CHAPTER I

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THE POPE THE KINGS AND THE PEOPLE

"Take thou the tiara adorned with the triple crown, and know that

thou art the Father of princes and of kings, and art the Governor

of The world."--_Coronation Service of the Pontiffs._

THE POPE THE KINGS AND THE PEOPLE

A History of the Movement to Make the Pope Governor of the World by a

Universal Reconstruction of Society from the Issue of the Syllabus to

the Close of the Vatican Council

by the late

WILLIAM ARTHUR A.M

Author of "The Tongue of Fire" etc.

Edited by W. Blair Neatby M.A

Author of "The Programme of the Jesuits" etc.

London Hodder and Stoughton 27 Paternoster Row 1903

Butler & Tanner The Selwood Printing Works Frome and London

EDITOR'S PREFACE

Though I am named as the Editor of the present edition of the late Rev.

Wm. Arthur's _The Pope, the Kings, and the People_, it is right to say

that, by a restriction of my own choosing--for the publishers were

good enough to leave me a considerable discretion,--my editorial care

has been limited to the work of abridgment.[1] It was clear from the

first that in the short time at my disposal no attempt could be made to

verify the multitude of Mr. Arthur's references and quotations, drawn

as they were with a lavish hand from the contemporary literature of

half Europe. Happily, all his readers must recognise how intelligent,

laborious and scrupulous he has been. On the other hand, I had hoped to

add a certain number of footnotes explanatory of allusions to events

and circumstances that are much less fresh in the public memory to-day

than they were twenty-six years ago. I should also greatly have liked

to point out the extent, sometimes remarkable, to which Mr. Arthur's

forecasts have been already verified. But I soon found that if I were

to introduce fresh matter it must be at the expense of portions of

the original edition that were not to be lightly discarded. I have

therefore directed my efforts to adapting the book as far as possible

to the requirements of the present time by the process of simple

retrenchment.

This process I have carried out most scrupulously. Every word in the

abridgment is Mr. Arthur's own, and in Mr. Arthur's order. I have not

even allowed myself to supply insignificant connecting words, however

convenient they might have been, or however plainly they might be

implied in the original work. This rule has entailed extra labour, but

the gain seems to me immense. Every reader of this abridgment may know

that he is reading Mr. Arthur's _ipsissima verba_, and that he may

safely quote them as such. Not one word is mine.

And here I may perhaps be allowed to express my opinion that Mr.

Arthur's words deserve to be very widely read and quoted. It would be

hard to find a book that would shed more light on many of the most

urgent questions of to-day. As an _annus mirabilis_ of history, 1870

may yet take its place with 1453 or 1789. It was the year in which the

Jesuits signalized the triumphant consummation of a struggle, waged

during more than three centuries, for the capture of the Papacy. It

was the year in which the new Vaticanism was formally constituted,

and in which it gave the world notice, plainly and ostentatiously, of

the policy to which it held itself committed. It was also the year of

the Franco-Prussian war, a mighty convulsion which was after all but

an incident in the great drama of Vaticanism, as Mr. Arthur, amongst

others, has clearly shown.

I have said elsewhere that "the Jesuits, who brought France to the

verge of ruin in 1870, seemed on the very point of completing their

work of destruction a year or two since; and [that] he would be a very

bold man who would dare to say that the peril had passed even yet."[2]

The writer who makes such a statement assumes a grave responsibility;

but if any one wishes to know how abundantly the statement can be

justified he has only to turn to Mr. Arthur's pages. Mr. Arthur

demands from us no confiding trustfulness. Even at some expense to

the flow of his narrative, he wisely made his work a repertory of

contemporary documents, either transcribed entire or quoted with great

fulness. Without resort to _ex parte_ representations of adversaries,

we may thus learn from the Vatican's own organs that clerical

education, which has so signally proved itself the bane of modern

France, is the very groundwork of Vaticanism. And from the impressive

picture of the remorse that embittered Montalembert's last hours as

he looked back on the share he had taken long before in shaping the

educational policy of his country, we may perhaps learn the great

lesson of distinguishing between a false liberalism and the true.

Never more than in this instance is the history of the past the key to

the present; and no man, unless his acquaintance with Vaticanism is

of quite exceptional extent, can rise from the perusal of this book

without feeling that he has obtained a momentous and far-reaching

addition to his stock of religious and, perhaps even more, of political

knowledge.

W. BLAIR NEATBY.

_November, 1903._

PREFACE

The sources of the information contained in this work are, 1. Official

documents; 2. Histories having the sanction of the Pope or of bishops;

3. Scholastic works of the present pontificate, and of recognized

authority; 4. Periodicals and journals, avowed organs of the Vatican

or of its policy, with books and pamphlets by bishops and other

Ultramontane writers; 5. The writings of Liberal Catholics.

Of the official documents the greater part have been officially

published. The list of authorities, and the references in each

particular case, will sufficiently indicate where these are to be

found. Besides these, the _Documenta ad Illustrandum_ of Professor

Friedrich are a store of documents of special value, both in themselves

and as throwing light upon those officially published. They came into

his hands as an official theologian at the Vatican Council, and he

published them on his own responsibility. The _Sammlung_ of Friedberg

is a vast store, combining the documents of the Vatican with those of

Courts, public bodies, and important individuals.

The official history of Cecconi, now Archbishop of Florence, though

professedly that of the Vatican Council, is really occupied with the

secret history of the five years preceding the Council. That very

curious narrative throws a light back on the foregoing years, and a

light forward upon the Council, by aid of which many things otherwise

indistinct become well defined. I have waited in hope that a second

volume would appear, but in vain. The eight superb folios of Victor

Frond come out with an assurance, under the Pope's own hand, of being

preserved by due oversight from error, and with a guarantee of divine

patronage. They contain a life of the Pope, biographical notices of

the Cardinals and prelates, a full account of ceremonies, authentic

portraits of men and vestments, with pictures of "functions," and so

contribute to enable one to set events in their frames, and to invest

them with their colours. Except military annals, perhaps, no history

ever had more colour than this portion of Papal history, and perhaps

in no history whatever has the action been more deeply affected by

the scenery. The _Civiltá Cattolica_ fulfils the invaluable office

of a serial history, in the pages of which official documents and

the chronicle of events illustrate one another, and at the same time

discussions often prepare the way both for documents and for events,

and always follow and elucidate any that are of consequence. The same

office is in a less degree also fulfilled by the _Stimmen aus Maria

Laach_.

To appreciate the height of authority on which the _Civiltá_ stands,

the reader should bear in mind the fact that in 1866,[3] after it had

already for sixteen years been recognized as the organ, at one and the

same time, of the Pope himself and of the Company of Jesus to which its

editors belonged, his Holiness in a brief and by a declared exercise

of apostolic authority, formally erected _in perpetuity_ the Jesuit

Fathers who composed the editorial staff into a _College of Writers_,

which college should be under the General of the Society of Jesus,

but, it is added, so "as to Us and to Our successors shall seem most

expedient." In this brief the Pontiff recorded, as to the past, the

"exceeding gladness of soul" he had felt in witnessing the labour,

erudition, zeal, and talent with which the _Civiltá_ had "manfully

protected and defended the supreme dignity, authority, power and

rights" of the Apostolic See, and had "set forth and propagated the

_true doctrine_." He also recorded the fact that all this had day by

day more and more merited the "goodwill, esteem and praise," not only

of the hierarchy, but of men of the greatest eminence, and of all the

good. This, coming at a time when the expositions of the Encyclical and

Syllabus given by the _Civiltá_ had awakened among Liberal Catholics

serious opposition and even alarm, was decisive as to what was, at

Rome, held to be the _true doctrine_, and as to who were held to be its

real teachers. As to the future, the Pontiff, adopting the well known

motto of the Company of Jesus, decreed that, _for the greater glory of

God_, the writers should, as we have said, constitute _in perpetuity a

college_ possessing peculiar rights and privileges. As if formally to

claim some share of this glory, the Jesuit editors of the _Stimmen aus

Maria Laach_, when in 1869 commencing a new series, notified on their

title-page the fact that they availed themselves of the labours of

the _Civiltá_--a liberty which no Jesuit durst have taken without the

highest sanction.

All the numbers of the _Civiltá_ and of the _Stimmen_ being under

my hand, they have yielded a steady light by which to examine

opinions relating to the movement of "reconstruction," whether

those opinions were hostile or sympathetic. The Italian journal,

the _Unitá Cattolica_, and the French one, the _Univers_, written

with a consciousness of the highest favour on the one hand and of an

overwhelming influence among the clergy on the other, comment upon

the operative clauses of official documents--generally intelligible

only to the initiated--in forms more popular than those of the two

great magazines. But it is only by the still clearer comment of daily

narratives and polemics that the elucidation becomes complete.

The Roman work of the Marchese Francesco Vitelleschi (Pomponio Leto)

has now appeared in English--_Eight Months at Rome_ (Murray). This is

welcome, as enabling one to refer the English reader to his pages, of

which even Ultramontanes in Rome do not impugn the accuracy. _Quirinus_

is also happily in English. Professor Friedrich's _Tagebuch_ ought to

be, but is not. Those and smaller works by Liberal Catholics, compared

with the sparkling volumes of M. Louis Veuillot and the Ultramontane

serials and pamphlets, and with the Old Catholic writers in the

_Rheinischer Merkur_, the _Literaturblatt_ of Bonn, the _Stimmen aus

der Katholischen Kirche_, and so forth, slowly bring home to our

English understanding the strange principles and wonderful projects

which at first we either fail to apprehend, or else imagine that they

cannot be seriously entertained.

On those principles and projects four distinct controversies have shed

a steadily increasing light--the controversy on, 1. The Syllabus; 2.

The Vatican Council; 3. The Old Catholic Movement; 4. The Falk Laws.

The last two do not come within the scope of this work, but very much

of the light by which we gradually come to understand the preceding

stages of the movement, is due to the keen discussions to which these

two controversies have given rise.

Having subscribed for the _Civiltá Cattolica_ for years before the

Syllabus appeared, I was not wholly unprepared for the controversy

which followed. The _Civiltá_ also enabled me to see how Liberal

Catholics connected the Vatican Council with a movement in the past,

dating from the Pope's restoration, and with a plan of vast changes

for the future. While the hopes of the Ultramontanes seemed visionary,

and the fears of the Liberal Catholics seemed exaggerated, it did

nevertheless appear possible that great events might come out of a

deliberate attempt, made by a large and organized force, to reconstruct

the world. Soon after the close of the Franco-German war, a visit to

Paris, Munich, Vienna, Berlin, Brussels, and other centres, supplied

me with much material, casting light on the enterprise in which the

Vatican Council was the legislative episode, and from which the Old

Catholic movement was the recoil.

It was while engaged in studying such material that I threw off the

translation of the discussion held in Rome on the question whether St.

Peter had ever visited that city. Soon after broke out the controversy

on the Falk Laws. Six weeks spent in a German country town, reading

journals and pamphlets, and also in collecting, added to my light,

and to the means of getting further light. In the course of the time

employed upon the study of growing material was thrown off the review

of the Pope's Speeches, under the title of _The Modern Jove_.

Though conscious that I had not yet the groundwork for a well connected

account of the whole movement, I began to write, not with any intention

of publishing for a long time, should I live, but under the feeling

that, should I be called away, it would be right to leave behind me

information which had not been gained without cost and labour. After

a while appeared the official history of Cecconi. His authentic if

incomplete disclosure of the secret proceedings of five years was a

stem for many hitherto perplexing branches. A plan now began to shape

itself, and I commenced to recast all I had done. Shortly afterwards

came out the great work of Theiner, the _Acta Genuina_ of the Council

of Trent. This settled many points keenly debated between Catholic and

Liberal Catholic, affecting the rights of kings, of bishops, of the

divinity schools, of the lower clergy, of the laity, and affecting the

relations of all these to the Pontiff.

While I was working with these additional helps appeared Mr.

Gladstone's _Expostulation_. The great amount of knowledge it betrayed

contrasted with one's previous idea of the state of information on the

subject among our public men. The controversy which followed might have

brought some temptation to haste, had it not also brought proof that it

was even more necessary than I had supposed to beware of assuming that

phrases, modes of conception, and projects, well understood in Italy or

Germany, were at all understood here. Some of those who reviewed Mr.

Gladstone took for strange what in all countries in the south or centre

of Europe would have been taken as familiar, and for doubtful what in

Rome or Munich was as clear as day. Accredited terms and phrases were

treated as inventions; by some as inventions of genius, by others of

animosity. It was often more than hinted that principles and designs

habitually proclaimed at the Vatican were ascribed to priests only by

opponents. Not unfrequently a gentleman would seem to think it more

generous to attribute his Protestant ideas to Ultramontanes, than to

take it for granted that they preferred their own. It was incredible

how political questions pregnant with future controversies, perhaps

with future wars, were evaded as theology!

The replies to Mr. Gladstone placed the ignorance of the English public

on the subject in a different but a very impressive light. It is

often said abroad, by those who know us, that no nation in Europe is

so liable as we are to treat gravely statements from priests or their

advocates which any reasonable amount of information would render

entertaining. The reviews of these replies showed a growing sense of

the interests involved, but intensified one's feeling that the elements

of clear understanding were wanting. Men did not know the terms, the

facts, the publications, or the political doctrines of the movements

under discussion. Had what has been written in our best journals during

the last twenty years from Italy, or even during the last five from

Rome and Berlin, been well read, it would have led to study, and in

that case Dr. Newman and others would not have had so cheap a laugh

at our ignorance of what is meant because of our false interpretation

of what is said. While this controversy proceeded, a stay of nearly

three months in Rome, employed in seeking material and information,

added considerably to my stores, which were further increased by two

subsequent visits to Munich and one to Bonn.

I have often been reminded of an incident which occurred in Rome. One

of our celebrated scholars, hearing what I was engaged in, exclaimed

"Oh, Theology!" Of course, he was fresh from home. Not many minutes

before, a resident diplomatist, in whose house this took place,

having heard me say "I began the study of this subject as a religious

question, _but_--" smiled and said, "Yes, _but_--you find it is all

politics, and the further you get into it the more purely political

will you find it."

The controversy which had sprung up at home showed that a book written

as this one had been begun would be frequently misunderstood. In that

controversy it was often taken for granted that when an Ultramontane

disclaims Temporal Power, he disclaims power over temporal things;

and that when he writes Spiritual Power, he means only power over

spiritual things; that when he writes Religious Liberty, he means

freedom for every one to worship God according to his conscience; that

when he writes the Divine Law, he means only the Ten Commandments

and the precepts of the Gospel; that when he writes the Kingdom of

God, he means righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost; and

that when he writes the Word of God, he simply means the Bible. One

reasoning with false interpretations like these in his mind must reason

in such a fog as Dr. Newman, in his letter to the Duke of Norfolk,

cleverly depicts. Ambiguity similar to that now indicated prevails

over the whole field of phraseology--theological, political, and

educational. English Ultramontanes are doubtless in part responsible

for these misapprehensions, but only in part. If their writings are

_studied_, they will be seen to use such terms differently from their

fellow-countrymen. But certainly the Papal Press of Rome, and even that

of France, is not in any degree responsible for our illusions, but has,

on the contrary, left us without excuse.

The consequence of all this is that in this book, where a mere allusion

would have been made, a fact is now often related; where the sense of

some particular utterance would have been condensed, that utterance is

verbally recited; and where one sentence would have been culled out,

more are given. Very often, where a statement of the principles of the

Papal movement would have been accompanied only by a reference to a

contemporary authority, that authority is made to speak for himself,

and occasionally at some length. Terms and phrases, which might have

been left to the chance of being understood, are either coupled with

narratives or discussions, to bring out their sense, or else they

are explained. When I do give explanations, let me not be trusted,

but watched. Much will be found of the language both of Catholics

and of Liberal Catholics, and with it the reader can confront my

strange-looking explanations. In the end he will be able to do what,

thank God, every Englishman is inclined to do--form an opinion for

himself as to the real sense in which the speakers employed their own

words.

It need not be said that this change of method rendered necessary a

larger book than was at first planned. It was also unfavourable to

the flow and unity of the narrative. Perhaps it compensated for that

disadvantage by more fully showing the grounds on which statements

are made, and by bringing the reader frequently, almost continuously,

into communication with Italian, Frenchman or German, each expressing

his own views, whether those of statesman or priest, of journalist or

magistrate, of Catholic or of Liberal Catholic.

My thanks are due to many who have forwarded my researches. The

kindness of Count Cadorna, then Italian Minister at our Court, procured

for me valuable facilities in Rome. My true gratitude was deserved by

the distinguished Minister of Education, Signor Bonghi, especially for

his personal introduction of me to the great library of the Collegio

Romano, not then open to the public. Our own Ambassador, Sir Augustus

Paget, and the German Ambassador, Baron Keudell, both rendered me

real service, with all possible courtesy. The Marchese Francesco

Nobili-Vitelleschi, himself author of a history on which I must often

draw, took pains to procure for me valuable material. Among many

benefits received from our own countrymen, I must specify that derived

from the vast information on all Italian matters possessed by Mr.

Montgomery Stuart, and also that arising from the constant kindness of

the Rev. H.J. Piggott. Those two gentlemen have kindly read on the spot

certain sheets containing local observations. Two German scholars were

constant and practical friends, Dr. Benrath and Dr. Richter.

In Munich the National Library, with its clear catalogue and good

collection, contrasted with the great libraries of Rome. The kindness

of Dr. Döllinger was great and eminently practical. He had kept all

pamphlets, bearing on the subject, which had come into his hands.

He not only gave me free access to this collection, but, where he

had duplicates, presented me with them. Dr. Reusch, Professor of the

University of Bonn, with a collection at least equal, though without

duplicates, gave me similar facilities. The lists thus procured,

and the energy of the German booksellers, enabled me to get almost

everything contained in either collection, including Italian and Latin

publications which I had in vain sought in Italy, and even French ones

which I could not find in Paris.

The weakness of my own eyesight has increased the obligation which, in

any case, I should have felt to my two valued friends. Dr. Moulton and

Dr. H.W. Williams, who have kindly read the proofs. Dr. Moulton also

compared the translation of the speech of Darboy with the original, and

suggested improvements. Dr. Karl Benrath, of Bonn, whose long residence

in Rome and whose study of the subject lent to his judgment a special

value, has laid me under great obligation by examining every sheet as

it passed through the press.

The very frequent translations rendered necessary by the plan of

letting men speak for themselves are as close as I knew how to make

them. Even where marks of quotation are not used, and yet I profess to

give the sense of some utterance, those who can go to the originals

will find that the language, though condensed, is preserved, and, in

any important matter, closely rendered.

Reversing the ordinary practice as to quotations, where the italics

were in the original, I generally mention that it was so. It would have

been tedious to say that they were my own in every case where they

seemed necessary to direct attention to a phrase or a term having a

meaning different from ours, or to one the full significance of which

might easily escape notice.

Nothing but a conviction that the movement here traced is of an

importance for which ordinary terms are not an adequate expression

would have justified me, in my own view, in giving to the study of

it years of a life now far advanced. If the authors of the movement

are not deceived, the generations that will come up after I am no

more will witness a struggle on the widest scale, and of very long

duration, during which will disappear all that to us is known as modern

liberties, all that to Rome is known as the Modern State, and at the

close of which the ecclesiastical power will stand alone, presiding

over the destinies of a reconstituted world. Not at all believing in

the possibility of this issue, I do not disbelieve in the possibility

of the struggle. To avert any such repetition of past horrors, to turn

the war into a war of thought, a war with the sword of the writer and

of the orator, instead of that of the zouave and the dragoon, is an

object in attempting to serve which, however humbly, a good man might

be content to die. Had I at any time during my preparations seen the

same work undertaken by some one whose position or whose name would

have commanded a degree of attention to which I have no claim, gladly

should I have buried the fruit of my labour. Such as that fruit is,

I now submit it to the public, in humble hope that the very absence

of titles to consideration by which a work on the subject should have

been recommended, will turn to a plea for more indulgence in weighing

the only claims I have to put forth, those of hard work and honest

intention.

May He who has given to our nation the blessings of free prayer, free

preaching, free writing, free speech, and free assembly, with their

wholesome fruit of equal laws, tempered power, and moderated liberty,

grant that this humble labour may in some measure contribute to make

those inestimable boons dearer than ever to the hearts of our people,

and that it may contribute also to place them in a position more

readily to foil every endeavour to snatch those boons or to steal them

away from us and from mankind!

CLAPHAM COMMON, 1877.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Considerably more than a fifth of the original matter has

been omitted. Whenever a quotation has been abridged, the usual marks

have been employed to indicate the hiatus.]

[Footnote 2: _The Programme of the Jesuits_, Preface, p. v.]

[Footnote 3: See _Civiltá_, Serie VI. vol vi. pp. 5-15.]

POSTSCRIPT TO THE PREFACE

_June 6, 1877_

ON CARDINAL MANNING'S "TRUE STORY OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL"

Had not the time occupied in bringing out this work far exceeded my

expectations, it would have appeared as early as the first portion of

Cardinal Manning's "True Story of the Vatican Council," in the pages of

the _Nineteenth Century_. As it is, I have been able to read the fourth

paper, in which the Cardinal concludes his narrative of the Council

itself, though he intimates an intention of hereafter adding comments

on extraneous matters. I cannot but feel that, in more respects than

one, the appearance of the _True Story_ immediately before that of this

book is an advantage. The general reader is thus supplied with means

of checking many of my statements, and of estimating the value of my

authorities. Although this advantage is limited to such ground as is

common to the _True Story_ and to my history, that ground is a portion

of sufficient importance to afford some criterion for judging of the

whole. One of my fears, arising from the way in which, both in recent

controversies and in former ones, authorities have been dealt with

before the English public, was that we might find it soberly intimated

that Cecconi was not a writer of high credit, that the _Civiltá

Cattolica_ was a private magazine, that the _Acta Genuina_ of Theiner

was a publication brought out in an obscure place, and so on through

the list. Now, however, the reliance placed by Cardinal Manning on

authorities which supply essential features of my narrative, and the

importance unwillingly assigned by him to others frequently cited by

me, will act as a restraint on those who might have made light of them.

