The chief event of the century, from the point of view of Roman
Catholicism, is undoubtedly the holding of the Vatican Council. Since
the Council of Trent the bishops of the Catholic world had not met in
common under the guidance of the Bishop of Rome. The gravest interests
of religion seemed at stake after more than a century of public
infidelity and the overthrow of all former safeguards of faith. The
character of doctrinal authority and its visible tangible possessor
were declared by the dogma of Papal infallibility. The genuine
relations of reason and revelation were set forth in unmistakable
language.
The troubles that followed the close of the Council in some parts of
Europe were neither serious nor long-lived, since its teachings were in
keeping with the general sense of Catholicism. It promoted, notably,
mutual respect and concord among the bishops and gave to the multitudes
of Catholics in the Old and New Worlds a new sign of the unity and
internal vigor of the Church. The scenes of the Council are indelibly
fixed in my memory, for I was the youngest and humblest of the six
hundred and sixty-seven bishops who composed it.
A General Council is the very highest act of the life of the Church,
since it presents within a small compass, and at once, all the
movements that have been developing in the course of centuries,
and offers to all the faithful and to all outside the Church
straightforward answers to all the great ecclesiastical problems that
come up for settlement. Had the Vatican Council been finished it would
have taken up the grave subject of ecclesiastical discipline. That is
reserved for the reopening of the Council at some future date.