600 years, and the uncertainty in this method
of voting, wholly unprecedented in Church history, was so great that
according to the majority only 50 or 60 voted against it, while the
minority reckon between 90 and 100 adverse votes.
Then Bishop Gasser of Brixen made a speech three hours long in the name of
the Deputation on the infallibility decree, which in its new form—and this
he declared to be the _ultimatum_—had been enriched with an anathema
against those who “contradicere præsumpserint.” Gasser was unwilling to be
left behind by Manning, Dechamps, Dreux-Brézé and the Spaniards. He
vindicated the doctrines of Cardinal Cajetan against Ketteler.
Meanwhile Cardinal Guidi had been so powerfully belaboured, that it had
frightened him, and he now voted for the third chapter with the majority.
The process which had been found so effective in France, of raising their
diocesan clergy against fallibilist Bishops, had been applied to him too
by means of agents sent to Bologna. The apostasy of Archbishop Tarnoczy of
Salzburg, who also voted with the majority, excited grief but no surprise.
While the occupant of one of the oldest Sees of Germany, the successor of
Arno, Pilgrim and Colloredo, flung away his own rights and those of his
successors like so many hollow nutshells, even Cardinal Silvestri voted
against the third chapter and the anathema attached to the fourth.
The result of the 13th July has acted like an earthquake, shaking and
confusing for the moment men’s heads and plans of operation. Even if half
the voters _juxta modum_ are abstracted, as belonging to the majority,
there remain 31 votes among them in favour of essential changes in the
fourth chapter, changes which the Deputation has declared to be absolutely
inadmissible, and which, if admitted, would offend one section of the
majority. This last consequence would not of course matter at all; a
single word from the Pope would set it aside at once, for it is
self-evident that no Bishop who is convinced of his unconditional
inerrancy could hesitate for a moment to vote for a decree sanctioned by
him. Still the perplexity is great. If the decree, as voted by the
majority, is brought forward at the public session, some 120 negative
votes may be expected. But the Pope is resolved to become infallible
“senza conditione,” as he says.
It is now often said that on the day of the Solemn Session the Holy Ghost
will yet most assuredly work a wonderful miracle and convert the
Opposition so suddenly that, although they had entered the Council Hall
resolved to say “No,” they will say “Yes.” Some, including Antonelli, vote
for conciliatory measures and concessions, which however the Deputation on
Faith declares to be impossible. The other very numerous party says on the
contrary that the unexpected force and extent of the opposition to so
fundamental a dogma makes an anathema all the more necessary. A new plan
of operations has now been hit upon, which is greatly favoured by the
recent deaths. The grand Session for proclaiming the dogma had been fixed
for the 17th, and many among the minority were with great difficulty
persuaded to remain till that critical day. But now the 25th is talked
of.(155) At the same time the report is circulated and confirmed by
Antonelli, that there will be no prorogation even at the end of July or
beginning of August, but the Council will continue, though many Bishops,
on requesting leave, will be permitted to depart. It is urgently
necessary, according to Antonelli, to settle the questions about the
Oriental Rite. Yet for centuries the Court of Rome has not troubled any
Council with these affairs, but settled and regulated them by itself, as
is testified by a whole series of papal decrees. And after infallibility
is proclaimed, it is utterly superfluous to keep hundreds of foreign
Bishops here on that account. But it is known that the new dogma will lead
to the separation of the Orientals, and so their Bishops are to be kept
here longer as hostages, and the name of the Council is to supply the
pretext. And it is hoped that the French and German Bishops will the more
certainly ask leave and go home, so that the Opposition may be reduced to
a small handful. The Pope himself appears greatly to desire this, as was
at once inferred from his remark that the Archbishop of Paris is staying
on a long time.
Five Bishops, including Förster of Breslau, actually took their departure
on the 14th.