Another considerable advantage is this. It almost seemed as if it

would prejudice Englishmen against a writer to state what from time to

time it was needful to intimate--how histories issued from official or

semi-official sources systematically withheld information on the points

of chief importance. Such points, so far as the Council was concerned,

were the actual differences of opinion between prelate and prelate, the

tenor of the debates, the arguments employed on one side or the other,

the written memoranda of bishops on the questions disputed, their

printed pamphlets, their speeches, their truly important petitions,

recording complaints against the Rules of Procedure imposed upon them,

and against the disabilities under which the Pope had placed them.

Those petitions recorded, further, their personal disbelief in the new

dogma, with the fact that they had always taught in opposition to it,

and that they anticipated from its adoption grave perils of collision

between Church and State. Other matters kept out of view comprised

interesting facts credibly alleged and circumstantially detailed

relating to personal acts of the Pope, to proceedings of the Curia and

of the Presidents of the Council. Still more interesting, and of graver

import, were the reasons assigned by Ministers of State and others, for

regarding with more than ordinary jealousy the projected changes in

the Papal system. It seemed even more invidious to note the practice

of adopting, in order to cover all these suppressions of facts, and of

alleged facts, an air of giving information by entering into details

of ceremonies, enlarging on unimportant matters, telling, as if it was

of great moment, how many meetings of this sort were held, how many of

that, how many spoke, at what time this Decree was proposed, and how

many votes were taken on another, without in all this allowing a word

to transpire of what was said or thought. I am now relieved of all fear

about those features of my narrative. Any one who has a relish for the

curiosities of literature may match, and perhaps overmatch, what I

have told of French priests and Italian Jesuits, by what an Englishman

has done.

I had never, however, to accuse the Italian Jesuits of keeping out of

sight the political, or, as they generally say, the social aspects of

the movement, and of covering them up in theological disquisitions.

They did, indeed, use wondrous theological phrases with political

meanings, but any one who studied their writings soon penetrated

that veil. They also invariably used theology as the motive power

of all their politics. But from 1850, when the movement which has

characterized the present pontificate began, to 1870, when it reached

its legislative climax, they set forth prominently as their object

the reconstruction of society, on the model of what, in their own

dialect, they call the Christian civilization. They loudly proclaimed,

as the elements of that Christian civilization, the revocation of

constitutions, the abolition of modern liberties, especially those of

the Press and of worship, with the subjection to canon law of civil

law, and, above all, the subjection to the jurisdiction of the Pope

of all nations and their rulers, whatever the title of those rulers

might be. They justly conceived the ills they had to repair, as, having

begun with the bad teaching of John Wyclif, in which his doctrine of

"dominion" was the head and front of all his offending, and of that of

every succeeding age. As he had striven for the emancipation of kings

from the Pope, of legislatures from the ecclesiastical powers, and of

the individual from the priest, so did they set themselves to bring

back again the dominion of the priest over the individual, the dominion

of the ecclesiastical authorities over lawgivers, and above all, the

dominion of the Pope over kings. Of this the reader will meet with

evidence from their own lips, at almost every stage of our narrative.

Those Italian Jesuits did not expound the Syllabus, according to the

new and _naive_ notion of Cardinal Manning, as a code containing very

little to which "any sincere believer in Christian revelation would,

if he understood the Syllabus, object." The Italian Jesuits, ay, and

even the German ones, on the contrary, made a boast of its diametrical

opposition to every form of Liberalism, and in particular to Liberal

Catholicism, of its efficacy as an instrument for overturning the

Modern State, and of its solidity as the foundation-stone on which was

to be reared the fabric of reconstructed society. In all their writings

society was taken as meaning, not families, nor Churches, but nations,

and each one of the nations was to form a province within a Church

ruling over it and over all other nations in every one of their laws

and public institutions.

In speaking of the idea that all believers in revelation would accept

nearly all of the Syllabus, I have assumed that Cardinal Manning,

writing for an English audience, uses the term "Christian revelation"

in the English and not in the Papal sense. To a sincere believer in

Christian revelation in the Papal sense, the Syllabus, if not in

form, yet in substance, is an infallible and "irreformable" portion

of that revelation. And so it would very simply come to pass that a

sincere believer in Christian revelation would admit, not merely most

of it, but all of it so far as it contains any teaching. And to such

a believer the kingdoms of the world will never become the kingdom of

God, and of His Christ, but by ceasing to be kingdoms at all in any

independent and proper sense, and by merging into provinces under the

Priest and King, or, as in phrases still more mystic they style him,

the Shepherd-King of the Vatican.

Now a _True Story_ of the Vatican Council, in which, to the

apprehension of an ordinary reader, all these topics are kept out of

view, though to an adept they are not wholly kept out, seems to me

like a _True Story_ of the civil war in the United States which should

largely dwell upon State rights, forgetting all about slavery, or

speaking of it only in an esoteric dialect.

The _True Story_ affords us some foretaste of what history is to be

after dogma has completed the conquest over it which has been promised.

Had my narrative been written after its appearance, the topics totally

ignored, and those virtually ignored, in the _True Story_, might

easily have been thrown into stronger relief. As it is, however, the

succession of events necessarily brings them again and again into view,

and perhaps the effect of the outline may be rendered more distinct to

the English reader through the contrast with the _True Story_.

Of the prelates on this side of the Alps, Cardinal Manning was not the

one from whom we should have expected that in an account of the five

years preceding the Vatican Council, with a brief retrospect of the

whole of the present pontificate, and a history of the Council itself,

scarcely one clear utterance should be made as to the bearing of the

movement on those governments, liberties and institutions which to the

Vatican are very evil and to us are very dear. It was not so in 1867

and 1869. In both of those years the Cardinal indicated the political

relations of the movement in words of warning which, if only echoes

of those of the Jesuits in Rome, were perhaps more intelligible and

vehement than those of any other prelate on this side of the Alps.

Statements of mine will frequently be found to conflict with statements

made in the _True Story_. In most of those cases--I hope in all--the

materials from known sources furnished to the general reader will

suffice for a not unsatisfactory comparison, while the authorities

indicated will enable the scholar to form a judgment. In very many of

these cases statements of Cardinal Manning, made in previous works and

virtually amounting to the same as the most material of those made in

the _True Story_, will be found side by side with the statements of

other authorities, with official documents, or with facts no longer

disputable. Of these statements, one to which the Cardinal seems to

attach much importance is his assertion that none of the prelates, or

at most a number under five, disbelieved or denied the dogma of Papal

infallibility, and that all their objections turned on questions of

prudence. This is not a slip, nor a hasty assertion, and it is very

far from being peculiar to Cardinal Manning. It is now the harmonious

refrain of all that hierarchy of strange witnesses of which he has made

himself a part. The point is one on which illustrations will occur

again and again, in events, in words, and in those documents which, in

spite of all precautions, have been gained to publicity.

Notwithstanding the method adopted in the _True Story_, the fact

crops out at every turn that the modern strife of the Papacy is not

to make men and women, as such, godly and peaceable, but to bring

kings as kings, and legislatures as legislatures, and nations as

nations, into subjection to the Pope. It crops out sufficiently, at

least, to be obvious to all who know the difference, in the Cardinal's

phraseology, between the two sets of terms employed to indicate those

two distinct objects. For instance, what an excellent description

of that _Catholic Civilization_ which, in the great contest of the

Vatican, is ever signalized as the goal, does the Cardinal give

when, picturing the "public life and laws and living organization of

Christendom" in the times when all these, according to his ideas,

were "Christian," he says, "_Princes and legislatures and society_

professed the Catholic faith, and were _subject to the head_ of the

Catholic Church." Cardinal Manning does not here use the word "society"

in the domestic but in the political sense. He means, not families

or social parties, but nations--as the Jesuit writers almost always

do. Any one may, therefore, possess himself of a key to the true

meaning of many pious phrases which occur in the following pages, if

he will first of all clearly realize in his own thoughts just what

it would involve for England; and for us were the conditions stated

by the Cardinal fulfilled by our princes, our legislature, and our

"society." One seeking to do this must realize the fact that the prince

and the legislature not as individuals, and the "society" not in its

separate members, but the prince as a prince, the legislature as a

legislature, and the nation as a society, shall _profess the Catholic

faith_. Ordinary Englishmen do not realize all that is meant by that

formula. But beyond that, the prince as a prince, the legislature as

a legislature, the nation as a society, are not only to believe in

the Pope, but to be _subject to him_. What fulness of meaning that

formula possesses will gradually open up to the reader as the narrative

unfolds. He will often hear ecclesiastical politicians of the school to

which Cardinal Manning belongs, talking in their native dialect, not

modulating their voice to win the are of Protestants. This national

_profession of the faith_, and this subjection of kings, lawgivers, and

nations to the Pope, constitute in one word the _Civiltá Cattolica_

(the Catholic civilization); or, in plain English, the Catholic civil

system; or, in other terms, the true Catholic constitution, the reign

of Christ over the world, to establish which in all nations the Vatican

is to move heaven and earth.

In his first paper Cardinal Manning seeks to impress us with the belief

that the raising of Papal infallibility to the rank of a dogma was not

a chief object of the Pontiff, much less his only one, in convoking the

Vatican Council. On that point the narrative will often incidentally

present the expressions of prelates, official writers, and others,

so that the reader will be able to form an opinion of his own. In

his second paper the Cardinal shows that throughout the whole of the

present pontificate the dogma has been kept in view as an essential

object. Of that position illustrations will frequently occur. In the

second paper, also, the Cardinal repeats his old allegation that it was

Janus who invented "the fable of an acclamation." The course of the

tale will tell whether it was or was not Janus who originated the talk

of a design to get up an acclamation, and whether that talk was or was

not a fable.

The Cardinal, while attempting to justify, though for the most part

keeping out of sight, the disabilities imposed upon the bishops by

the Pope, disabilities of which they loudly complained, glances at

one out of many of the real ones. He says that the Commission which

was empowered to say whether any proposal emanating from a bishop

was worthy to be recommended to the Pope for consideration, without

which recommendation it could not come before the Council, was "a

representative commission." The fact is that it was a selection of

prelates made by the Pope, who excluded from it all who had avowed

themselves opponents of his infallibility, and included in it creatures

of his own, who had nothing of the bishop but the orders and the pay

which the favour of the Court had given to them.

The Cardinal, after ample time for correction, repeats his old

declaration that in the Vatican Council "the liberty of speech was as

perfectly secured as in our Parliament." That assertion has the merit

of being free from all ambiguity, and moreover is one on which plain

men can judge. As I have told the story, the readers will over and over

again meet with facts, equally free from ambiguity and equally patent

to plain men, which will show whether the assertion is true or not.

On the great question of secrecy the Cardinal risks a statement which

exceeds what Italian Jesuits, if writing for a periodical of the rank

of the _Nineteenth Century_, would be likely to hazard. He says: "At

the beginning of the Council of Trent this precaution (of secrecy) was

omitted; wherefore, on February 17, 1562, the legates were compelled to

impose the secret upon the bishops." The Cardinal would seem to imagine

that there was at least a substantial agreement, if not an actual

identity, between the acts by which silence was enjoined, and also

between the extent of the silence demanded in Trent and at the Vatican;

and that indeed from February 17, 1562, forwards, the Council of Trent

was laid under a bond something like that by which the Vatican Council

was from the beginning fettered. Was it so? Was there a substantial

agreement in the two acts by which silence was enjoined? Was there a

substantial agreement in the extent of silence imposed? Was there at

Trent a formal decree? Was there an oath imposed on the officers? Was

there an exclusion of the theologians from debates, and of the public

from the debates of the theologians? Was there any vow required, any

threat held out? And does even Cardinal Manning fancy that there was at

Trent a new mortal sin made on purpose for the benefit of the bishops?

Of all this there was nothing. The act of the legates was simply what

it is described as having been by Massarellus, the Secretary of the

Council, who says: "The Fathers were admonished not to divulge things

proposed for examination, and in particular Decrees, before they were

published in open session."[4]

The Cardinal is apparently also under an impression that the extent

of silence imposed in the two cases was at least substantially the

same. Was that so? Did the legates censure the admission of laymen

to hear the theologians argue? Did they censure the permission given

to theologians who were not bishops even by the fiction of a see _in

partibus_, to dispute in presence of the Council? Did they censure

any remarks made out of doors on speeches, opinions or projects? Did

they censure anything but the one indiscretion of circulating proposed

Decrees, or other things proposed, while yet the formulae were, "so

to speak, unshaped," but were in their inchoate condition made public

as if they had been passed? Did the legates suggest that the duty of

secrecy extended further than that of not publishing such tentative

formulae, of not sending them out of the city, and of forbidding

persons attached to the households of bishops to commit those

indiscretions? At Trent there were faults and causes of complaint in no

small number. But what Cardinal Manning calls "the secret" which would

shut up every mouth as to all subjects proposed, as to all opinions

expressed, as to all speeches made, as to all designs mooted--"the

secret" which forbade men to print their own speeches, to read the

official reports taken of them, to read those of their brother bishops,

and other extravagances besides, of which the _True Story_ has not one

syllable to tell--that "secret," or any such, is not hinted at in the

a monition of the legates at Trent. The extent of silence imposed at

the Vatican would seem to have been as original as the mortal sin there

invented.

Still further, the Cardinal would appear to be under an impression that

the reason why at Trent certain inconvenient publications occurred was

because that, at the outset, the strict precautions had been there

omitted which at the Vatican were not only taken in time, but, with

manifold forethought, were, before the time, as our story will tell,

tied and bound by edict and by oath. As to disclosures, however, that

occurred at the Vatican, which most Romans would tell any Englishman,

except a priest or a convert, would be certain to occur, namely, that

the "pontifical secret" would be dealt in as a thing to be sold. Did

the precautions omitted at Trent, but adopted at the Vatican, prevent

so much from transpiring as compelled the Pope to loose from the bond

four selected prelates, including the eminent author of the _True

Story_, in order that they might disabuse the outside world? Did it

prevent the famous canons which opened the eyes of Austrian and French

statesmen from making a quick passage to Augsburg and to Printing House

Square?--of which canons, by the way, as of most essential matters, the

_True Story_ tells not a word.

It would be very tempting to select for remark other assertions of

the Cardinal, but this may suffice to do all that I here wish to do;

that is, to set the reader upon intelligently watching and sifting

statements of my own; for what is to be desired on this subject is that

the public shall cease to be easily contented with what is said on one

side or the other. My statements, like those of others, are sure to

contain a fair proportion of mistakes, but when all these are winnowed

away, there will remain a considerable peck of corn.

Not content with formally vouching, in his title, for his own

truthfulness, the Cardinal formally impeaches that of others. Both

of these proceedings would be perfectly natural in a priest in Rome,

and especially in one attached to the Jesuit school. Had I foreseen

the cautious beginning of such habits that was so soon to be made by

high authority, certainly I should not have so far yielded to the

repugnance one feels to put specimens of priestly imputations into our

language--a language which had for ages, up to the date of the _Tracts

for the Times_, been steadily acquiring an antipathy to all the arts

of untruthfulness, and consequently to all the forms in which other

languages habitually insinuate or openly allege it. But I cannot regret

that my story purposely excludes full specimens, and only by force of

frequent necessity admits morsels, of the style in which in Rome every

shade of untruthfulness, from suppression and equivocation to the worst

kinds of perjury and forgery, is on the one hand charged upon heretics,

on Liberal Catholics, on statesmen, and is on the other hand in return,

and with extreme good will, charged upon bishops, cardinals and popes.

The veracity of Pomponio Leto--that is, as all Italy knows, of

the Marchese Francesco Vitelleschi, brother of the late Cardinal

Vitelleschi--is openly impugned by Cardinal Manning. We already know,

on more points than one, the opinion of Vitelleschi as to the eminent

author of the _True Story_; and retaliation would have been natural

had it only been fair. If Vitelleschi wrote English, and if he cared

to compare his truthfulness with that of such a competitor, it would

be interesting to hear him fairly fight out the question, Which of

us two has, to the best of his power, tried just to tell what he

knew, inventing nothing and concealing nothing? It does not seem at

all certain that the Englishman would bear away from the Italian the

palm of straightforwardness. The Cardinal is evidently not aware that

certain alleged particulars of the famous Strossmayer scene, which he

ascribes to Pomponio Leto, are not in his description of it either in

the Italian or in the English version. From where the Cardinal gets

them I do not know. But his picture of Schwarzenberg "carried fainting

from the _ambo_ to his seat," his idea that Pomponio professes on

that day to have been outside the Council door and to have seen "the

servants rushing," and his other idea that at the fourth session

Pomponio professes to have been inside and consequently forgot that

many of those who were outside could see through the great door which

was wide open, are all alike. He certainly did not get any of them from

Vitelleschi. As it is after stating these errors, that his Eminence

cries, "Such melodramatic and mendacious stuff!" we must imagine how

Vitelleschi will smile at this new display of certain qualities which

did not escape his keen eye.

Professor Friedrich is slightingly spoken of by the Cardinal. Here

again retaliation, if fair, would have been natural; for Cardinal

Manning has already felt the steel of Friedrich. Judging from my own

impression that under the slashes of Friedrich what the Cardinal had

employed as if he took it for argument appeared perfectly helpless, I

should expect that it the learned professor should think it worth while

to try his strength on the sort of history, theology, and logic which

the Cardinal thinks may pass in England, they would in his hands, at

almost every debatable point, fly to pieces. As to veracity, however,

Friedrich has already, on that score, as our story will show, crossed

swords with more bishops than one; and whether on that or other

matters, certainly he is not the man to turn his back on Cardinal

Manning, whose measure he has long ago taken, as, even under the eyes

of the Papal police, he did not fear to show.

Cardinal Manning occupies pages with imputations, and with quotations

which he apparently thinks warrant the imputations. Does he, or do the

witnesses he calls, disprove any of the specific facts alleged? Yes,

he does disprove one. Vitelleschi, in describing the great session of

the Council, said that Cardinal Corsi and other discontented Cardinals

pulled down their red hats over their eyes. Now, Cardinal Manning

properly says that on that occasion they had no hats of any colour,

meaning that they wore the mitre. Therefore a real blot is hit. And it

is curious how exactly this is the same kind of blot as the Jesuits

of the _Civiltá_ were able to hit in the early part of Vitelleschi's

book, when, like the _True Story_, it first appeared in a periodical.

They clearly convicted the author, then unknown even to them, of saying

that in certain solemnities the robes were red, whereas in fact they

were white. We must, however, do the Roman Jesuits the justice to say

that from this tremendous error they did not attempt to prove that the

writer was given to "mendacious stuff," though they did argue that he

was wanting in reflection.

But it is a well-known fact that grave matters--very grave

matters--were with sufficient particularity alleged against the Pope,

against the Presidents, against the Rules of Procedure, against

the authorized Press, against the favourites of the Court among

the bishops, against the secret way in which "the Council was made

beforehand," and above all against the political designs which were

entertained; and, one must ask, with what single fact of all these is

any manly attempt made to grapple by the Cardinal, or by the bishops

whom he cites in his support? Besides these facts, of which some were

amusing, some absurd, some discreditable, there were others which

for all good men except Papists, in the proper sense, were seriously

alarming, and these were alleged by Catholic and Liberal Catholic,

by men in opposition and by men in all places of authority up to the

highest--by Vitelleschi, by Friedrich, by Veuillot, by Guérin, by Frond

and his contributors, by _Ce Qui se Passe au Concile_, by Hefele, by

Kenrick, by Darboy, by Rauscher, by Place, by Dupanloup, by the hundred

and thirty bishops who signed the protest against even discussing

infallibility, by the groups of bishops who signed that against the

Rules of Procedure, by those who signed the solemn one against the new

Rules, by those who petitioned for the A B C of deliberative freedom,

by the scores who signed the historical petition of April 10, 1870, by

those who protested against the unfair and arbitrary attempt of July 5,

and by those fifty-five who, the day before the final session, placed

in the hands of the Pope their protest, saying that if they voted in

the public session they could only repeat, and that with stronger

reasons, their previous vote--that is, of _Non placet_; a protest of

which Cardinal Manning has taken a strangely inaccurate and misleading

view. Such facts were alleged by _La Liberté du Concile_, by _La

Dernière Heure du Concile_, by Mamiani, by Bonghi, by Beust, by Daru,

by Arnim, by Acton, by Montalembert, by Döllinger; and still more by

the _Civiltá Cattolica_, the _Stimmen aus Maria Laach_, the _Univers_,

the _Monde_, and the _Unitá Cattolica_; and most of all were they

embodied in the words and official manifestoes of Pope Pius IX. What

one of these alarming or discreditable or equivocal facts is disposed

of by the passages which Cardinal Manning in his need has cited? He

cites Hefele to prove that people who were outside of the Council told

falsehoods as to what passed inside. But with the wonted sequence of

his logic, what he proves out of the mouth of Hefele is that people

who were inside of the Council sold the secret, though in doing so

they incurred the pains of mortal sin. The proof is quite as apposite

as many of those relied upon by Cardinal Manning, and it is no wonder

that such a habit of reasoning should have landed him where he is. He

cites of all men Ketteler. Now supposing that Ketteler was the person

to invalidate serious testimony, what particular fact is disproved by

the passage cited? The only one it affects to touch is the question as

to whether, in substance, the anti-infallibilist doctrine of Döllinger

was not also that of the majority of the German bishops. That question

is not faced in front. Ketteler only raises a side issue. He denies

that on some certain occasion, certain bishops had in a certain way

made a statement to that effect. Cardinal Manning has not lived so long

in Rome, and learned so much there, without knowing something of the

value of such contradictions. But if he means--as, however reluctantly,

one must take him to mean--to use Ketteler to prove to Englishmen that

the majority of the German bishops were not, before July 1870, opposed

to that as a doctrine which is now a dogma of their creed, then let

Ketteler by all means stand on one side, but pamphlets, memoranda,

speeches, petitions, votes, protests stand on the other. Ketteler

is cited against Döllinger, and agreeably to the all but infallible

felicity of the Cardinal's logic, about the most definite thing

Ketteler says against the Provost is that _Janus_, for falsification

of history, can hardly be compared to anything but the Provincial

Letters of Pascal. Had the Cardinal cited the whole body of the German

bishops, he might, indeed, with English Catholics have gained some show

of authority; but how would it have been with the fellow-countrymen of

those prelates? or with any who, like their fellow-countrymen, had,

in the two Fulda manifestoes of 1869 and 1870, and in other words

and deeds of those mitred diplomatists--words and deeds which cannot

be erased--learned at what rate to prize statements signed by their

episcopal crosses? There are in Europe few bodies of functionaries

who stood in sorer need than did these German bishops of something

to rehabilitate the credit of their Yea and Nay; not that even yet

it seems to have fallen quite so low as that of their superiors of

the Curia; at least, not quite so low in matters of purely personal

reputation, when no official obligation exists to make a public

impression which is contrary to the facts, and when dissimulation,

if practised, arises from a habit partly professional, partly

personal, and one sometimes indulged in as an exercise of cleverness.

Cardinals hardly do prudently to raise on English soil questions about

truthfulness; for the English public will not much longer be content

to take information at haphazard or at second-hand, but will go to the

fountains, and learn about things in Rome as things in Rome in reality

have been.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: Theiner, _Acta Genuina_, i. 686.]

LIST OF WORKS QUOTED OR REFERRED TO AS AUTHORITIES

_The titles and editions being here given, the references in each

particular instance will be no longer than is sufficient to identify

the work._

Some works cited only once are not here entered, their titles being

given at full in the body of the book. The few English writers quoted

are not inserted here.

Acta et Decreta Sacrosancti OEcumenici Concilii Vaticani. Romæ Impensis

Paulini Lazzarini Typographi Concilii Vaticani: 1872.

Acta et Decreta Sacrosancti et OEcumenici Concilii Vaticani cum

permissione Superiorum. _Friburgi Brisgoviæ_: Herder, 1871. Contains

the Encyclical and Syllabus of December 8, 1864, and some other useful

documents not published in the Roman edition; but does not contain its

brief historical notes of the public sessions.

Acta Genuina SS. OEcumenici Concilii Tridentini, nunc primum integra

edita ab Augustino Theiner. _Zagrabiæ Croatiæ_: 2 vols, small folio,

1874. Always referred to as _Theiner_.

Acta Sanctæ Sedis in Compendium Opportune Redacta. Romæ S.C. De

Propaganda Fide. A volume has appeared annually since 1865.

Actes et Histoire du Concile OEcuménique de Rome, 1869, Publiés sous la

direction de Victor Frond. Paris: Abel Pilou. 8 vols, large folio, with

numerous illustrations. A brief of the Pope warrants to the Editor the

"counsel and approbation of the Holy Apostolical See;" and also gives

him the Apostolic Benediction "as a guarantee of the divine patronage."

The references are always to _Frond_.

Acton, Lord--Zur Geschichte des Vaticanischen Conciles. München:

1871.--Sendschreiben an einen Deutschen Bischof des Vaticanischen

Concils. Nördlingen: September, 1870.

Annuario Pontificio, 1870. Roma Tipografia della Rev. Cam. Apostolica.

Bibliothèque Universelle et Revue Suisse. Lausanne. Montalembert's

L'Espagne et la Liberté is contained in Nos. 217-21, from January to

May, 1876.

Ce Qui se Passe au Concile. Paris: 1870. Condemned by the Council.

Cecconi, Eugenio (now Archbishop of Florence)--Storia del Concilio

Vaticano scritta sui documenti originali. Parte prima Antecedenti

del Concilio, Vol. I. Roma: A Spese di Paulini Lazzarini, _Tipografo

del Concilio Vaticano_, 1873. The official history of the secret

proceedings of five years.

_Civiltá Cattolica_ (_La_), Anno Vigesimottavo. Serie X. vol. i.

Quaderno, 641. Firenze: 3 Marco, 1877. This is the title of the latest

number. It has appeared fortnightly since the year 1850. It is quoted

as _Civiltá_ (e.g.) X. i. 5--the first numeral noting the series, the

second the volume, the third the page.

Concile du Vatican, le, et le Mouvement Anti-infaillibiliste en

Allemagne. 2 vols, octavo. Brussels: 1871.

Concile OEcuménique, le. Par Mgr. l'Evêque de Grenoble. Paris: 1869.

Dernière Heure du Concile. München: 1870. Condemned by the Council;

said by Quirinus to be by a member of the Council, possessing "almost

unique opportunities."

Desanctis, L.--Roma Papale descritta in una serie di Lettere. Firenze:

1871.--Il Papa, osservazioni Dottrinali e Storiche. Firenze: 1864.

Deschamps, Archbishop of Malins (now Cardinal).--Réponse à Mgr.

l'Evêque D'Orléans. Paris: 1870.

Documenta. _See_ Friedrich.

Documenti (i) Citati nel Syllabus edito per ordine del Sommo Pontifico

Pio Papa IX. Preceduti da Analoghe Avvertenze. Firenze: 1865. Like the

French _Recueil_, contains the documents cited in the Syllabus, but

with Italian notes, and without any translation.

Döllinger, D.--Erwägungen für die Bischöfe des Concilium's über die

Frage der päpstlichen Unfehlbarkeit. München: October, 1869.--Die neue

Geschäftsordnung des Concils und ihre theologische Bedeutung. Augsburg:

1870.--Erklärung an den Erzbischof von München-Freising. München: 1871.

Dupanloup--Lettre de Mgr., L'Evêque D'Orléans au clergé de son Diocése

relativement à la définition de l'infaillibilité au prochain Concile.

Paris: 1869. The original is reprinted with the English version of

Vitelleschi. Eight Months at Rome.--Réponse de Mgr. L'Evêque D'Orléans

à Mgr. Deschamps. Paris: Duniol, 1870.--Réponse de Mgr. L'Evêque

D'Orléans à Mgr. Spalding, Archevêque de Baltimore, accompagne d'une

lettre de plusieurs Archevêques et Evêques Américain à Mgr. l'Evêque

d'Orléans. Naples: 1870.

Fessler, Dr. Joseph, Bishop of St. Pölten--Das letzte und das nächste

allgemeine Concil. Freiburg-in-Brisgau: 1869.

Friedberg, Dr. Emil, Professor, Leipsic--Sammlung der Aktenstücke

zum ersten Vaticanischen Concil. Tübingen: 1872. Always quoted as

_Friedberg_.

Friedrich, Dr. J., Professor, Munich--Tagebuch während des

Vaticanischen Concils geführt. Zweite vermehrte Auflage. Nördlingen:

1873.--Documenta ad Illustrandum Concilium Vaticanum, anni 1870. Both

the first and second Abtheilung are of Nördlingen, 1871. Quoted as

_Documenta_.--Der Mechanismus der Vaticanischen Religion. Bonn: 1876.

Fromman, Theodor--Geschichte und Kritik des Vaticanischen Concils.

Gotha: 1872. A Protestant writer, therefore scarcely ever cited.

Frond, Victor--Actes et Histoire, etc. 8 vols. fol. _See_ "Actes," etc.

Gury, P. Joanne Petro--Compendium Theologiæ Moralis, S.I. editio in

Germania Quarta. Ratisbon: 1868.--Casus Conscientiæ in Præcipuas

Quæstiones Theologiæ Moralis editio in Germania prima. Ratisbon: 1865.

Guérin, Mgr. Paul, Chamberlain to Pius IX.--Concile OEcuménique du

Vatican son Histoire ses décisions en Latin et en Francais. Professes

to give all the documents, but gives only a portion even of those

officially published. Bar-le-Duc: 1871. 2nd ed.

Gregorovius, Ferdinand.--_Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Miltelalter vom

V. bis zum XVI. Jahrhundeyt._ Zweite Auflage: 1869. 8 vols, octavo.

Hefele, Carolus Josephus Episcopus Rottenburgensis--Causa Honorii Papæ.

Neapoli: 1870.

Hergenröther, Dr. Joseph, Professor, Würzburg--Katholische Kirche

und Christlicher Staat in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwickelung und

in Bezichung auf die Fragen der Gegenwart. Freiburg-in-Brisgau:

1873.--Kritik der v. Döllingerschen Erklärung vom 28 Marz d.I.

Freiburg-in-Brisgau: 1871.

Holtgreven, Anton, Königl. Preuss. Kreisrichter--Das Verhältniss

Zwischen Staat und Kirche. Berlin: 1875.

Kenrick, Archbishop of St. Louis in America--Concio Petri Ricardi

Kenrick, Archiepiscopi S. Ludovici in Statibus Foederatis Americæ

Septentrionalis in Concilio Vaticano Habenda at non Habita. Neapoli:

1870. This invaluable pamphlet is reprinted with Friedrich's

_Documenta_, and is always cited as there found, the pamphlet itself

being within the reach of but very few.

Ketteler, von, Wilhelm Emmanuel Freiherr, Bishop of Mainz--Das

Allgemeine Concil und seine Bedeutung für unsere Zeit. Mainz:

1869.--Die Unwahrheiten der Römischen Briefe vom Concil in der

Allgemeinen Zeitung. Mainz: 1870. Several other pamphlets by Bishop von

Ketteler not referred to are of value.

Langen, Dr. Joseph, Professor, Bonn--Das Vaticanische Dogma in seinem

Verhältniss zum Neuen Testament, etc. Bonn: 1873.

Liverani, Monsignor Francesco, Prelato Domestico e Protonotorio dell

Santa Sede.--Il Papato, L'Impero e Il Regno D'Italia. Firenze: 1861.

Maret, Mgr. H.L.C., Bishop of Sura, Dean of the Theological Faculty of

Paris--Le Concile Générale et la Paix Religieuse. 2 vols, octavo. Paris

1869.

Martin, Conrad, Bishop of Paderborn.--_Omnium Concilii Vaticani Quæ ad

doctrinam et Disciplinam pertinent Documentorum Collectio._ Paderbornæ:

1873. A very incomplete collection, but very useful.--_Katechismus des

Römisch-Katolischen Kirchenrechts._ Zweite Auflage: 1874.

Menzel, Professor--Ueber das Subject der Kirchlichen Unfehlbarkeit (als

Manuscript gedruckt). Braunsberg: 1870.

Menzel, Wolfgang--Geschichte der neuesten Jesuitenumtriebe in

Deutschland. Stuttgart: 1873.--Die Wichtigsten Weltbegebenheiten

vom Prager Frieden bis zum Kriege mit Frankreich (1866-70). 2 vols.

Stuttgart: 1871.

Michaud, L'Abbé--De la Falsification des Catéchismes Francais. Paris,

1872. Many other works of Michaud, not cited, are of great value.

Michelis, Dr. F., Professor, Braunsberg.--_Kurze Geschichte des

Vaticanischen Concils._ Constanz: 1875.--_Der Neue Fuldaer Hirtenbrief

in seinem Verhältniss zur Wahrheit._ Braunsberg: 1870.--_Der häretische

Charakter der Infallibilitä Islehre. Eine Katholische Antwort auf die

Römische Excommunication_, 1872.

Observationes Quædam de Infallibilitatis Ecclesiæ Subjecto. Vindobonæ:

1870. Cardinal Rauscher (_see_ Friedberg, 1111). Also published in

Naples, without name of printer or publisher.

Phillips, George--Kirchenrecht. 7 vols, octavo. Regensburg: 1855-72.

Pope Pius IX--Discorsi del Sommo Pontefice Pius IX Pronunziati in

Vaticano ai fedeli di Roma e dell' Orbe; raccolti e pubblicati dal P.

Don Pasquale de Franciscis. Roma: 1872; and the second volume, 1873. It

is to be regretted that these curious and instructive volumes are not

translated into English.

Recueil des Allocutions Consistoriales Encycliques et Autres Lettres

Apostolique des Souverains Pontifs Clement XII, Benoit XIV, Pie VI,

Pie VII, Léon XII, Grégoire XVI, et Pie IX, citées dans l'Encyclique

et le Syllabus du 8 Décembre, 1864. Octavo, p. 580. Paris: 1865.

Every document cited in the Syllabus is given at full, with a French

translation.

Reform der Römischen Kirche an Haupt and Gliedern. Leipsig: 1869.

Reinkens, Dr. Joseph Hubert. Bishop--Revolution und Kirche Beantwortung

einer Tagesfrage mit Rücksight auf die gegenwärtige Tendenz und Praxis

der Römischen Curie. Bonn: 1876.--Ueber päpstliche Unfehlbarkeit.

München: 1870.

_Rheinischer Merkur._ Erscheint jeden Samstag. Köln. A weekly journal,

organ of the old Catholics. Now published in Munich as the _Deutscher

Merkur_.

Sambin, Le R.P. de la Compagnie de Jesus--Histoire du Concile

OEcuménique et Général du Vatican. Lyon: 1871.

Schrader, P. Clemens, S.I.--Pius IX als Papst und als Koenig. Wien:

1865--Der Papst und die Modernen Ideen. Wien: 1865.

Sepp, Professor Abgeordneter--Deutschland und der Vatikan. München:

1872.

Soglia--Septimii M. Vecchiotti, Institutiones Canonicæ ex operibus

Joannis Card. Soglia excerptæ et ad usum seminariorum accommodatæ.

Editio decimasexta ad meliorem formam redacta et additamentis

focupleta. In 3 vols, octavo. Turin: 1875. Sold at Milan, Venice,

Naples, and Romæ apud Tipographiam de Propaganda Fide.

Stimmen aus der Katholischen Kirche München. A series of pamphlets

containing writings of Döllinger, Friedrich, Huber, Schmitz, Reinkens,

Liano, and others--of great value.

_Stimmen aus Maria Laach, Katholische Bläter_--Freiburg-in-Brisgau. The

first number appeared in 1865, after the publication of the Syllabus;

the Neue Folge, commenced in 1869, has on the title "Unter Benützung

Römischer Mittheilungen und der Arbeiten der Civiltá."

Summi Pontificis Infallibilitate Personali (de). Naples: 1870.

Friedberg (p. 111 says that this tract was distributed by Cardinal

Prince Schwarzenberg, but written by the Cistercian Franz Salesius

Mayer.)

Tarquini, Camillo E., Societate Jesu (Cardinal)--Juris Ecclesiastici

Publici Institutiones. Editio quarta. Roma S.C. de Propaganda Fide.

1875.

Theologisches Literaturblatt. Erscheint alle 14 Toge. Bonn,

herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. F.H. Reusch. A fortnightly publication, of

great value to all who wish to understand the literature of the modern

phases of Romanism, and also of the old Catholic movement.

_Unitá Cattolica_, edited by Don Margotti, appears daily in Turin.

Holds in Italy a position similar to that of the _Univers_ in France.

_Univers_, edited by M. Louis Veuillot, appears daily, Paris. Veuillot

is a layman.

Veuillot, Louis--Rome pendant le Concile. 2 vols, octavo. Paris: 1872.

Contains important matter dating from 1867.

Vitelleschi, Marchese Francesco--Otto Mesi a Roma durante il Concilio

Vaticano per Pomponio Leto. Firenze: 1873. An English translation has

now appeared entitled _Eight Months at Rome_, by Pomponio Leto. Always

referred to as _Vitelleschi_. The real authorship of the work is no

secret in Rome, nor is it treated as such.

CONTENTS

PAGE

BOOK I

FROM THE ISSUE OF THE SYLLABUS TO ITS SOLEMN CONFIRMATION,

DECEMBER 1864 TO JUNE 1867

CHAPTER I

The First Secret Command to commence Preparations for a General

Council, December 6, 1864--Meeting of Congregation--All but

Cardinals sent out--Secret Order--Events of the 8th--Solemn

Anniversary--A historical _coup de soleil_ 1

CHAPTER II

The Encyclical _Quanta Cura_, December 8, 1864--Causes of

the Ruin of Modern Society: rejection of the "force" of the

Church--Religious Equality--Pretensions of Civil Law and of

Parents to Control Education--Laws of Mortmain--Remedies--Restoration

of the Authority of the Church--Connecting Links between Encyclical

and Syllabus--Retrospect of Evidences that all Society was in

Ruins--The Movement for Reconstruction 5

CHAPTER III

Foundation of a Literature of Reconstruction, Serial and

Scholastic--The _Civiltá Cattolica_: its Views on Education

and on Church and State--Tarquini's Political Principles of Pope

and King--Measures Preparatory to the Syllabus 14

CHAPTER IV

Further Measures Preparatory to the Syllabus--Changes in

Italy since 1846--Progress of Adverse Events--A Commination

of Liberties--A Second Assembly of Bishops without Parliamentary

Functions--The Curse on Italy--Origin of the phrase "A Free

Church in a Free State"--Projected Universal Monarchy 28

CHAPTER V

The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864--Character of the

Propositions condemned--Disabilities of the State--Powers of the

Church 43

CHAPTER VI

The Secret Memoranda of the Cardinals, February 1865 57

CHAPTER VII

A Secret Commission to prepare for a Council, March 1865--First

Summons--Points determined--Reasons why Princes are not

consulted--Plan for the Future Council 62

CHAPTER VIII

Memoranda of Thirty-six chosen Bishops, consulted under Bond of

Strictest Secrecy, April to August, 1865--Doctrine of Church and

State--Antagonism of History and the Embryo Dogma--Nuncios

admitted to the Secret--And Oriental Bishops 65

CHAPTER IX

Interruption of Preparations for Fourteen Months, through the

consequences of Sadowa--The French evacuate Rome--Alleged

Double Dealing of Napoleon III--The _Civiltá_ on St.

Bartholomew's--Change of Plan--Instead of a Council a Great

Display--Serious Complaints of Liberal Catholics 70

CHAPTER X

Reprimand of Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, for disputing the

Ordinary and Immediate Jurisdiction of the Pope in his

Diocese--Sent in 1864 Published in 1869 76

CHAPTER XI

Great Gathering in Rome, June 1867--Impressions and

Anticipations--Improvements in the City--Louis Veuillot on

the Great Future 83

CHAPTER XII

The Political Lesson of the Gathering, namely, All are

called upon to recognize in the Papal States the Model State

of the World--Survey of those States 87

CHAPTER XIII

Solemn Confirmation of the Syllabus by the Pope before the

assembled Hierarchy, and their Acquiescence, June 17, 1867 110

BOOK II

FROM THE FIRST PUBLIC INTIMATION OF A COUNCIL TO THE EVE

OF THE OPENING, JUNE 1867 TO DECEMBER 1869

CHAPTER I

First Public Intimation of the intention to hold a Council,

June 26 to July 1, 1867--Consistory--Acquiescence in the

Syllabus of the assembled Bishops--The Canonized

Inquisitor--Questions and Returns preparatory to Greater

Centralization--Manning on the Ceremonies--O'Connell on

the Doctrines of the Papists--The Doctrine of Direct

and Indirect Power 113

CHAPTER II

Six Secret Commissions preparing--Interrupted by

Garibaldi--A Code for the Relations of the Church and Civil

Society--Special Sitting with Pope and Antonelli to decide

on the Case of Princes--Tales of the Crusaders--English

Martyrs--Children on the Altar--Autumn of 1867 to June 1868 131

CHAPTER III

Bull of Convocation--Doctrine of the Sword--The Crusade of

St. Peter--Incidents--Mission to the Orientals, and

Overtures to Protestants in different Countries--June 1868

to December 1868-69 143

CHAPTER IV

Princes, Ministers, and their Confessors--Montalembert's

part in the Revival--His Posthumous Work on Spain--Indignation

against the New Assumptions--Debate of Clergy in Paris on

the Lawfulness of Absolving a Liberal Prince or Minister--Wrath

at Rome--True Doctrines taught to Darboy and his Clergy 153

CHAPTER V

What is to be the Work of the Council--Fears caused by

Grandiose Projects--_Reform of the Church in Head and

Members_--Statesmen evince Concern 164

CHAPTER VI

Agitation in Bavaria and Germany--The Golden Rose--Fall of

Isabella--The King of Bavaria obtains the opinion of the

Faculties--Döllinger--Schwarzenberg's Remonstrance 176

CHAPTER VII

Intention of proposing the Dogma of Infallibility

intimated--Bavarian Note to the Cabinets, February to April,

1869--Arnim and Bismarck 182

CHAPTER VIII

Indulgences--Excitement--The Two Brothers Dufournel--Senestrey's

Speech--Hopes of the Ruin of Germany--What the Council will

do--Absurdity of Constitutional Kings--The True Saviour of

Society--Lay Address from Coblenz--Montalembert adheres to

it--Religious Liberty does not answer--Importance of keeping

Catholic Children apart from the Nation--War on Liberal

Catholics--Flags of all Nations doing Homage to that of the Pope 186

CHAPTER IX

Publication of _Janus_--Hotter Controversy--Bishop Maret's

Book--Père Hyacinth--The Saviour of Society again--Dress--True

Doctrine of Concordats not Contracts but Papal Laws--Every

Catholic State has Two Heads--_Four National Governments

condemned in One Day_--What a Free Church means--Fulda

Manifesto--Meeting of Catholic Notables in Berlin--Political

Agitation in Bavaria and Austria--Stumpf's Critique of the

Jesuit Schemes 197

CHAPTER X

Conflicting Manifestoes by Bishops--Attacks on

Bossuet--Darboy--Dupanloup combats Infallibility--His relations

with Dr. Pusey--Deschamps replies--Manning's Manifesto--Retort

of Friedrich--Discordant Episcopal Witnesses 215

CHAPTER XI

Diplomatic Feeling and Fencing in Rome, November 1869--Cross

Policies on Separation of Church and State--Ollivier, Favre,

De Banneville--Doctrines of French Statesmen ridiculed at

Rome--Specimens of the Utterances approved at Court--Forecasts

of War between France and Prussia--Growing Strength of the

Movement in France for Universities Canonically Instituted 231

CHAPTER XII

Mustering, and Preparatory Stimuli--Pope's Hospitality--Alleged

Political Intent--Friedrich's First Notes--The Nations cited to

Judgment--New War of the Rosary--Tarquini's Doctrine of the

Sword--A New Guardian of the Capitol--November and December,

1869 239

CHAPTER XIII

Great Ceremony of Executive Spectacle, called a Pro-Synodal

Congregation, to forestall Attempts at Self-Organization on

the Part of the Council--The Scene--The Allocution--Officers

appointed by Royal Proclamation--Oath of Secrecy--Papers

Distributed--How the Nine had foreseen and forestalled all

Questions of Self-Organization--The Assembly made into a

Conclave, not a General Council--Cecconi's Apology for the Rules 249

CHAPTER XIV

The Eve of the Council--Rejoicings--Rome the Universal

Fatherland--Veuillot's Joy--Processions--Symbolic

Sunbeams--The Joy bells--The Vision of St. Ambrose--The

Disfranchisement of Kings 262

BOOK III

FROM THE OPENING OF THE COUNCIL TO THE INTRODUCTION OF THE

QUESTION OF INFALLIBILITY

CHAPTER I

The First Session, December 8, 1869, or Opening

Ceremony--Mustering--Robing--The Procession--The Anthem and

Mass--The Sermon--The Act of Obedience--The Allocution--The

Incensing--Passing Decrees--The _Te Deum_--Appreciations

of various Witnesses 271

CHAPTER II

First Proceedings--Unimportant Committees and All-Important

Commissions--No Council if Pope dies--Theologians discover

their Disfranchisement--Father Ambrose--Parties and Party

Tactics--Were the Bishops Free Legislators?--Plans of

Reconstruction--Plan of the German Bishops--Segesser's Plan--New

Bull of Excommunications 308

CHAPTER III

Further Party Manoeuvres--Election of Permanent

Committees--Bull of Excommunications--Various opinions of

it--Position of Antonelli--No serious Discussion

desired--Perplexities of the Bishops--Reisach's

Code suppressed--It may reappear--Attitude of Governments 333

CHAPTER IV

First open Collisions of Opinion--Pending Debate--Fear of an

Acclamation--Rauscher opens--Kenrick--Tizzani--General

discontent with the Draft--Vacant Hats--Speaking by

Rank--Strossmayer--No permission to read the Reports, even

of their own Speeches--Conflicting Views--Petitions to Pope

from Bishops--Homage of Science--Theism 358

CHAPTER V

The Second Public Session--Swearing a Creed never before

known in a General Council--Really an Oath including

Feudal Obedience 379

CHAPTER VI

Speech of the Pope against the Opposition--Future Policy

set before France--Count Arnim's Views--Resumed

Debate--Haynald--A New Mortal Sin--Count Daru and French

Policy--Address calling for the New Dogma--Counter Petitions

against the Principle as well as the Opportuneness 391

CHAPTER VII

Matters of Discipline--Remarks of Friedrich on the Morals of the

Clergy--Also on the War against Modern Constitutions--Morality

of recent Jesuit Teaching--Darboy's Speech--Melcher's Speech--A

Dinner Party of Fallibilists--One of Infallibilists--Gratry--Debate

on the Morals of the Clergy 411

CHAPTER VIII

Church and State--Draft of Decrees with Canons--Gains

Publicity--Principles involved--Views of Liberal

Catholics--The Papal View of the Means of Resistance possessed

by Governments 431

CHAPTER IX

The Courts of Vienna and Paris manifest Anxiety--Disturbances

in Paris--Daru's Letters--Beust moves--His Despatches--His

Passage of Arms with Antonelli--Daru's Despatch and

Antonelli's Reply--Daru's Rejoinder--Beust lays down the

Course which Austria will follow--Arnim's Despatch--The

_Unitá_ on the Situation--Veuillot on the

Situation--Satisfaction of the Ultramontanes 442

CHAPTER X

Personal Attack on Dupanloup--Attempts at a

Compromise--Impossibility of now retreating--Daru

Resigns--Ollivier's Policy--Feeling that the Proceedings

must be Shortened--The Episode of the Patriarch

of Babylon--Proposal for a New Catechism--Michaud on

Changes in Catechism--The Rules revised--An Archbishop

stopped--Protest of One Hundred Bishops--Movement of Sympathy

with Döllinger--The Pope's Chat--Pope and M. de

Falloux--Internal Struggle of Friedrich 457

BOOK IV

FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF THE QUESTION OF INFALLIBILITY TO THE

SUSPENSION OF THE COUNCIL

CHAPTER I

Joy of Don Margotti--New Feelers for an Acclamation--Suggested

Model of the Scene--Its Political Import--A Pause--Case of the

Jesuit Kleutgen--Schwarzenberg out of Favour--Politics of

Poland--Döllinger on the New Rules--Last Protest of

Montalembert--His Death--Consequent Proceedings in Rome 479

CHAPTER II

Threat of American Prelates--Acclamation again fails--New

Protest--Decrees on Dogma--Ingenious connexion of Creation

with the Curia--Serious Allegations of Unfair and Irregular

Proceedings of the Officials--Fears at the Opening of the New

Session--The Three Devotions of Rome--More Hatred of

Constitutions--Noisy Sitting; Strossmayer put down--The Pope's

Comments--He compares the Opposition to Pilate and to the

Freemasons--He is reconciled to Mérode--The Idea of

Charlemagne--Secret Change of a Formula before the Vote 490

CHAPTER III

Important Secret Petition of Rauscher and others--Clear

Statement of Political Bearings of the Question--A Formal

Demand that the Question whether Power over Kings and Nations

was given to Peter shall be argued--Complaints of Manning--Dr.

Newman's Letter--The _Civiltá_ exorcises Newman--Veuillot's

Gibes at him--Conflicts with the Orientals--Armenians in Rome

attacked by the Police--Priests arrested--Broil in the

Streets--Convent placed under Interdict--Third

Session--Forms--Decrees unanimously adopted--Their

Extensive Practical Effects 504

CHAPTER IV

To the end of the General Debate on the Decrees _De Ecclesia_,

June 3--Temporal Benefit to the Curia of Spiritual

Centralization--Spalding's Proposals--Impatience of the Pope

and Veuillot--Outcry against _Ce Qui se Passe au Concile_--All

other Subjects to be Postponed, and Infallibility to be brought

on out of its order--Renewed protest of Minority--Open Change of

Dispute from one on Opportuneness to one on the Merits of the

Dogma--Anecdotes of Bishops--Violations of Rules--Private Notes

of Bishops on the Dogma--Doubts cast on the Authority of the

Council--Formula of New Decree--How it will Work 525

CHAPTER V

The Great Debate--Bishop Pie--The Virgin Mary on

Infallibility--Cullen claims Ireland and MacHale--Kenrick's

Reply, and his Account of the first Introduction of the Doctrine

into Maynooth--MacHale speaks--Full Report of Darboy's

Speech--The Pope gives Signs of Pleasure at Saldanha's Assault on

the King of Portugal--New Date fixed for the Great

Definition--Manning's Great Speech--Remarkable Reply of

Kenrick--McEvilly ascribes Catholic Emancipation not to the

Effect of Oaths, but to that of the Fear of Civil

War--Kenrick's Retort--Clifford against Manning--Verot's

Scene--Spalding's Attack on Kenrick--Kenrick's

Refutation--Speeches of Valerga, Purcell, Conolly, and

Maret--Sudden Close of the Debate 546

CHAPTER VI

To the Close of the Special Debate on Infallibility, July

4--Proposal of the Minority to resist--They yield once

more--Another Protest--Efforts to procure Unanimity--Hope

of the Minority in Delay--Pope disregards the Heat--Disgrace

of Theiner--Decree giving to Pope ordinary Jurisdiction

everywhere--His Superiority to Law--Debate on

Infallibility--Speech of Guidi--Great Emotion--Scene with the

Pope--Close of the Debate--Present view of the _Civiltá_

as to Politics--Specimens of the Official Histories--Exultation 573

CHAPTER VII

To the Eve of the Great Session, July 18--A Fresh Shock for the

Opposition--Serious Trick of the Presidents and Committee--Outcry of

the French Bishops--Proposal to Quit the Council--They send in

another Protest--What is Protestantism?--Immediate War not

foreseen--Contested Canon adopted--The Bishops threatened--Hasty

Proceedings--Final Vote on the Dogma--Unexpected Firmness

of the Minority--Effect of the Vote--Deputation to the Pope--His

incredible Prevarication--Ketteler's Scene--Counter Deputation

of Manning and Senestrey--Vast Changes in the Decrees made

in a Moment--Petty Condemnations--The Minority flies 597

CHAPTER VIII

Grief of M. Veuillot--Final Deputation and Protest 624

CHAPTER IX

From the Great Session to the Suspension of the Council,

October 20, 1870--The Time now come for the Fulfilment of

Promises--Position and Prospects--Second Empire and Papacy

fall together--Style of Address to the Pope--War for the

Papal Empire Foreshadowed--Latest Act of the Council--Italy

moves on Rome--Capture of the City--Suspension of the

Council--Attitude of the Church changed--Last Events of 1870 646

CHAPTER X

How far has the Vatican Movement been a Success, and how

far a Failure?--As to Measures of the Nature of Means a

Success--As to Measures of the Nature of Ends hitherto a

Failure--Testimony of Liberal Catholics to the one, and of

Ultramontanes to the other--Apparatus of Means in Operation

for the Ultimate End of Universal Dominion--Story of Scherr

as an Example of the Minority--Different Classes of those who

"Submit"--Condition and Prospects of the Two Powers in

Italy--Proximate Ends at present aimed at--Control

of Elections--Of the Press--Of Schools--Problem of France

and Italy--Power of the Priests for Disturbance--Comparison

between Catholic and Non-Catholic Nations for last Sixty

Years--Are Priests capable of fomenting Anarchical

Plots?--Hopes of Ultramontanes rest on France and

England--The Former for Military Service, the Latter for

Converts--This Hope Illusory 671

APPENDIX A

The Syllabus with the Counter Propositions of Schrader 713

APPENDIX B

Relation of the Church to the Baptized, and especially to Heretics 733

APPENDIX C

The Constitutions "_Dei Filius_" and "_Pastor Æternus_" 757

APPENDIX D

The Pope personally preparing Children for War 752

INDEX 753

_BOOK I_

_FROM THE ISSUE OF THE SYLLABUS TO ITS SOLEMN CONFIRMATION_

(_December 1864 to June 1867_)

CHAPTER I

The First Secret Command to commence Preparations for a General

Council, December 6, 1864--Meeting of Congregation--All but Cardinals

sent out--Secret Order--Events of the 8th--Solemn Anniversary--A

historical _coup de soleil._

On December 6, 1864, Pope Pius IX held in the Vatican a memorable

meeting of the Congregation of Rites. That body consists of some

eighteen or twenty cardinals, with a few prelates and a number of

consulters. It holds a prominent place among the congregations, or

boards as they would be called at our Court, which, taken collectively,

may be said to constitute the Roman Curia. It determines not only

questions touching the canonization of saints, and the patron saints

of towns and countries, but also questions touching relics, rubrics,

and the title of sacred images to worship. The all-important matters of

robes, adornments, and precedence, are said by different authorities to

be regulated by it, and by the smaller Congregation of Ceremonies. The

pontifical masters of the ceremonies have a seat at both boards.

The day in question fell within three months after the signing of

the convention of September, by which the new kingdom of Italy had

succeeded in binding Napoleon III to withdraw his troops from the

Papal States, at the close of 1866. It was, therefore, at a moment

when thoughts were forcibly directed to the contingencies which might

arise to the Papacy should it be left alone with Italians. It was,

moreover, only two days before the occurrence of an incident which has

already grown into an event, and was designed to mark a new era in

society at large. To that era the proceedings of the six years which we

are about to trace were to form the introductory stage, up to a grand

inauguration both legislative and ceremonial.

We have no information as to the business for which the meeting we

speak of had been convened. It was, however, opened as usual by the

reading of a prayer. After the prayer, the Pontiff commanded all who

were not members of the Sacred College to withdraw, and leave him alone

with the Cardinals. The excluded dignitaries interchanged conjectures

as to what might be the cause of this unusual proceeding, and hoped

that on their readmission they should be informed. But the Pope did not

condescend to their curiosity; they found that the Congregation only

went on with the regular business, and when events cleared up the doubt

it proved that not one of them had guessed the truth.

In the short but eventful interval, Pius IX had formally communicated

to the Cardinals his own persuasion, long cherished, and now quickened

to the point of irrepressible action, that the remedy for the evils of

the time would be found only in a General Council. He commanded them to

study the expediency of convoking one, and to send to him in writing

their opinions upon that question.

The above incident is the first related in the sumptuous volume of

Cecconi, written by command of the Pope, who, after it appeared,

conferred on the author the archbishopric of Florence. That volume

exclusively narrates the secret proceedings of the five years which

intervened between this meeting and the opening of the Vatican

Council. But, while telling us what took place on December 6, the

Court historian passes in dead silence over the eighth. On that day,

however, the Vatican launched manifestoes which had been for years

in preparation, and which have been mentioned every day since. These

summed up all the past policy of Pius IX, and formed a basis for the

future government of the world. They furnished to the Vatican Council,

still five years distant, the kernel of its decrees, both those passed

and those only presented. They are, in fact, printed with the Freiburg

edition of its _Acta_ as preparatory documents.

December is to Pius IX, as it is to the Bonapartes, a month of solemn

anniversaries. On the eighth of that month, ten years previously to the

time of which we are writing, surrounded by two hundred bishops, he

proclaimed the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary as a doctrine

of the Church. In his own imagination, this act formed an epoch of

glory, to the lustre of which three distinct triumphs contributed.

In the first place, a darling bye-belief was lifted from the humble

posture of pious opinion, to that of a dogma binding on all, who must

admit changes into their creed with every change of Rome. In the

second place, a new and mighty advance in the power of the Papacy was

achieved, for a formal addition to the creed was made without the

sanction of a General Council. Those bishops who attended manifestly

acted, not as members of a co-ordinate branch of a legislature, but as

councillors of an autocrat. The absent were placed under the necessity

of accepting the _fait accompli_, or of attempting to undo it in the

face of the Pontiff, the Curia, and the majority of the prelates.

"Gallicanism," said the _Civiltá Cattolica_, "was, in fact, bruised

under the heel of the Immaculate, when Pius IX., by his own authority,

laid down the definition."[5] Thirdly, an impression of the personal

inspiration of Pius IX was conveyed, with embellishments, so as to

prepare the way for the recognition of his infallibility.

When he was in the act of proclaiming the new dogma, the beams of

the sun streamed gloriously upon him; the fact being that his throne

was so fixed that this must take place if the sun shone at the time.

Nevertheless, the visible rays were hailed as evidence of the light

which makes manifest things not seen. The Pope sought, in the great

fresco of Podesti, to popularize and perpetuate his own conception

of this event, which is called, in French guide-books to the Vatican,

the _coup de soleil historique_. That picture, filling an entire side

of a chamber, near to the renowned frescoes of Raffaele, represents

the Virgin looking down from celestial glory upon Pius IX, and, by the

hand of an angel, who holds a cross, pouring a stream of supernal light

on his enraptured eye. Hence may the faithful gather that this is the

light by which he reveals the truth to men.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: Serie VII, viii. p. 668.]

CHAPTER II

The Encyclical _Quanta Cura_, December 8, 1864--Causes of Ruin of

Modern Society: rejection of the "force" of the Church--Religious

Equality--Pretensions of Civil Law and of Parents to Control

Education--Laws of Mortmain--Remedies--Restoration of the

Authority of the Church--Connecting Links between Encyclical and

Syllabus--Retrospect of Evidences that all Society was in Ruins--The

Movement for Reconstruction.

The tenth anniversary of the auspicious day of "The Immaculate"

being now at hand, Pius IX had, as we have seen, chosen its fore-eve

for setting in motion the preparations for his General Council. He

reserved for the day itself the great deed of publishing the Encyclical

_Quanta Cura_ and its accompanying Syllabus of Errors. It is said

that the inception of those documents dates back to a point not very

long subsequent to the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception, and

that the first Special Congregation named to prepare them spent more

than five years without agreeing, after which it was dissolved by his

Holiness, and a second named, which completed the task.

The keynote of the Encyclical is that of an alarm, in the martial

sense; not a panic cry, accompanied by a throwing away of arms, but a

note of danger, with a call to take them up.

The cause assigned for alarm is the ruinous condition of society--that

word being used in its political, not its domestic sense. The very

bases of society were shaken by evil principles, which had spread on

all sides and raised a "horrible tempest." Before proceeding to the

errors to be now condemned, the Pontiff is careful to connect with them

those other "principal errors of our sad times" which he had already

condemned in previous encyclicals, allocutions, and letters apostolic.

He thus lays the logical foundation for the collection of them in the

Syllabus. He first reminds the bishops how he had stirred them up to

war against these errors, and how he had also commanded the children

of the Church to abhor and shun them. Secondly, he enumerates certain

additional errors, condemns them in turn, and commands his sons to

shun them likewise. Condemnations pronounced in this formal manner are

judicial and sovereign. The Pontiff does not speak as a mere teacher,

but as the supreme tribunal of the Church. The judgments pronounced are

not for the guidance of individuals merely, but are a rule for every

officer of the Church. Every such sentence fixes the state of the law.

After many generalities, the first token of ruin in modern society

particularized is the design manifested to check and set aside the

salutary _force_[6] which ought always to be exercised by the Church,

not only over individuals, but also over nations, both "peoples"

and sovereigns. The second token of ruin is the prevalence of the

error that the State may treat various religions on a footing of

equality--the error that liberty of worship is in fact a personal

right of every man, and that the citizen is entitled to make a free

profession of his belief, orally or by the press, without fear of

either civil or ecclesiastical power. This is condemned as being the

"liberty of damnation." The next token of ruin is hostility to the

religious orders, which were established by their founders only by

the inspiration of God. Another token of ruin is the belief that all

the rights of parents over their children arise out of civil law,

especially the claim to control their education. The Pope would seem to

think that this notion is the ground for denying the right of priests

to take the control of education out of the hand of parents, or the

ground for claiming the protection of civil law for the natural and

Scriptural right of the parent against the alleged right of the priest.

Such denial of the right of the priest is dilated upon as a further

token of ruin. The existence of laws of mortmain is an additional

token. After these civil and ecclesiastical matters, one theological

point is adduced, with formal yet fervent language, as if it were some

new plague, broken out in our own times--the denial of the divinity of

our blessed Lord. This seems to be the only question in theology proper

directly raised in the document. The errors now signalized are all

condemned, and formally added to those previously condemned.

Just as the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, before undertaking the campaign

that led to the Crimean war, found his sick man and pointed out his

symptoms, so had Pius IX done. In the former case, the sick man was

only one wide-spread but despotic empire. In the latter, it included

everything that could be called, in the dialect of the Vatican, the

Modern State.

Proceeding from his enumeration of the evils which mark the ruin of

contemporary society to the remedies by which it is to be repaired, his

Holiness once more wraps up much of what he may mean in generalities.

When he does come to particulars, the hierarchy are directed to teach

that kingdoms rest on the foundations of the faith; that kingly power

is bestowed, not only for the government of the world, but still more

for the protection of the Church; that nothing can be more glorious

for rulers than to permit the Catholic Church to govern according to

her own laws (i.e. canon law), not allowing any one to impede her free

action, and not setting the regal will above that of the priests of

Christ. Here is touched the great question in government. The Modern

State had not only emancipated the throne from the supreme tribunal

of the Church, that is, the Pope, but it had also emancipated the

civil courts from the external tribunal of the Church, that is, the

ecclesiastical court. The latter as well as the former evil must be

redressed. To such prescriptions for the healing of society is added a

proclamation of indulgences, and then follows an exhortation to pray

both to God and to the Blessed Virgin, "who has destroyed all heresies

throughout the world"--whatever that may mean in history, theology, or

rhetoric. "She is gentle and full of mercy; ... and standing at the

right hand of her only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, as queen, in gilded

clothing, surrounded with variety, there is nothing which she cannot

obtain from Him."

This curious document was a necessary introduction to the Syllabus.

The external connecting link between the two was formed by a covering

letter of Cardinal Antonelli conveying the Syllabus to the hierarchy by

direct command of the Pope, "that they might have all the errors and

the pernicious doctrines which have been condemned by him under their

eyes."[7] The internal link lay in the title of the Syllabus, which

recited the language of the Encyclical referring to the antecedent

judgments of the Pontiff. It is not a syllabus of errors _in general_,

nor of errors merely disapproved and abhorred by Pius IX in particular,

nor of errors rebuked and denounced by him only in sermons, speeches,

or briefs; but a syllabus of _The Principal Errors of our Times, set

forth by him in Consistorial Allocutions, Encyclicals, and other

Letters Apostolic_.

Before proceeding to consider the Syllabus as the new foundation laid

for the reconstruction of society after its ruin, we may for a moment

glance at the facts which might seem to prove to observers, looking

from the Vatican, that it had been reduced to a ruinous condition.

Coming to the throne in 1846, Pius IX inherited the sovereignty of

States which had long been in a condition of chronic disaffection.

The state of things is described as follows by Monsignor Liverani, a

learned but seemingly disappointed prelate, who wrote hoping to redeem

the glory of the Papacy by the re-establishment of a Holy Roman Empire

with an Italian head, after the example of that interval between

the line of Charlemagne and that of Otho, when Guido of Spoleto,

his brilliant son Lambert, and Berengarius wore the imperial title.

"The people," says Liverani, "have spoken for forty years, groaning,

agitating, shaking off the yoke by frequent revolutions, accompanied by

crimes and continuous misfortunes, by slaughters, wars, bombardments,

banishments, and desolations."[8]

Nevertheless, prelates from the north, coming to pay their homage to

the new Pontiff, on reaching the last spurs of the Alps, might embrace

in the glance of their mind all thence to Ætna, and say, Happy land!

the throne of his Holiness in the centre, the faithful Bourbon on the

south, the Hapsburg on the north, with Tuscany under a branch of the

Hapsburgs, and Piedmont under the House of Savoy--what a spectacle of

Catholic power! Holy land! not a heretic temple; not one teacher but in

communion with Peter: blessed scene of Catholic unity!

A poor representative of the oft-extirpated Waldenses might say in

silence--for such words durst not then disturb the Catholic unity of

Italian air--You forget a few teachers in the valleys behind you, who

never left the word of God to turn lords either of the earth or of the

faith. Before you there is not a pulpit with the Bible, nor a man who

ever drinks the cup of Christ, excepting priests alone; not a temple

with God's commandments on its walls, but many a decalogue altered by

the authority of a man who, making the law of God reformable, claims

that his own shall be irreformable!

Beyond the limits of the Pope's temporal dominions soon arose

commotions which spread over the principal seats of his spiritual

power. In Switzerland the Jesuits provoked the war of the Sonderbund,

and were foiled. Beyond the Atlantic a considerable portion of Mexico

passed into the hands of the Protestant United States. Portugal was

plagued with revolt. A famine thinned and dispersed the Roman Catholic

population of Ireland. France drove away her good king. The Emperor of

Austria was compelled to abdicate, and the empire was not saved from

dismemberment without aid from Russia. The King of Bavaria also had to

lay down his crown. The sovereigns of Tuscany and Naples were compelled

to fly; as was, alas! the Pontiff himself. Spain and her Queen were

seldom heard of, except for an insurrection or a scandal. Only two

Roman Catholic countries were thriving--Belgium, with a Protestant

king, and a constitution which the Church had solemnly and vehemently

condemned; and Piedmont, which, worse than Hannibal, had opened the

passes of the Alps to religious liberty.

This was the first sweep of the hurricane. During its prevalence, those

portions of the world which lay without the Papal circle enjoyed as

much rest as was to be looked for beside such troubled waters. Both

schismatical Russia and heretical England were stable and expanding.

Prussia was for a time seriously disturbed, but, nevertheless, was

manifestly advancing to the first place in Germany. Holland, Denmark,

and Sweden held on their way; and the United States were growing apace.

From his exile the Pope called on the Catholic powers for armed aid.

Austria crushed and held the Emilia. Spain took Fuimicino and the

cities on the Tyrrhenian shore. Naples conquered Frosinone and the

south up to Palestrina, but was driven back at Velletri by Garibaldi.

Finally, France declared herself ready to terminate the war; and, after

failing for weeks before the slight defences of Rome, ultimately took

the city.[9]

Indebted for a welcome restoration to the unwelcome hand of a

Bonaparte, Pius IX, on re-entering his States, found himself

permanently dependent for possession of the capital on the sword of

France, and for that of the provinces on the sword of Austria. Under

their protection he enjoyed some years of struggling sovereignty. This

could hardly be called a restoration of the temporal power, for a power

is not really restored till it can again stand alone. Instead of being

an opponent of the Jesuits, a Liberal, and a Reformer, as he had been,

the Pope was now transformed into a violent reactionary, and had fallen

entirely under the influence of the Jesuits. His admirers proudly point

to his acts from that time forward as evidence that they have been

uniformly aimed at one end. That end, viewed on its negative side,

they call combating the Revolution, and, viewed on its positive side,

the reconstruction of society. In the introduction to his Speeches,

his peculiar mission is said to be that of reconstruction. This

reconstruction was to begin with the restoration of ideas, and was to

proceed to the restoration of facts.

It is this movement that we are about to trace. First, we shall take

a brief retrospect from the time of its inception at Gaeta up to the

appearance of the Syllabus, which, as the ostensible ground-plan of

a cosmopolitan code, was meant to be the charter of reconstruction.

We shall then, from that stage onward, as far as our materials enable

us, detail the progressive steps of the movement up to the end of

the Vatican Council, which was meant to complete the constituent

arrangements of the new theocratic monarchy. We shall see unfolding a

movement for dominion as distinctive as was that of Leo III when he

linked the fortunes of the Papacy to those of a new Western Empire;

as distinctive as was the movement of Hildebrand when from political

dependence he lifted up the Papacy to unheard-of domination; as

distinctive as was the movement of the Popes after the Reformation,

when through war and the Inquisition they restored in several countries

of Europe their spiritual ascendancy. We shall witness the rise of a

curious and powerful literature--scholastic, serial, and popular--which

has steadily swollen in volume, and now acts with ever accelerating

force on the religious antipathies of many nations, pointing to future

wars on a scale unheard of, fixing the aim of those wars, and hinting

at the disappearance of all existing institutions but the Church.

We shall see a well-sustained endeavour, in the name of freedom of

instruction, to take all schools and universities out of the hands of

parents and of States, and to put them into the hands of priests. We

shall see such rights in matters ecclesiastical as in the Church of

Rome had still survived to the laity, the priests, and the bishops,

gradually suppressed in action till the way was prepared for their

abolition in law. We shall see the subordination of the civil law

to the canon law, and the subjection of the civil magistrate to the

"ecclesiastical magistrate" insisted upon as the essence of social

order. We shall see all the inherited rights of kings and rulers,

within their own dominions, to put limits upon the action of the Pope

of Rome, first impugned, then contested, then defied, and finally,

as far as the Church could do it, legislated out of existence. We

shall see all kings and rulers challenged to accept the Pontiff as

their head, and even as their judge in all matters involving moral

responsibility. We shall find it taught and taught again that all

Catholic countries have two rulers--the universal and the national one,

the universal one superior, the national one subordinate; and that

every citizen of those countries is more the subject of the Pope than

of his prince. We shall see the relation between the civil and the

ecclesiastical authorities as existing within the Papal States solemnly

and repeatedly declared to be the normal relation of those two orders

of authority, and to be the only example of their proper relative

position extant in all the earth. We shall see the Papal States

earnestly held up as the model for the new theocracy in the entire

world.

Further, we shall see, for five successive years, secret proceedings

of the Court of Rome sufficiently laid open by official divulgence

to enable us to note the slow, sure steps devised for depriving

kings of all their rights in self-defence against the Pope; for

depriving bishops of all their powers of checking or restraining the

Pope; for depriving theologians of any voice in the councils of the

Church; and for depriving the parochial clergy of their individual

and collective franchises. We shall at almost every turn hear modern

laws and constitutions--liberty of worship, liberty of the press,

liberty of meeting, with representative legislatures and responsible

governments--denounced as the curse of mankind in all the varying

accents of a strange dialect, or a dialect happily strange to us. We

shall witness the preaching of a new crusade, on a cosmopolitan scale,

with considerable art, making the bearing of arms for St. Peter to

appear, pre-eminently, the life of the Cross, and dying in arms for

St. Peter to appear as the martyr's end, the fairest of deaths, and

the most enviable. We shall see how the most jealous and obstinate

oligarchy in the world were led on from step to step of subjugation

till they were made the instruments of reducing their collective body,

when in Council assembled, from a co-ordinate branch of a legislature

to a mere privy council to the Bishop of Rome, and of reducing the

members of their body, when dispersed, from the position of real

diocesan bishops to that of prefects of the Bishop of Rome.

Still further, we shall see evolved under our eyes the process

by which opinions are elevated into doctrines, and doctrines are

erected into irreformable dogma. We shall see how the bishops, while

dispersed, were induced, in order to facilitate the making of a new

dogma, to discredit their acknowledged standard of belief, tradition,

substituting for it the general consent of the Church; and how, when

the passing of the dogma was secured, the assembled bishops were

induced to disavow the consent of the Church as unnecessary. We shall

see ecclesiastical magnates prostrate and petitioning the Bishop of

Rome for the elementary liberties of a legislature, and petitioning in

vain. We shall see how such magnates in secret petitions represented

the principles about to be erected into dogma as contrary to their

traditional belief and constant teaching, as fraught with peril to the

State, and as certain to bring discredit on the loyalty of any sincere

believer in such dogma; and how the same magnates afterwards in public

documents affirmed the opposite in all these respects. We shall see how

renowned champions of the Papacy complained late in life that they had

been used for its glory and deceived as to its principles. Finally, we

shall see set in motion an immense apparatus of means for effecting, in

a course of ages, the complete social, political, and ecclesiastical

reconstruction of all society, which reconstruction will culminate only

when the spiritual and the temporal powers meeting as in an apex in

the Vicar of Christ, he shall be by all men regarded as not only High

Priest, but as King of kings and Lord of lords; when, all authority and

dominion, all principality and power, being put under him, there shall

in the whole earth exist only, as we should express it, one master and

all men slaves, or, as he would express it, one fold and one shepherd.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: The word is _vis_, which both the _Civiltá Cattolica_

and the French _Recueil_ translate by "force." But not so the German

_Stimmen aus Maria Laach_, which makes it "influence"--_einfluss_ (Heft

i. p. 10). Such a difference in versions meant for Germans, Englishmen,

and Americans is not rare.]

[Footnote 7: _Recueil_, end of preface.]

[Footnote 8: _Il Papato_, etc., p. 188.]

[Footnote 9: The Pope, in the Allocution of April 20, 1849, says

that Spain first stirred up the other Catholic nations to form a

league among themselves for his restoration (_Recueil_, p. 228).

His description of the Holy City during his absence was, "a thicket

of roaring beasts"--_silvam frementium bestiarum_ (Id. 224). His

description of himself at the same time was "being counted worthy to

suffer shame for the name of Jesus, and being made in some measure

conformable to His passion" (Id. p. 234).]

CHAPTER III

Foundation of a Literature of Reconstruction, Serial and

Scholastic--The _Civiltá Cattolica_: its Views on Education and

on Church and State--Tarquini's Political Principles of Pope and

King--Measures Preparatory to the Syllabus.

With the year 1850 was commenced a magazine, at the instance of

the Jesuits, and under their direction, bearing the title Catholic

Civilization (_Civiltá Cattolica_), in opposition to modern

civilization. We may here say that the daily organ of the same

complexion bears the title of Catholic Unity (_Unitá Cattolica_), in

opposition to Italian unity. Above one hundred volumes of the _Civiltá_

have been published; and it must ever be named in connexion with

Pius IX as the intimate organ of his policy, and the most complete

store of his published records. Perhaps its place in the history of

literature is unique. Considering the number of books, serials, and

journals, in different languages, of which it is the inspiring force,

and considering the modifications it has already succeeded in bringing

about in the ideas and even in the organization of the whole Catholic

society, they can scarcely be charged with vain boasting who call it

the most influential organ in the world. The Jesuit Fathers forming its

editorial staff reside close to the Pope's palace, and work under his

immediate direction. Dr. Friedrich, during the Vatican Council, told

some bishops that if they would understand the Council, they must study

it with the _Civiltá_ in their hands. For our part, before reading that

remark we had applied the same principle to the entire movement.

The leading idea of the _Civiltá_ is expressed, says the article

on the programme, in its title. _Catholic Civilization_ is flag,

device, and profession of faith.[10] The substance is civilization,

the quality Catholic. Civilization is not polish, but organization

in community, under rule. Civilization, after the Catholic ideal,

had continued steadily to grow up to the fifteenth century, but was

broken in the sixteenth by Lutheranism; was again enfeebled in the

seventeenth by Jansenism; yet again was it undermined in the eighteenth

by Voltairianism, and now in the nineteenth it is lacerated by

Socialism. The evil has actually entered Italy, and even heterodoxy

itself threatens to invade the Peninsula. Heresy is, in fact, likely

to become connected with that aspiration after national unity by which

the people are misled. _Almost everything having been overhauled in

heterodox spirit, almost everything must be reconstituted from the

foundation._[11] These words express the mission of the new periodical,

and of the restored Papacy. They are the original announcement of a

policy ever since pursued without flagging.

To reconstitute society according to the Catholic ideal is the single

object set forth. "On the brink of social dissolution," the one

necessity felt, pressed, reiterated, is that of re-establishing on the

Catholic ideal the notion of civilization--that is of the civil system;

and of leading back the movement of civilization to that Catholic ideal

from which it had been departing for three centuries.[12]

The essential point in this fabric is "the idea of authority." But

the idea of authority cannot be restored except by quickening it, and

reinforcing it by the Catholic conception. When the divine authority

was shaken, men would no longer hear of the human (i.e. when the Papacy

was rejected, civil government fell into contempt). The Catholic

ideal is idly reproached with absolutism. But, among Catholics,

pure monarchy, if not limited by certain conventional checks, is

tempered by a higher law, not abstract, but practical, active, and

operative. Absolutism in the sense of despotism is the creation of

Protestantism and Voltairianism, and if it may sit on the throne of

a king, it is more frequently found in constitutional chambers or

democratic assemblies.[13] Therefore the one sufficing remedy is the

restoration in ruler and subject of the notion of authority according

to the Catholic ideal. For this the new organ calls for _a salutary

conspiracy, a holy crusade_;[14] two phrases that mean all that has

since taken place, and all that has yet to come.

The very first article of the _Civiltá_, after that upon the programme,

is on education: "the question which holds all the future destinies of

the European nations struggling within its ballot-boxes." With this

appreciation of its theme, it takes ground which has since become

familiar to Europe, and enunciates principles which have now frequently

been reproduced in our own discussions; so that a slight sketch of its

reasoning will not be without interest to English readers. The interest

is increased by the fact that its aims have steadily gained ground in

France. In England, some of them, if not recognized as principles, have

been, to a considerable extent, practically embodied, as undetected

principles are apt to be.

Beginning with the theme of Freedom of Instruction, it denounces

the tyranny and monopoly of the University of France. Had not the

spirit of Catholicism, it says, broken the chain, it would soon have

become unlawful for one man to tell another the right road, unless

he had a bachelor's degree, for doing so was a sort of instruction.

The line properly limiting freedom of instruction it finds in the

line which divides the truth from falsehood. They who demand liberty

of instruction do so in order to teach the truth. But in excluding

the teaching of lies, it may be even "necessary to protect children

betrayed by the barbarous apathy of their parents."

The writer then asks, But who is to determine what is the lie?

Governments? "Until a government can show itself infallible, it must

renounce all pretensions to regulate instruction and opinion." The

pretension on its part to do so is tyrannical, because interference

here is trespassing on the sanctuary, where the truth alone bears rule.

The position that it belongs to a government to fix the limits

of freedom of opinion is denounced as having originated in the

Reformation, as being Protestant, and, further, as being destitute

of foundation. The Church is the moderator of instruction, precisely

because she is the infallible moderator of opinions in all that relates

to the moral order. Consequently there is in existence a competent,

effectual, and revered tribunal. Then follow taunts at journals which

complain of communal authorities for giving up their educational rights

to the clergy. These are succeeded by jeers at such statesmen as doubt

if the liberty of communal authorities extends so far as to give them

the right of surrendering their liberty.

The objection is then faced, that liberty may be as justly claimed by

the non-Catholic as by the Catholic. Of course, replies the _Civiltá_,

the only case in which that question can become a practical one for

Catholics is where they form the majority. Is it to be supposed that

a majority shall be bound, for the sake of a minority "to pass a law

opening all the pits of hell for its fellow-citizens?... With Catholics

the liberty of dissidents cannot be a natural right."

The position taken by statesmen, that the Church is not infallible in

politics and economy, and that therefore these subjects must be under

the control of the State, is first laughed at. It reminds the writer of

a musketeer who should say to his general, "I see that your artillery

is of no avail against these Alps; let us open upon them with our

rifles." After this comes the principle. The assertion that politics

and economy ought to be under the control of the State rests on one or

other of three errors: (1) Politics and economy do not belong to the

moral sciences; or, (2) The moral sciences are not subject to moral

laws; or, (3) The Church is not the authentic exponent of moral law.

The first of these errors is refuted by every university in Europe, in

all of which politics and economy are classed among the moral sciences.

The second is a contradiction in terms. The third is a heresy in every

Catholic ear.

It will help to a clear understanding of many expressions which must

occur hereafter, if the reader, at this stage, will set before his

mind's eye the scope of the three principles here asserted. Phillips,

a modern lay doctor, quoted by the humblest polemic and the mighty

_Civiltá_, in his seven volumes on ecclesiastical law (_Kirchenrecht_),

discusses the relations of Church and State at great length. He shows

that the Church is supreme and the State subordinate, in all things

that come under the _divine laws_. Holtgreven, a Catholic judge, and an

opponent of the Falk laws, explains this clearly: "To the divine laws,

in this sense, belong, not only the ten commandments, but also the

canons of the Church, as the Council of Trent shows. The things subject

to the divine laws include all such worldly things as are _connected_

with morality."[15]

This much is conceded by the _Civiltá_, that, if danger to the public

interests should arise from false teaching of any _material_ science,

the government may interfere, as it would in a case of adulteration of

food. The Church is not infallible in material instruction.

The article, it will be seen, claims the right to take the teaching of

the child out of the hand of the parent, and that of the subject out of

the hand of the State.[16] The latter may mix itself up in the matter

as to material things, not as to moral. Royal supremacy, in university,

college, seminary, or primary school, must not be allowed. It has

the twofold evil of setting the authority and responsibility of the

parent for his child above that of the priest, and of setting the local

authority of the national ruler above the all-embracing authority of

the universal one. The State is not only welcome to appear in school,

but ought to appear in its subordinate capacity, finding money, secular

status, and instruction in _material_ things. But in all that part

of schooling which may be called education in the higher sense, of a

father, a Christian, or a king, the State is not to have a word to say.

It would seem difficult to ask a community to do an action involving

a more serious disregard of moral considerations than to find money

and power for schools and colleges, and not have a word to say as

to the principles taught in them. We are far from ascribing such a

disregard of moral considerations to a devout Ultramontane. On the

contrary, he is persuaded that the State, in committing its money and

authority to the Church, takes not only the highest human guarantee,

but a truly divine one, for the protection of every moral interest. The

motto of the article is a sentence intimating that, all over Europe,

the question of the future must be the establishment of universities

canonically instituted.[17]

In order to the _restoration of ideas_ now undertaken, as preparing

the way for the _restoration of facts_, it was a practical necessity

to establish an invariable association between the two ideas of the

only Judge of true and false, the only Arbiter of right and wrong, and

the one holy Roman Church. This association could not be established

so well by any arrangement as by making each school an arena on which

every day the authority of both the parent and the State should be--not

pranced upon, not even trampled upon, but serenely and devoutly walked

over, by what M. Veuillot calls the crushing sandals of the monk.

* * * * *

Another article in the first volume of the _Civiltá_ gives such

expression to the principles which underlie the whole struggle ever

since conducted, that some account of it will do more to put the reader

in possession of certain of those principles than formal explanations.

It is on the central question of the relations of Church and State;

or, as the _Civiltá_ puts it, of the separation of Church and State--a

phrase which, like almost every other, has a different meaning in its

pages from what it has with us. The following headings give an idea of

the drift of the article: "6. The nation is a part of the Church." "7.

The part ought to be subordinate to the whole." "8. Because the Church

has authority." "9. The authority of jurisdiction."[18]

_I believe in the holy Catholic Church_, in the Apostles' Creed, is

thus interpreted: "I believe that every Catholic individual and nation

forms a part of the Catholic society, and that only by virtue of its

being a part does it partake of the benefit of the whole, through being

subordinated to the laws of the whole."

On the point of jurisdiction, the writer first unearths "the

serpent," which is the notion that the Church may judge about sins,

virtues, doctrines, rites, and such-like, but must not touch temporal

jurisdiction. This serpent he proceeds to kill. First, he solemnly

appeals to the faith of the reader. "Do you believe that the Church

is infallible in dogmatic Bulls, at least, unless they are formally

rejected by the episcopate?" After this, he resorts to pleasantry:

"Come close to me, and I will tell it in your ear. The Bull of John

XXII condemned John Gianduno and Marsilius of Padua as heretics,

because they denied to the Church the right of punishing by corporal

pains, and it declared that she could inflict pains even unto

death.[19] But I tell you this in secret, solely that you may know what

is the doctrine of the Catholic Church, which you profess--doctrine

put in practice through very many centuries, down to the last Council

(Trent), which fulminated I know not how many penalties, and material

ones, even against counts, marquises, princes, and emperors. Woe to

us if they should hear us!" Thus jauntily did those who had only just

been reinstated by foreign arms treat the neo-Catholic doctrine, or,

as it has since been called, the Liberal Catholic one. "I tell you

plainly," adds the writer, "that if the Church cannot rule her sons,

even in material things, the Church is lost; at least, the Catholic

Church. She might survive as that invisible Church which was discovered

by Luther among the ruins of the middle ages, and, reconstructed as the

_amphitherium_ and _palæotherium_, were discovered in the geological

strata, and reconstructed by Cuvier."

Addressing kings, the writer solemnly counsels them to bring forth

all their codes, and pass them under a careful examination. But the

light by which such examination is to be conducted must be that "of

pure Catholicism, to which all other legislation must be subordinated.

Restore every article of your code, according to the articles of your

creed, not only in what relates to the duties of subjects, but also in

what would seem to diminish the rights of rulers. And that the Catholic

influence, which modifies codes, may shine in all its fulness, _let it

not be ministers or legists, but bishops and the Pontiff, who shall

minutely search into your legislation for every anti-Catholic element_."

The theocratic Papal polity might have been almost intentionally

framed to contrast with the first principles of the Mosaic theocratic

polity. The latter, put in one word, seems to be this: God as the

general Father is the great right-holder, and He identifies the

rights of every creature with His own, identifying at the same time

their welfare with His own glory. Therefore He leaves no creature to

the care of a Vicar, no province to any departmental divinity. Every

act done for the benefit of our fellow-creatures He reckons as a

tribute to Himself. Every infringement of their rights He treats as an

offence against Himself. Every man was taught to see, not an abstract

principle, but a great Father standing beside the gleaning widow, the

supperless hireling, the pauper forced to pawn, and having no second

coat--was taught to hear this common Father saying for these to happier

neighbours, "I am the Lord." Every man tempted to lie, cheat, steal,

oppress, seduce, or strike, saw the same great Father rising up against

him, and saying, "I am the Lord."

It was of the essence of this theocracy that all who held authority

did so by and under a written law in the vulgar tongue. Of this law

every father in his own house was made the guardian, and in it he was

the responsible instructor of his children. Every prophet professing

that he bore a fresh message was to be brought to the test of this

written law. Those who were to apply the test were the men of the

whole community. Every one who claimed to bear a special commission

was bound first to conform to the law, and secondly, to show signs of

special divine power. It was a theocracy of direct divine government,

not of government by a Vicar; a theocracy of written law, not of

arbitrary will styling itself authority; a theocracy of private

judgment, not of a veda shut up from the low caste, to be read and

interpreted only by the twice-born Brahman. Finally, it was a theocracy

in which whatever came from God became its own witness by benefits to

God's children not to be mistaken, and obvious to all.

The statement made in the _Civiltá_ as to the guidance under which

the reactionary policy in Austria was devised, gives light upon the

duties then engrossing nuncios and confessors at the various Courts

where Papal influence was powerful. All that appeared to the world

was, that at every one of those Courts a cold current of reaction set

in and ran strong. The Jesuits took it for a tide, and the bark of

St. Peter was to sail cheerily over all the shoals. But the Liberal

Catholics were proportionably disquieted as to the prospects of the

Church. The first days of Pius IX had fired them with hope that Rome

might yet be fit to face three things of which she was shy--the Bible,

History, and Freedom. But the advent of the Jesuits to power caused

serious forebodings, which soon began to be realized. To quote the

memorable words of Montalembert, "Who could have thought that the

clergy, after crying out for liberty in Belgium, would turn round as

they did in 1852, till we found them beating down all our liberties and

privileges--in fact, all our ideas--as held in times preceding Napoleon

III?"[20]

We now find that at the time when the Pontiff was using his clergy to

help kings in taking away constitutional rights from their subjects, he

was himself preparing to take from the kings what they indeed looked

upon as rights, but what he regarded in the light of constitutional

concessions, infringing the higher rights of their divinely appointed

suzerain. When the Italian government took possession of the _Collegio

Romano_, it was found that the Jesuits had left in the great library

of the establishment little belonging to the present pontificate. One

pamphlet is of some significance. A manuscript note on the title-page

proudly tells how his Holiness wished to have it circulated as widely

as possible. It also adds that on February 1, 1853, when the fathers

of the _Collegio Romano_ stood before his Holiness, he singled out the

author, Father Camillo Tarquini, in presence of the other Jesuits and

of the Court, and addressed him thus: "Father Tarquini, I am delighted;

bravo! well done! I confirm it, and confirm it with all my heart."[21]

This was an early foretoken of the purple in which Tarquini died. He is

the writer to whom Cardinal Manning appeals, as softening the doctrine

of Bellarmine and Suarez to a temper fitter for our times. The pamphlet

signalized by this display of favour aims at proving the wickedness

of kings in subjecting the bulls, briefs, or any acts whatever of the

Pope, to a _placet_, _exequatur_, or other form of royal assent, before

recognizing them as having the force of law in their States. This is

one form of the error of regalism.

The power of the Pontiff, argues Father Tarquini, is this--What he

binds on earth is bound in heaven. But if the king, stepping in, says,

To bind implies the force of law, and your acts shall not acquire

the force of law without my _placet_, how then? Why, the Pontiff

becomes the one really bound. The king refuses to allow the pontifical

judgments to take effect of themselves. It is not with him "said on

earth and done in heaven." His _placet_ must intervene.

It is competent, indeed, he admits to the Pontiff, to _grant_ a right

of _placet_; but such a right, founded on the grace of a Pope, cannot

be confounded with one inherent in the crown. We quote the following

in full:--"You say that the _placet_ is a real right, demanded by

justice, and essential to political government. The Church condemns

it by a series of judgments, perhaps without parallel in her history,

extending from her foundation down to Pius IX. She expressly defines

it, with Leo X, Clement VII, Clement XI, and Benedict XIV, as opposed

to all justice, as indecent, absurd, rash, scandalous, as insufferable

depravity, and worthy of eternal pain. Therefore she punishes it with

the greatest of penalties, the anathema.

"In this matter there is no middle course. You must either lay aside

the mask of Catholicism, which no longer becomes you, and boldly avow

that the Church has defined good as evil, justice as injustice, an

inherent right of the crown as an absurdity and a wrong, and done so

in a judgment perpetuated from her foundation to our own day; or you

must, on the other hand, confess that you are in an error not to be

tolerated."

Thus it seems that what with a Christian minister would only be a

claim to announce the belief and the moral precepts which he found in

the Holy Scriptures, becomes with the Roman Pontiff a claim to put

his decree on any matter which he deems conducive to the good of "the

Church" into the form of law, and to set it up without, or in spite

of, but anyhow above, the national law, be it republican, royal, or

imperial. This boundless pretension--for boundless it is--will often be

found gently expressed as the right of the Pontiff _to communicate with

the faithful_.

The writer then asks what, from his point of view, would seem to be a

natural question. Would kings like the Pope to demand that his _placet_

should be required before their laws came into force?[22] He replies

that some of them have so far unlearned "Christian doctrine as to say

that, in case the Pope did so, he would usurp sovereign rights in their

States." But such a proposition is heretical, pronounced to be so by

the Holy Office in 1654, with the approbation of Innocent X.[23] By

virtue of this, even our children know that the Church presided over

and governed by the Vicar of Christ is a kingdom which has the ends of

the earth for its bounds. Therefore it belongs to the Vicar of Christ

to make laws in all parts of the world for her welfare and for her

government.

Liberal Catholics trembled for the consequences to Church and State

of Jesuit Court confessors and far-aiming but short-seeing plans.

They knew that the devout Jesuit calls upon all to regard the Papal

government as the model for the whole world; and that if statesmen

and jurists could be replaced by Jesuits at the various Courts, a

combination of plan and an unity of action might be secured everywhere

for a great movement to establish the dominion of Christ in a higher

degree than the Thirty Years' War did in Austria and Bohemia.

There is a point illustrated in this pamphlet which seems to enter into

the English head more slowly than any other. We mean the conscientious

view of a true Ultramontane as to what constitutes religious liberty,

or violates it. Englishmen sometimes not only transfer their own views

on this subject to Ultramontanes, but betray the feeling that they are

generous in doing so. It is never generous, or even just, to ascribe

views to a man which he religiously condemns. If the Englishman will

clearly set before his mind the first postulate of the Ultramontane,

that God has appointed a vicar upon earth, to whom He has committed

all power, surely he will see that religious liberty must principally

consist in the freedom of that vicar to do all which he conceives it to

be in his province to do, and in the freedom of those who receive his

commands to carry them out, exactly according to his intentions. If any

king or nation limits his freedom to act and command, "the Pope becomes

the one really bound." The Englishman may say that, on this principle,

no guarantee is left for any liberty but that of the Pontiff, or of

those who represent authority derived from him. But that is precisely

what the Ultramontane does not believe.

On the contrary, he holds that the highest guarantee for all legitimate

liberty lies in the complete freedom of the Pontiff. No liberty can

be legitimate that consists in exemption, or assumed exemption, from

divine authority. And further, the authority of the Vicar of God, being

exercised under unfailing guidance, is not liable to commit violations

of any right.

We thus see begun the movement for the restoration of ideas, as

preparatory to the restoration of facts. Ranke has traced the course of

the "ecclesiastical restoration," which was rendered necessary by the

damage inflicted on Rome by the Reformation, without being careful to

mark the principles or to track the processes by which "restoration"

was effected in Bohemia, Austria, Spain, Italy, and France. That

restoration, however, had been real and momentous. A second restoration

had taken place after the wreck of the French Revolution, when the

Papacy had been smitten by its own sons. It was the pride of the clergy

to cite the fact that the rulers of England and Prussia had co-operated

in that restoration, as proof that the Papal throne was even in

Protestant eyes the central point of order. Now a third restoration was

to be effected--one which would do all that had been left undone by

the other two. The Pope's throne was not only to be reared up again in

Rome, but was to be gradually elevated to a spiritual supremacy equal

to the highest claimed in former Bulls, and to a temporal supremacy as

complete as when Hildebrand triumphed at Canossa.

The first of these restorations had been fought out with the weapons

of the Inquisition and the war-plots of the Jesuits. The second had

been fought out with the weapons of the Liberal Catholics, borrowed

from the Reformation and the Modern State. When the Jesuits had pushed,

not too far, but untimely far, they were for the day disowned; not,

however, as inimical to the Church, but as hateful to the nations,

and as, therefore, lowering the credit of the Church with the outside

world. Now had come the moment when the Liberal Catholics, having done

their work, were in turn to be disowned; but on other grounds. They

were to be cast out as children of the world, infected with principles

subversive of the "kingdom of God," of that polity in which the priest

of God is the king of men, and the affairs of an erring race are

unerringly guided by consecrated hands.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: _Civiltá_, vol. 1. p. 13.]

[Footnote 11: Ibid. p. 15.]

[Footnote 12: Ibid. p. 13.]

[Footnote 13: Ibid. pp. 20, 21.]

[Footnote 14: Ibid. p. 14.]

[Footnote 15: _Holtgreven_, p. 9.]

[Footnote 16: _Civiltá_, vol. i. pp. 25-51.]

[Footnote 17: Ibid.]

[Footnote 18: Vol. i. p. 647.]

[Footnote 19: Cardinal Tarquini (_Institutiones_, p. 35, ed. 4th),

whom Cardinal Manning, in his reply to Mr. Gladstone (p. 94), names

as teaching differently on such points from the earlier Jesuits,

Bellarmine and Suarez, quotes this case, saying that the Bull in

question "more particularly attributes to the Church that which is the

special property of a perfect society, the power of coercion, even to

the use of material force; but Marsilius, who denied this, was on that

account condemned as a heretic." His words are, "_Quod maxime proprium

est societatis perfectæ, jus potestatis coactivæ etiam quoad inferendam

vim materialem; Marsilius autem, qui hæc ipsa negabat damnatur eam ob

rem ut hæreticus_."]

[Footnote 20: Letter quoted in _Unitá Cattolica_, March 10, 1870.

_Friedbergh_, p. 120.]

[Footnote 21: _Del Regio Placet_: Dissertazione del P. Camillo

Tarquini, D.C.D.G. ... Estratto dagli Annali delle Scienze Religiose,

Roma, 1852. Tipografia della Rev. Cam. Apostolica.

The note in manuscript on the title-page is as follows: "S.S. Pio IX

Voile che presente dissertazione si diffondesse quanto più si potea;

e nel di, 1 Febbrajo, 1853, veduto l'autore dissegli alla presenza

della sua corte e degli altri Padri del Collegio Romano. P. Tarquini me

rallegro, bravo, bene. Confermo, e confermo di tutta volonta."]

[Footnote 22: "It would be very natural that the Church which makes

laws from God Himself should demand of the State that it should make

no law for her subjects to which she had not previously given her

approbation."--_Phillips_, ii. 577.]

[Footnote 23: "In 1644, the Holy Office, in a decree approved by

Innocent X, condemned as schismatical and heretical the proposition

which asserts that, when the Pontiffs promulge their decrees in places

subject to the dominion of other temporal princes, they promulge laws

in territories that are not theirs."--_Civiltá_, Serie VII. vol. vi. p.

292. Tarquini says 1654 (_Inst._, p. 159), the _Civiltá_ 1644.]

CHAPTER IV

Measures preparatory to the Syllabus--Changes in Italy since

1846--Progress of Adverse Events--A Commination of Liberties--A Second

Assembly of Bishops without Parliamentary Functions--The Curse on

Italy--Origin of the phrase "A Free Church in a Free State"--Projected

Universal Monarchy.

Being notoriously deficient in theological training, Pius IX was

not unnaturally seized with a desire to reduce the rebel nations by

raising contested doctrines to the rank of dogmas. When the reactionary

movement in politics had attained its full momentum, he called an

assembly of bishops, whose splendour, surrounding his throne, might

restore to it some of the departed _prestige_. At the same time,

summoning the bishops for consultation and for ceremonial purposes, but

not at all for parliamentary ones, would be a secure step of progress

in the absorption of the power of the collective episcopate into the

Papacy. In the midst of two hundred prelates, as we have already seen,

he proclaimed the Immaculate Conception, in 1854. As a display of

absolute authority in the highest realm, that of dogma, this act did

more to advance the proper ideas than an immensity of writing. We have

already quoted the assertion that it crushed Gallicanism. But ideas

were only stepping-stones to facts. Professor Michelis asserts that

even during the gathering of 1854 an attempt was made in some large

assembly of bishops to induce them to proclaim Papal infallibility as a

Catholic dogma.[24]

The prelates, who, on their way to Rome in 1846, had looked with joy on

the spectacle of unity, now found that spectacle slightly blemished.

One heretic temple stood in Turin--a proof that after all the

extirpations of the Waldenses, a root had still lurked in the ground.

This temple had no images, and had the Bible in mother-tongue. It bore

outside, in words that any cowherd might read, if he could read at all,

a verse of Jeremiah: "Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old

paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest

for your souls." And this was not only suffered, but done by the House

of Savoy!

As the prelates went south, whispers might reach some of them that

in Tuscany the police, now and then, discovered secret bands of

Bible-readers, somewhat as in old times the Lollards were unearthed

in England. The historical name of Guicciardini was implicated in the

offence, and a number of vulgar people. Even at Rome, Luigi Desanctis,

parish priest of St. Maria Maddalena, had abandoned as fair prospects

as erudition, character, and favour could well give to an ecclesiastic.

He had quietly withstood flattering and influential efforts to bring

him back. First he had sheltered under the British flag; but, finding

that the flag of Savoy really shed upon Italian soil the all but

inconceivable right of freedom to worship God, he had taken refuge

under it. He was now devoting his clear, keen, learned pen to teaching

Italy the religion of Christ as he found it in the New Testament. Even

in writing for Italians he found it needful to say that it was only

by living in Rome, and by knowing Pope, Cardinals, and Curia, that

they could come to a clear understanding of the religion of the city.

The great cause of this difficulty he found in the three separate

circles of doctrine in which that religion was wont to be taught, which

he called (1) the official, (2) the theological, (3) the real.[25]

The official doctrine was that for use with heretics, the doctrine

presented by Bossuet and Wiseman; the theological doctrine was for use

with men of culture; the real doctrine was for practical use among the

people. The eloquent Barnabite, Gavazzi was now thundering against the

Papacy. Nay, even the threshold of the Inquisition had been crossed by

the force of Protestant unity. A priest, avowing heresy, who once had

held good preferment, had been seized after the French took the city.

At the urgent instance of the Evangelical Alliance, General Baraguay

d'Hilliers put on such hard pressure that even in sacred Rome a

renegade priest walked out of the palace of the Holy Office a ransomed

man.

The confidence that the Virgin would reward her new exaltation by

corresponding exaltation of him who had procured it, was often

expressed in language picturesque and ardent. But scarcely had the

incense of the fresh offering cleared away when premonitory symptoms

appeared of the storm rising again. Meantime, many Catholics became

anxious when they found the Pope's favourite organ treating even such

writers as Bellarmine, Suarez, and St. Thomas Aquinas, as too much

inclined to Liberalism. Liverani, in referring to articles of this

kind, says that Bellarmine had been "the author of the Night of St.

Bartholomew," and he thinks that Italian Catholics in the nineteenth

century might be allowed to be Liberals up to the standard of

Bellarmine and Suarez.

In 1855, Piedmont, sending a force to the Crimea, took her place beside

France and England. The next year, at the Congress of Paris, Cavour

lifted up his voice among the representatives of Europe, and protested

against foreign occupation in Italy. Mexico abolished the external

tribunal of the Church, the ecclesiastical court; abolished tithes,

offered protection to all of either sex who might choose to forsake

their convents, and declared its resolution not to submit its acts to

the supreme authority of the Apostolic See. Other nations of South

America met the aggressive ecclesiastical movement by asserting the

supremacy of civil law, even in matters directly ecclesiastical.[26]

Three years later, the same hand which upheld the Pope in Rome took

Lombardy from Austria, and gave it to Piedmont, in exchange for

Savoy and Nice. Tuscany, Parma, and Modena banished their dukes; the

Romagna cast off the Papal yoke; and all these, uniting themselves to

Piedmont, formed the kingdom of Italy.

These events were met, on the part of the Vatican, by more stringent

denunciations of modern liberties. In the _Civiltá_ these were

inveighed against under the name of the principles of 1789. Liverani

says (p. 160) that the _Civiltá_, in a Catechism of Liberty, hardly

left a man the use of air and water. The article so alluded to gives

what the writer of it calls a Litany, which ought to be repeated with

the refrain, Good Lord, deliver us.[27]

"Liberty of conscience is a perverse opinion diffused by fraudulent

endeavours of infidels.

"It is a corrupt fountain, a folly, a poisonous error.

"It is an injury to the Church and the State, vaunted with

shameless impudence as becoming to religion.

"It is the liberty of error and the death of the soul.

"It is the abyss, the smoke whereof darkens the sun, and the

locusts out of which lay waste the earth.

"The liberty of the press is an evil liberty, never sufficiently

execrated or abhorred.

"It is an extravagance of doctrines, and a portentous monstrosity

of errors, at which we are horrified."

It would be incorrect to suppose that these principles exclude all

possibility of toleration in fact, though not by right. Toleration may

be allowed, but never on principle; never but as the means of avoiding

a greater evil. If more harm to the cause of _religion_ would result,

in any given country, from intolerance, than from toleration, the

latter becomes lawful to the prince of the country. Otherwise it cannot

be so. Even this qualified admission of a mere _de facto_ toleration of

heretics was not left uncontested. Priests of the Appolonare in Rome

about this time, publicly maintained the thesis that "it will never be

possible to imagine reasons which should induce a Catholic prince to

grant liberty of worship to heretics." They maintained other theses, to

the effect that unlimited freedom of worship, and civil rights, granted

to heretics, laid the prince open to suspicion of heresy, apostasy, or

atheism.[28] This doctrine, cries Liverani, would require the Catholic

king of Saxony, with two millions of Protestant subjects, and fifty

thousand Catholics, to exterminate the former by means of the latter.

It is, he says, putting this alternative--the creed or the stake. Yet

this debate was held in presence of the Pope's vicar, Cardinal Patrizi,

and was noticed with commendation by the _Civiltá_.

Montalembert proposed that the voting in the Romagna on the question of

annexation to Italy should take place under the eye of French troops.

Liverani, a native of the Romagna, prelate as he was, replied, "If the

French army left, without being replaced by a strong force to guard the

lives of the clergy, at the end of a week all the priests and friars

would be exterminated, so wild and savage is the public indignation

against the government of these last years" (p. 46).

On March 26, 1860, in the famous and terrible Letters Apostolic _Cum

Catholica_, all the actors and abettors of the territorial changes

were placed under the greater excommunication. The Pope[29] expressly

decreed that no hand but his own, or that of his successors, should

have the power of releasing any one of the countless offenders from

the ban, except in the article of death. He proceeds on what seems

the fair principle that the dominion of the Pontiff, though in its

own nature temporal, takes on a spiritual character because of its

spiritual design, as giving to the Head of the whole Church a position

independent of any one nation. Therefore, robbing him of it becomes a

spiritual offence. If he is the representative of God upon earth, it

is hard to see how rebellion against him can fail of being a spiritual

offence. If he is not the representative of God upon earth, he has

altogether misconceived his own position, and, like any other ruler,

may be judged by his merits, not by his pretensions.

Before the publication of the Pope's speeches we were exposed to

manifold interpretations of the spiritual import of this anathema.

It was even possible that we might find letters in the _Times_

assuring us that the Church never curses. But on June 23, 1871, Pius

IX uttered language which put his view of the spiritual import of his

own action beyond cavil. He had the words afterwards reprinted, with

the explanation that the allusion to Peter referred to the death of

Ananias and Sapphira. "True," said the Pontiff, "I cannot, like St.

Peter, hurl certain thunders which turn bodies to ashes; nevertheless,

I can hurl thunders which turn souls to ashes. And I have done it by

excommunicating all those who perpetrated the sacrilegious spoliation,

or had a hand in it."[30]

But if to the spiritual eye of Pio Nono his curse had strewn Italy with

the ashes of millions of blasted souls, his Bulls were, in a temporal

point of view, as powerless as his dogmas. In the autumn of 1860, the

Pontiff saw Umbria and the Marches wrested from him by the new kingdom,

to which also the whole of the Neapolitan territory was added by

Garibaldi. After this, Europe grew impatient of the French occupation

of Italy, and that last stay of his temporal power became painfully

insecure.

The Parliament in Turin proclaimed that Rome was the capital of Italy;

and now we have to note the birth of one of those phrases which,

becoming watchwards, grow into appreciable forces in history. Cavour,

in a speech, alluding to Montalembert, said great authorities had shown

that liberty might turn to the profit even of the Church. Montalembert

addressed to him a reply, in October, 1860, in which he made use of

the words, "A free Church in a free State." Five months later, when

the Turin Parliament set up the claim to Rome, Cavour used the same

phrase. Montalembert, with literary jealousy, publicly claimed it: "You

have done me the unexpected honour of using the formula I employed in

writing to you a few months ago." And, doubly to secure his patent

right, as late as August, 1863, in a Catholic Congress at Malines, he

declared that it was by the example of Belgium that he had been taught

a formula that had now become famous, "which has been stolen from us

by a great offender." He printed his address under the title, "A Free

Church in a Free State."[31]

The French father of the phrase lived to write what showed that he had

employed it without having defined its terms in his own mind. Had its

Italian foster-father, who repeated it in death, lived to govern with

it, he would have learned, in the school of action, to select some one

of the many interpretations which it invites, or else to discard it as

a formula, applicable, indeed, to a Church proper, and a State proper,

but incapable of application to a mixed institution like Romanism,

which, however much of a Church, is still more of a State.

The loss of Rome, to which political symptoms now pointed as impending,

was a calamity to be warded off by all the weapons of the Papacy,

sacred and profane. A great assembly of prelates was projected, to

surpass in splendour even that of 1854. It was to be equally well

guarded against any parliamentary character. In June, 1862, three

hundred bishops from all parts of the world were actually collected

around their chief. The ceremonies during this assembly displayed

a gorgeous pomp, which even Rome, accustomed since the days of the

Emperors to government by spectacle, was fain to recognize as an

effort, and a success in its kind, worthy of the historical stake in

dispute. The ostensible object was the canonization of certain Japanese

martyrs; but the real anxiety of the moment was so absorbing that the

new constellation in the heavens seemed to rise only to rule and decide

questions pending as to boundary lines on the earth.

In these turbulent and pitiless times, said the Pope, when the Church

is pierced with so many wounds; when her rights, liberties, and

doctrines are so miserably violated, especially in Italy, "we urgently

desire to have new patrons in the presence of God," by whose prevailing

prayers the Church, buffeted with such a horrible tempest, as well as

civil society, may obtain the much-longed-for repose.[32] The aid of

the new patrons was that to which faith and hope pathetically turned,

in the concluding prayer put up on Whit-Sunday by the Pontiff: "Regard

Thy Church, now afflicted with such calamities: take not away Thy

mercy from us; but for the sake of these Thy saints, and through their

merits, cause Thy Church," etc., etc.[33]

Besides the influence to be exerted by the exalted Japanese on behalf

of the temporal sovereignty, valuable results might attend a solemn

declaration from the episcopate of the whole world. This would at all

events silence priests who had dared to think amiss, and would affect

not only the calculations of statesmen, but also the complexion of

public opinion. The faith of Romanists in a display is, to all who

have been trained not to take an impression for a reason, absolutely

incomprehensible. Lamartine, in relating the perplexities of Mirabeau

when the gusts of the Revolution had begun to appal even him, exactly

pictures what is the outcome of their sensuous training. "He would save

the monarchy by a royal proclamation and a ceremony to make the king

popular."

A declaration was made by the assembled bishops with all possible

gravity and force. The language chosen by Pope and prelates was the

strongest to be found. They were not content with pledging themselves

to the temporal dominion as a good, useful, helpful, or urgently

desirable thing. Staking the future for the present, as well as the

spiritual for the temporal, they declared that it was "necessary" in

order to the exercise of the full pontifical authority over the whole

Church. If this is so, there has been no proper exercise of authority

over the whole Church since 1870, nor can there be any till the Pope

again finds some few hundred thousand of Italians calling him king.

If it is not so, the collective hierarchy, and the Pope with them,

erred in setting forth a doctrine, touching the Head of the Church, for

the guidance of all mankind. The Pope himself not only said that the

temporal power was necessary, but that it had been given by a matchless

counsel of Providence. The reason he gives for its necessity is the

stock one, that the Pope may not be a dependent of any prince, as if

he had not been the helpless dependent of Napoleon III. The bishops,

forgetting both this dependence and the sanguinary measures by which

the temporal power was upheld, actually used such words as "noble,

tranquil, and genial liberty."[34]

Besides their testimony to the necessity of the temporal power, the

bishops put on record words well adapted to prepare the way for the

dogma of Papal infallibility--words often afterwards recalled to those

of them who opposed that dogma in 1870. "Thou art to us the teacher of

sound doctrine, thou the centre of unity, thou the quenchless light

of the nations, set up by divine wisdom. Thou art the rock, and the

foundation of the Church herself, against which the gates of hell shall

not prevail. When thou speakest, we hear Peter; when thou dost decree,

we yield obedience to Christ."[35]

But the new saints of 1862 did not turn the tide any more than the

"Immaculate" of 1854 had done. Italy held together, though Cavour

was gone. The effort of the two Catholic emperors to secure Mexico

for the Church, by placing a monarch of approved principles on the

throne, ended in a tragic failure. The grief felt everywhere at the

fate of Maximilian of Hapsburg was intensified for Pius IX, because,

as it is expressed by Professor Massi, the promises made to the

Pope by Maximilian, when he came to Rome before taking the reins of

empire, "were to remain void."[36] Finally, in 1864, the Convention of

September brought home to the Pope the fact that, unless the Virgin

should work a miracle for him, he was to be abandoned by the foreign

auxiliaries whose presence he hated, but the terror of whom was the

only shade in which he could rest. Perhaps he remembered how soon after

the foreign Emperor had held the Pope's bridle, the Italian Lambert

called him "My Lord," as he would have done to any other baron, and

drove him to hard straits.

It was in this position of affairs that the seers of the Vatican beheld

all human institutions as if reduced by a cataclysm to a dark and

roaring chaos. And on their principles chaos it was. Not only had kings

and lawgivers withdrawn themselves from under the authority of the

supreme tribunal, not only had civil courts been withdrawn from under

the authority of the external tribunal, but almost all governments

had ceased to enforce by law the attendance of their subjects on

the internal tribunal of the Church which they thus degraded to the

level of a voluntary confessional. In each of the three circles of

all-embracing authority, therefore, order was now disrupted, and chaos

had broken in. The seer could see but one remedy. Society must be

RECONSTRUCTED, and that upon the basis of one world-wide monarchy.

It is but slowly that minds accustomed to judge by ordinary standards

learn to attach a precise meaning to such expressions as the above, in

the language of the Vatican. Even after having learned how definite

is the meaning, we do not soon begin to associate ideas of deliberate

plan and serious expectation, with what would seem to be only dreams

of the cloister. We therefore give a few clear sentences from _Il

Genio Cattolico_, a publication praised by the authoritative _Unitá

Cattolica_.[37] It describes the true ideal of the Papacy as being

"an immense variety of languages, traditions, legislations, letters,

commerce, institutions, and alliances, under the moral and pacific

empire of a single Father, who, with the sceptre of the word, upholds

the equilibrium of the world. The Papacy is not, as German jurists call

it, a State within the State, but is a cosmopolitan authority, the

moderator of all States, the supreme and universal standard of law and

justice. It is a world-wide monarchy, from which all other monarchies

that would call themselves Christian derive _life_, _order_, and

_equilibrium_."

Coupling this distinct conception of the appointed place of the Papacy

in the human commonwealth with the equally distinct conviction that

modern society is in ruins, the writer proceeds: "What is the remedy?

The recognition of a common father, who shall teach subjects to obey

as sons, and sovereigns to rule as fathers; a _supreme judge, to

declare and give sanctions to the rights_ of the one and the other.

Without this, how can the want of balance in the conflicting forces be

redressed?"

With views thus radical and all-comprehending did the Court of Pius IX

proceed to build up, after a very ancient ideal, an empire over all

peoples, nations, and languages, the test of which should be acceptance

of the religious symbol set up by the autocrat. In the projected

reconstruction the _ultimate end_, the restoration of facts, would

always include these cardinal points. Every man and every woman in

Christendom, and, by a due extension of "the kingdom of God," every man

and every woman living, must be bound by law to appear, at the least

annually, in the internal tribunal of the Church, the confessional. In

order to this, every civil magistrate must be set in obvious and in

practical subordination to the ecclesiastical magistrate or bishop,

by the subjection of the civil court to the external tribunal of the

Church, the ecclesiastical court. In order to this, every king or

lawgiver must be set also in obvious and in practical subordination

to the supreme tribunal of the church, the Pope, by a restored state

of international law, giving to the Pontiff, or, to speak accurately,

recognizing in the Pontiff what God had given to him, full power to

deliver sentence as supreme judge upon the rights of all kings, and

upon the merits of every law.

We for the sake of clearness, say three tribunals, though technically

they are only two, the Pope being in both supreme. Whether the

subject enters by the _foro externo_ or by the _foro interno_, by the

ecclesiastical court or by the confessional, both in the ultimate

instance conduct him to the one bar, that of the Judge of judges.

The supreme tribunal is he, in all causes not purely material, in

all causes whereinto enters any moral or religious consideration.

Protestants would seem generally to imagine that the ecclesiastical

court is a higher tribunal than the confessional. Not so. When a

conflict arises between the sentence of the external tribunal and that

of the internal, the suitor at the bar of God's kingdom is bound by the

judgment of the internal tribunal![38]

In Carleton's _Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry_, where the

only symbol of any tribunal is a rickety chair standing on an earthen

floor full of holes, the priest of God has no sooner put on robe and

stole than "the tribunal" is as truly constituted as when in the palace

of Charles V sat Domenico Soto with the imperial penitent kneeling

before him, and said, "So far you have confessed the sins of Charles,

now confess those of the Emperor." In that tribunal has the peasant

bride to learn, and has the Queen to learn, that not the husband is

the head of the woman, but the priest of God. In that tribunal has the

shoeless Connaught child and has the imperial prince to learn that not

the parents are the head of the children, but the priest of God. In

that tribunal has the debtor and has the creditor, the executor and the

legatee to learn that not the law of the civil bench obliges, but the

law pronounced by the priest of God. In that tribunal have all these to

learn that not even the law which falls from the ecclesiastical judge

in the external tribunal is to be taken, but that which in the internal

tribunal, in holy secrecy, between the conscience alone and the judge

alone, falls with full force of binding and of loosing from the lips of

the priest of God. So in the other, the external tribunal, has every

citizen to learn, and every public servant, that not the magistrate

is the head of the town, and not the chief magistrate is the head of

the city, but that the bishop is head of both one and the other, for

he is the head of the priests of God. Finally, at the supreme bar have

the princes, the governors and captains, the judges, the treasurers,

the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, to

learn that not the president, not the grand duke, not the king, not

the emperor, is the head of the nation, but the thrice-crowned King of

kings, the Great High Priest of God.

This kingdom, it is held, with some stretching of the facts, did in the

Ages of Faith prevail, and it is to be restored.

The restoration of facts could not be effected without a foregoing

restoration of the idea of Hildebrand. Constantine had founded a

State Church. Leo III, with Charlemagne, had founded what Mr. Bryce

accurately describes as a Catholic State, with the Pope as spiritual

and the Emperor as temporal head. Cardinal Manning points out that in

this Mr. Bryce makes the holy Roman Empire a two-headed monster.[39]

Nevertheless Mr. Bryce gives the true human history, though doubtless

Cardinal Manning, following Boniface VIII, gives the correct Papal

doctrine. According to that doctrine, the dualism of a double-headed

State amounted to a sort of Manicheism. History, which is guilty of

tainting many with one heresy or another, must bear the fault of Mr.

Bryce's Manicheism. But Hildebrand would abolish all dualism. The whole

world must have one head. Constantine's idea of a State Church had its

merit of unity, but it was unity by perversion of rights. The true idea

was that of a Church State, embracing the whole world, and placing

all mankind as one fold under one shepherd. This true idea was to be

restored.

We shall in its place, be taught how we err in calling power over

temporal affairs temporal power. More accurately, does Cardinal

Manning speak of "the supreme judicial power of the Church in temporal

things."[40] He speaks of "the indirect spiritual power of the Church

over the temporal State,"[41] thus showing the error of the notion that

spiritual power means only power over spiritual affairs. He speaks of

"the Christian jurisprudence in which the Roman Pontiff was recognized

as the Supreme Judge of Princes and People, with a twofold coercion,

spiritual by his own authority, and temporal by the secular arm."[42]

The turn of phraseology in the last sentence is probably not

undesigned. Had it been employed by a Protestant, Ultramontanes, _if

writing in Italy_, would have cried out, Ignorance and inaccuracy!

Does the Cardinal mean that the authority whereby the Pope through the

secular arm applies temporal coercion is not his own authority? No,

assuredly. Yet he leaves us in a position to slip into some such idea.

In such coercion as that of which he speaks it is not that the secular

power acts of its own authority, but that it acts with its own arm,

but with the Pope's authority. The interesting doctrine of the Brahman

as sprung from the Creator's head, and the King-caste as sprung from

his arm, reappears in the Papal system, in which the priest anointed

on the head and the prince anointed on the arm symbolize respectively

the authority that gives law and the force that carries it out.[43]

But Cardinal Manning's definition of _Christian_ jurisprudence as that

wherein the Pope is recognized as supreme Judge of Prince and People is

not only strict, but it also explains a whole set of terms--_Christian_

government, _Christian_ law, _Christian_ order, _Christian_

civilization, and so forth.

It was obvious that to effect in Europe such a restoration as these

claims implied, a lengthened preparation of ideas must go before the

restoration of facts; and that restoration of ideas it was which we now

see undertaken.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 24: _Kurze Geschichte des Vaticanischen Concils_, p. 9.]

[Footnote 25: _Roma Papale_, p. 7.]

[Footnote 26: _Allocution of Dec. 15, 1856._ _Receuil_, p. 382.]

[Footnote 27: _Civiltá_, Serie IV. vol. iv. p. 430.]

[Footnote 28: _Liverani_, p. 163.]

[Footnote 29: _Receuil_, p. 400.]

[Footnote 30: _Discorsi_, vol. i. p. 158.]

[Footnote 31: See the whole narrative in _Unitá Cattolica_, March 17,

1870. Also Mrs. Oliphant's Life of Montalembert.]

[Footnote 32: Schrader, _Pius IX, als Papst und als König_, p. 21.

Idcirco summo pere optamus novos apud Deum habere patronos, qui in

tanto rerum discrimine validissimis suis precibus impetrent ut, tam

horribili discussa malorum procella optatissimam Catholica Ecclesia et

Civilis Societas assequatur pacem.]

[Footnote 33: _Papst und König_, p. 23.]

[Footnote 34: _Civiltá Cattolica_, Serie V, vol. ii. p. 721. Their

words are: "In nobili, tranquilla, et alma libertate catholicam fidem

tueri," etc.

Monsignor Nardi proudly referred Mamiani, in the summer of 1869, to the

folio volumes in which 835 bishops had inscribed their adhesion to the

necessity of the temporal power. (_Stimmen, Neue Folge_, v. p. 153.)]

[Footnote 35: _Civiltá_, Serie V. vol. ii. pp. 719, 723. "Tu populis

lumen indeficiens.... Tu Petra es, et ipsius ecclesiæ fundamentum....

Te loquente, Petrum audimus, Te decernente, Christo obtemperamus." The

text even of the Vulgate is changed in the words, Tu Petra es.]

[Footnote 36: _Life of Pius IX._ Frond, vol. i. p. 102.]

[Footnote 37: Il Genio Cattolico Periodico Religioso--Scientifico,

Litterario, Politico di Reggio Nell' Emilia, 1873.]

[Footnote 38: This is briefly and well put in the _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_

(V. 146), where an article of the _Times_ on the bull of convocation of

the Vatican Council is belaboured through twelve pages of double-column

Latin. That journal had the audacity to set up conscience against

Pope, and to name Luther. "What do you understand by conscience?

for it is solemnly held by Catholics that we may not and cannot act

contrary to conscience. Indeed, we confess that, in point of fact,

we may be bound to act even against the sentence pronounced by an

ecclesiastical authority, seeing that the external tribunal, as we

say, does not always concur with the internal tribunal, and whenever

the internal tribunal is in opposition to the external tribunal, we

are bound to follow the internal. On this point consult our Catholic

authors when they treat of moral theology. Immo fatemur, posse in re

facti contingere, ut agere teneamur contra ipsam latam auctoritatis

ecclesiasticæ sententiam; quandoquidem forum externum, ut loqui

solemus, non semper cohæret cum foro interno: et quoties forum internum

in oppositione sit cum foro externo, primum sequi tenemur. De qua re

consulendi sunt auctores nostri Catholici de morali theologia agentes."]

[Footnote 39: _Vatican Decrees_, p. 67.]

[Footnote 40: Ibid. p. 82.]

[Footnote 41: Ibid.]

[Footnote 42: Ibid. 84.]

[Footnote 43: "Since Jesus of Nazareth, ... the anointing of princes

is changed from the head to the _arm_; but the sacramental anointing

is still maintained upon the _head_ of the bishop, because he, in his

episcopal office, represents the person of the Head. There is, however,

a distinction between the anointing of the bishop and of the prince,

because the head of the bishop is anointed with the ointment, but the

arm of the prince is rubbed with oil, that it may be shown what a

difference exists between the authority of the bishop and the power of

the prince."--_Phillips_, ii. 621--quoting Bennetti's _Priv. S. Petri

Vindiciæ_.

"Now, here are two things to be noted. First, that the emperor holds

an office of human creation--the Pontiff an office of divine creation.

Secondly, that the office of divine creation is for a higher end than

the office which is of human origin."--_Cardinal Manning, "Vatican

Decrees_," p. 68.]

CHAPTER V

The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864--Character of the Propositions

condemned--Disabilities of the State--Powers of the Church.

To ordinary readers the Syllabus would rather appear to be a

destructive instrument than a constructive one. Its authorized

expounders, however, with remarkable unanimity, treat it as the

foundation for the enduring fabric of reconstructed society. Its form

accounts for the first impression on the part of the outside world.

It is a series of _condemned_ propositions, drawn from official and

authoritative utterances of Pius IX--a syllabus or collection of

errors, condemned in judgments pronounced by him as supreme judge of

Christendom. These, taken collectively, form a politico-ecclesiastical

system.

The eighty propositions range over most subjects. As all stand under

the head of _condemned errors_, each proposition is, logically,

to be read with the prefix, "We reprove and condemn the following

proposition." Some of these sentences express the beliefs of infidels,

and some those of all Christians but Romanists; some the crudest

notions of socialists, and some the fundamental principles of free

States, or the maxims of all thriving communities; some the crotchets

of obscure theorists in philosophy and ethics, and some the postulates

of all free science. These heterogeneous beliefs and disbeliefs are

strung together and delivered over, before the universe, to eternal

anathema.

Passing from abstract to concrete, embodiments of evil are condemned,

whether the body is a Church, a Bible Society, a Freemasons' lodge, a

pack of communists, or even such clandestine gangs as were known in

Christendom only to the territory of the Pope and his favourite Italian

princes.

Perhaps the eventual importance of this manifesto was, at the time,

exaggerated at the Vatican, and is exaggerated even yet. "In this

century," says the _Genio Cattolico_, already quoted, "rises up the

sublime and gigantic figure of Pius IX, another Hildebrand. He is

charged by divine Providence with the erection in our day of a new

edifice upon the débris of the religious and political revolution, as

in former times Gregory VII was commissioned to reconstruct a similar

edifice upon the scattered remains of tyranny. Gregory had his Dicta;

Pius IX has his Syllabus."

The _Civiltá Cattolica_ has never ceased to glorify the Syllabus. A

periodical, expressly devoted to expounding and commending it to the

Germans, and making it the basis of a new social condition in that

country, was commenced at a Jesuit monastery near Bonn, under the

title of _Stimmen aus Maria Laach_. Catholic journals spoke of the

universal scope and pregnant consequences of the Syllabus in terms

at which men of the world were more inclined to smile than to take

warning. The views taken of the document by learned Catholics not of

the Ultramontane school are briefly put by Michelis: "Constitutional

freedom, equality before the law, liberty of the Press, all the

foundations of modern civilization, were all at once pronounced to be

hostile to the Catholic faith."[44] Hints were not wanting that it

might introduce a conflict which would rage through centuries, and

perhaps leave nothing standing but the Church. Still, for the time,

politicians were rather annoyed than alarmed, and perhaps no Protestant

statesman thought the matter serious enough to feel even annoyance.

Protestant statesmen were still somewhat in the state of mind expressed

by Ranke: "What is there that can now make the history of the Papacy

interesting and important to us? Not its peculiar relation to us,

which can no longer affect us in any material point; nor the anxiety

or dread which it can inspire. The times in which we had anything to

fear are over; we are conscious of our perfect security. The papacy

can inspire us with no other interest than what arises from its

historical development and its former influence." This prognostic,

the shortsightedness of which the Germans have been painfully taught,

obviously sprang out of a confusion of ideas, expressed immediately

afterwards, where Ranke identifies changing professions and claims

diplomatically presented with fixed maxims, with objects and claims

founded on cherished dogma, and felt to be inalienable. As to the

Papacy, Ranke says, "Complete metamorphoses have taken place in its

maxims, objects, and claims."[45]

In contrast with the indifference founded on this supposed change was

the view of the _Civiltá_ in surveying the events of 1864. The year had

been, according to it, one marked by that silent preparation of ideas

which brings around great events. To the unobserving this preparation

was unseen; but the process was going on and the issue certain. Casting

a glance around the world, the _Civiltá_ showed that everywhere what

it calls the revolution, what we call representative government, was

becoming ruinous, and the old Catholic ideal of government regaining

its place in the mind of the thoughtful. In Belgium, it had come to

that pass that an important paper declared that the tyranny of a

majority was worse than that of an autocrat. By a manifest Providence,

that immense Babylon the United States, founded on the principles of

the revolution, was broken up and undone. The new Mexican empire had

all the more promise of stability, as it would retain, at least in

part, Catholic principles.

This historical article proceeded to say that the greatest merit of the

past year lay--

In the highly important pontifical documents with which it had

been so solemnly closed. The Encyclical of his Holiness Pius IX of

December 8, and the Syllabus accompanying it, speak clearly enough

of themselves, and need not our comments. Those exceedingly grave

utterances of pontifical wisdom and fortitude are already perused

in every tongue spoken by Catholics, that is, by the civilized

world. Nor do Catholics alone read them; even Liberals do so

too. And already we begin to hear a distant echo of the fear and

wrath felt by the Liberals. They, who themselves change moment by

moment, cannot understand that the Church should never change,

in her principles or in her doctrine. They, who would conciliate

everything--and, when they can do no more, conciliate fact with

law--by the stupid word _fait accompli_, cannot be at peace,

because the Church will not be reconciled to impiety and absurdity.

They do not believe with divine faith in the potency of the

pontifical word; but they do believe by an instinct of terror, as

the devils also believe and tremble. Hence the stream of filth now

vainly flowing against those documents from the Italian and foreign

journals. The Liberals tremble at this warning, and cannot restrain

their vexation, because so many hypocritical efforts to mask their

Liberalism under Catholicism are at last brought to nought. They

are now compelled to lay aside the mask more and more. No longer

can they deceive the simple. They must now declare themselves open

enemies of the Church and of her definitions.[46]

Though the Syllabus is not even in profession a proclamation of the

glory of Christ, or of the Christian verities, or of the mission of

the Church to turn sinners from their sins to God, but is formally

a charter of ecclesiastical dominion over civil society, the first

fourteen of its eighty propositions are named as if drawn from the

domain of philosophy and theology. They, however, lay the doctrinal

basis for the political claims that follow.

The fifth proposition illustrates the difficulty of judging of the

practice of the Church of Rome by her theory, or vice versa. She

condemns the following: "That divine revelation is imperfect, and

therefore subject to a continuous and indefinite progress, which

corresponds to the progress of human reason." Persons not of her own

communion would say that, except for the last clause, this might

express the ground on which the fabric of Roman doctrine, properly

so called, is built. Believing too much almost always springs from

believing too little. He who believes enough about one God does not

want assistant divinities. He who believes enough about one Mediator

does not want to multiply the number. He who believes enough about one

revelation does not want new revelations. Both the Councils of Trent

and of the Vatican keep up the theory of only developing revelation.

Practically their proceedings are pervaded with this principle, "That

divine revelation is subject to continuous and indefinite progress."

The popular effect of this is that new _quasi_-revelations are of

frequent occurrence.[47]

It is, however, at the fifteenth proposition that the framers of

the Syllabus emerge into their natural element. In it the opinion

condemned is that every man is free to embrace and profess that

religion which he may esteem true, following the light of reason. This,

with the few other propositions under the head of Indifferentism and

Latitudinarianism, prepare the way for a section, in which communism,

clandestine societies, and Bible societies are bound into one bundle.

This again introduces the two great sections, that on the Church, and

that on the State. These together comprise thirty-seven propositions. A

section on ethics and one on marriage follow. Marriage is treated not

at all in respect to the morals of wedded life, or to the sanctities of

the connubial and parental relation, but in respect to those questions

which affect ecclesiastical authority and its relation to the civil.

The concluding sections treat of the temporal sovereignty, and of

modern Liberalism.

Who would look for Liberalism under the improbable heading of

_Naturalism_? yet both the _Civiltá_ and the _Stimmen_, proceeding on

lines laid down by Bishop Pie of Poictiers, elaborately showed how the

_fundamental heresy_ of all those condemned was Naturalism, because,

viewed in the light of the Encyclical, all those errors converged in

the "denial of the supernatural character of the Church."

Under the section treating of the Church, the first proposition affirms

the important principle as to the Church being a perfect society. Yet

this is put into a sentence containing explicitly or implicitly a

number of propositions, some negative, some affirmative, and nearly all

of great ambiguity. The error condemned is, "The Church is not a true

and perfect society completely free, nor is she invested with rights

proper to herself and permanent, conferred by her divine Founder; but

it belongs to the civil power to define the rights of the Church, and

the limits within which those rights are to be exercised" (prop. 19).

This, be it remembered, is the proposition condemned. Keeping in view

the ambiguity of the several predicates, the following points are to be

noted--1. The Church is a perfect society. 2. The Church is completely

free. 3. The Church has the direct authority of Christ for her rights.

4. The State cannot define the rights of the Church. 5. The State

cannot even limit the exercise of those rights.

The broad denial of the right of the State to define or limit the

rights of the Church, without distinction, is meant to cover, and, to

Vaticanists, does cover, the right of the Church to define the limits

of her own authority as to its domain and as to its exercise, and

consequently the right to define the limits of the authority of the

State, both as to its sphere and its exercise.

Yet, what is, at first sight, simpler to superficial readers than

denying the right of the State to define the rights of a Church? It is

a right of a Church to believe, to pray, to worship, and to preach. Is

the State to define such rights? It is a right claimed by one Church

to pray any day to "new patrons," whom, as Moses said, "Thou hast not

known, thou, nor thy fathers"; yet is the State to assume the function

of defining such rights? But one Church also claims the right of

employing mercenaries and foreign auxiliaries to force a few millions

of men of a fine race, in a fine country, to submit to her chief pastor

as their king. She also claims the right to set her priests, in any

country, before the princes of the nation; and the right, not merely

to ask for an alteration of the law of the land, but to declare it

void--the right even to tell subjects when and where they may lawfully

break law.[48] Now, both classes of claims are covered by the one word

"rights," and the State is confidently warned off from a fort, or

from the pamphlet of a seditious bishop, as if that ground was lawful

Church ground; indeed, as if it was holy, like the shrines of faith and

worship sanctified by our Lord and His apostles.

Father Bucceroni may be taken as fairly conveying the whole effect of

the Syllabus on the relations of the State to the Church, when he says

that "Catholic civil society is bound to yield to the Church, even in

temporal affairs, if the advancement of a spiritual end calls for it";

and "religion should be so positively protected that the _judgments of

the Church should never be obstructed_."

In resenting the prohibition of Napoleon III to promulgate the

Syllabus in France, the _Civiltá_ spoke thus of the error which misled

politicians--

It proceeds from the belief that it is the civil authority

which permits the Church to exercise within its territory her

jurisdiction over the faithful. Nothing is more false. The

faithful, wherever found, are subject to the Church by the will of

Christ, and not by the will of the State. They must necessarily be

governed by two authorities, by the civil and the ecclesiastical,

each freely acting within its proper circle; yet the first in

subordination to the second, as the interests of the body are

subordinate to those of the soul. The Christian people, to whatever

nation they belong, be they Italians, Germans, or French, if

subjects of the Emperor as to things temporal, are also subjects of

the Pope as to things spiritual, and more of the Pope than of the

Emperor.

Laughing at M. Langlais, who in the French Courts argued that the Pope

in treating of the very foundations of political institutions had gone

beyond his proper sphere, that of faith and morals, the _Civiltá_ said--

According to our weak way of thinking, the legitimate argument

would have run thus: The Pope has a right to give a decision only

within the moral order: the Pope has given a decision as to such

and such propositions; therefore those propositions belong to the

moral order.[49]

In reading the following abstract it is to be remembered that we aim

not at giving a complete but a summary view of the effect of the

Syllabus on the relations of Church and State, and that we do not

necessarily disapprove of each separate claim specified. Of course

neither the disabilities of the State nor the powers of the Church here

indicated are embodied in the existing institutions of any country.

They are only the disabilities on the one part, and the powers on the

other, which would be embodied in the institutions of every country

did the tribunal of the Pope acquire the supremacy which it claims.

We need hardly remind careful readers that denying a proposition

does not necessarily mean asserting its _contrary_. But it does at

least imply asserting its _contradictory_. Schrader indeed says that

it is the contradictory of the condemned proposition that is to be

maintained. But his own counter-propositions do not adhere to that

rule. What they assert is sometimes the _contrary_ of the condemned

proposition. To explain these technical terms--One asserts that all

Englishmen are shopkeepers. You deny it. That denial does not pledge

you to assert that no Englishman is a shopkeeper; which proposition

is the _contrary_ of the other. But it does pledge you at least to

assert that some Englishmen are not shopkeepers; which proposition

is the _contradictory_. Two contraries may be both false; of two

contradictories one must be false and the other true.

_SUMMARY OF POINTS ASSUMED IN THE SYLLABUS AS TO THE DISABILITIES

OF THE STATE, AND THE RIGHTS AND POWERS OF THE CHURCH_

DISABILITIES OF THE STATE

(N.B.--The numbers attached to the respective propositions indicate

the Articles of the Syllabus in which they are contained.)

The State has not the right to leave every man free to profess and

embrace whatever religion he shall deem true. (15.)

It has not the right to define the rights of the Church, nor to

define the limits within which she is to exercise those rights.

(19.)

It has not the right to enact that the ecclesiastical power shall

require the permission of the civil power in order to the exercise

of its authority. (20.)

It has not the right to treat as an excess of power, or as usurping

the rights of princes, anything that the Roman Pontiffs or

OEcumenical Councils have done. (23.)

It has not the right to deny to the Church the use of force, or

to deny to her the possession of either a direct or an indirect

temporal power. (24.)

It has not the right to revoke any temporal power found in the

possession of bishops as if it had been granted to them by the

State. (25.)

It has not the right to exclude the Pontiff or clergy from all

dominion over temporal affairs. (27.)

It has not the right to prevent bishops from publishing the Letters

Apostolic of the Pope, without its sanction. (28.)

It has not the right of treating the immunity of the Church and of

ecclesiastical persons as if it were a privilege arising out of

civil law. (30.)

It has not the right, without consent of the Pope, of abolishing

ecclesiastical courts for temporal causes, whether civil or

criminal, to which the clergy are parties. (31.)

It has not the right of abolishing the personal immunity of the

clergy and students for the priesthood from military service.[50]

(32.)

It has not the right to adopt the conclusions of a National Church

Council, unless confirmed by the Pope. (36.)

It has not the right of establishing a National Church separate

from the Pope. (37.)

It has not the right of asserting itself to be the fountain of all

rights; or of asserting a jurisdiction not limited by any other

jurisdiction, say that of the Pope. (39.) N.B.--_The absence of any

distinction between legal rights, of which the State alone is the

fountain, and natural rights, of which the laws that create legal

rights are but the recognition, is characteristic and pervasive._

It has not the right even of an indirect or negative power over

"religious affairs." (41.)

It has not the right of _exequatur_, nor yet that of allowing an

appeal from an ecclesiastical court to a civil one. (41.)

It has not the right of asserting the supremacy of its own laws

when they come into conflict with ecclesiastical law. (42.)

It has not the right of rescinding or annulling concordats or

grants of immunity agreed upon by the Pope, without his consent.

(43.)

It has not the right to interfere in "matters pertaining to"

religion, morals, or spiritual government. (44.)

It has not the right to judge any instruction which may be issued

by pastors of the Church for the guidance of consciences. (44.)

It has not the right to the entire direction of public schools.

(45.)

It has not the right of requiring that the plan of studies in

clerical seminaries shall be submitted to it. (46.)

It has not the right to present bishops, or to depose them, or to

found sees. (50, 51.)

It has not the right to interfere with the taking of monastic vows

by its subjects of either sex, or to fix any limit to the age at

which it may be done. (52.)

It has not the right to assist subjects who wish to abandon

monasteries or convents. (53.)

It has not the right to abolish monasteries or convents. (53.)

It has not the right of determining questions of jurisdiction as

between itself and the ecclesiastical authority. (54.)

It has not the right to separate itself from the Church. (55.)

It has not the right to provide for the study of philosophy, or

moral science, or civil law eluding the ecclesiastical authority

(57). N.B.--_Moral science includes politics and economy._

It has not the right to proclaim or to observe the principle of

non-intervention. (62.)

It has not the right to declare the marriage contract separable

from the sacrament of marriage. (66.)

It has not the right to sanction divorce in any case. (67.)

It has not the right to prevent the Church from setting up

impediments which invalidate marriage. It has no right to set

up such impediments itself. It has no right to abolish such

impediments already existing. (67.)

It has not the right to uphold any marriage solemnized otherwise

than according to the form prescribed by the Council of Trent, even

if solemnized according to a form sanctioned by the civil law. (71.)

It has not the right to recognize any marriage between Christians

as valid, unless the Sacrament is included. (73.)

It has not the right to declare that matrimonial causes, or those

arising out of betrothals, belong by their nature to the civil

jurisdiction. (74.)

RIGHTS AND POWERS OF THE CHURCH

N.B.--_In many cases, the propositions under this head show the

powers of the Church directly corresponding to the disabilities of

the State expressed under the previous head._

She has the right to interfere with the study of philosophy, and it

is not her duty to tolerate errors in it, or to leave it to correct

itself. (11.)

She has the right to require the State not to leave every man free

to profess his own religion. (15.)

She has the right to be perfectly free. She has the right to define

her own rights, and to define the limits within which they are to

be exercised. (19.)

She has the right to exercise her power without the permission or

consent of the State. (20.)

She has the right to bind Catholic teachers and authors, even in

matters additional to those which may have been decreed as articles

of belief binding on all. (22.)

She has the right of requiring it to be believed by all that

no Pope ever exceeded the bounds of his power; also that no

OEcumenical Council ever did so, and further, that neither the one

nor the other ever usurped the rights of princes. (23.)

She has the right to employ force. (24.)

She has the right to maintain that whatever temporal power is

found in the hands of a bishop, is not beyond what is inherent in

his office, and has not come from the State, and therefore is not

liable to be resumed by it. (25.)

She has the right to claim dominion in temporal things for the

clergy and the Pope. (27.)

She has the right to make bishops promulge the Pope's decrees

without consent of their rulers. (28.)

She has the right to require it to be believed of all, that the

immunity of the Church, and of ecclesiastical persons, did not

arise out of civil law. (30.)

She has the right to require that temporal causes, whether civil

or criminal, to which clergymen are parties, should be tried by

ecclesiastical tribunals. (31.)

She has the right to alter the conclusions of a National Church

Council, and to reject the claim of the Government of the country

to have the matter decided in the terms adopted by such National

Council. (36.)

She has the right to prevent the foundation of any National Church,

not subject to the authority of the Roman Pontiff. (37.)

She has the right to reject any claim on the part of the State to

either a direct and positive or an indirect and negative power in

religious affairs, and more especially when the State is ruled by

an unbelieving prince. (41.)

She has the right to reject the claim of the State to exercise a

power of _exequatur_, or to allow appeals from ecclesiastical to

civil tribunals. (41.)

She has the right to exclude the civil power from all interference

in "matters which appertain to" religion, morals, and spiritual

government. Hence she has the right of excluding it from

pronouncing any judgment on instructions which may be issued by any

pastor of the Church for the guidance of conscience. (44.)

She has the right to deprive the civil authority of the entire

government of public schools. (45.)

She has the right to refuse to show the plan of study in clerical

seminaries to civil authorities. (46.)

She has the right to fix the age for taking monastic vows both for

men and women, irrespective of the civil authority. (52.)

She has the right to uphold the laws of religious orders against

the civil authority; the right to deprive the latter of power to

aid any who, after having taken vows, should seek to escape from

monasteries or nunneries; and the right to prevent it from taking

the houses, churches, or funds of religious orders under secular

management. (53.)

She has the right of holding kings and princes in subjection to her

jurisdiction, and of denying that their authority is superior to

her own in determining questions of jurisdiction. (54.)

She has the right of perpetuating the union of Church and State.

(55.)

She has the right of subjecting the study of philosophy, moral

science, and civil law, to ecclesiastical authority. (56.)

She has the right of enjoining a policy of intervention. (62.)

She has the right to require the sacrament of marriage as essential

to every contract of marriage. (62.)

She has the right to deprive the civil authority of power to

sanction divorce in any case. (67.)

She has the right to enact impediments which invalidate marriage,

the right to prevent the State from doing so, also the right to

prevent it from annulling such impediments when existing. (68.)

She has the right to require all to receive the Canons of Trent as

of dogmatical authority, namely, those Canons which anathematize

such as deny her the power of setting up impediments which

invalidate marriage. (70.)

She has the right of treating all marriages which are not

solemnized according to the form of the Council of Trent as

invalid, even those solemnized according to a form prescribed by

the civil law. (71.)

She has the right of annulling all marriages among Christians

solemnized only by civil contract. (73.)

She has the right of judging all matrimonial causes, and those

arising out of betrothals, in ecclesiastical courts. (74.)

She has the right to require that the Catholic religion shall be

the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all others.

(77.)

She has the right to prevent the State from granting the public

exercise of their own worship to persons immigrating into it. (78.)

She has the power of requiring the State not to permit free

expression of opinion. (79.)

The importance of questions affecting marriage and betrothal is

threefold. (1) Immense revenues accrue to the Court and bureaucracy

of Rome from the system of dispensations for marrying within the

degrees forbidden in any one of the three separate scales of

consanguinity, affinity, or spiritual affinity, i.e., affinity

contracted by sponsorship at baptism or confirmation. (2) The grant,

every five years, of a QUINQUENNIAL FACULTY to the bishop to issue

such dispensations as affect those distant degrees within which

dispensations do not pay a tax, or to the poor who cannot pay, holds

the bishop in perpetual dependence on the Curia. (3) The whole system

of impediments and dispensations subserves the end of extending the

control of the priesthood over domestic life through the reluctance

felt in families at the time of a marriage, as at that of a death, to

cause scandal by a difference with "the clergy."

Phillips says (ii. 639) that in modern times the union of Church and

State is frequently compared to wedlock--not an inapt figure, but one

calling for care lest it be taken in a wrong sense. "That would be the

case if in this union the female partner was taken for the Church, and

the male partner for the State. If we employ this simile, we must think

of the relative positions as just reversed." This seems reasonable. The

legal position of a married woman, a _feme covert_, would appear not

ill to correspond with that of a State bound to the husband, who calls

himself a mother.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 44: _Kurze Geschichte_, p. 10. It will be seen that here, as

in the _Civiltá_, the meaning of civilization is concrete, the civil

system.]

[Footnote 45: _History of Popes_, Engl. tran. 2nd ed., p. 19. The

learned author, forty years after he wrote the above, in publishing his

sixth edition, referring to these words, says that they expressed the

view of the epoch, "but I cannot conceal from myself that a new epoch

of the Papacy has commenced."]

[Footnote 46: _Civiltá_, Serie VI., vol. i. p. 172, 173.]

[Footnote 47: Friedrich, in his _Mechanismus der Vatikanischen

Religion_, p. 12, says that these revelations no longer need to come

from God, but may come from other persons, especially from Mary.]

[Footnote 48: "It is not allowable either that the temporal authorities

should make a law, in reference to an ecclesiastical subject, on which

the Canons have not determined anything; or, that through their law

they should change Canons that are in existence. Every law of the kind

opposed to ecclesiastical rules, or enacted in addition to them, if

not desired by the Church, or expressly recognized by her, is hence in

itself invalid."--_Phillips_, ii. 563.]

[Footnote 49: VI. i. 652-3.]

[Footnote 50: The word is generally translated "clergy" in English. But

it is not _cleri_ but _clerici_, which includes divinity students, and

is commonly translated in Italian by _chierici_. In Italy the class

which would have been exempted under cover of the student's right would

have been very numerous.]

CHAPTER VI

The Secret Memoranda of the Cardinals, February 1865.

The Cardinals who, in the beginning of December, were commanded to

prepare notes on the expediency of holding a Council, did not hurry,

but by the beginning of February fifteen such notes were in the hands

of the Pope. Their Eminences discussed the subject under four heads: 1.

The present condition of the world; 2. The desirableness or otherwise

of resorting to the ultimate remedy of a General Council; 3. The

difficulties in the way of holding one, and the means of overcoming

them; 4. The subjects of which a Council might treat.

The most eminent consulters, or, as our historian loves to call them,

the purpled (_i porporati_), showed how the present age was remarkable

for progress in invention. This formed its favourable side. But then

such progress served only temporal ends. The "Christian government of

the world," as it existed in former ages, had given place to a system

based on the principle that society, as such, had nothing to do with

God. The points in the sad spectacle of this "social apostasy," which

most distressed the Cardinals, were as follows--Education was withdrawn

from the supreme vigilance of the Catholic Church, and consequently ran

into manifold errors; the doctrines of naturalism, rationalism, and

various forms of pantheism prevailed, from which sprang socialism and

communism.

Coming to political affairs, some of the writers mourned over the

prevalence of revolutionary principles in general, some over freedom of

worship and of the Press in particular, and some over the tyranny of

the State, which controlled education and charitable institutions--thus

appropriating to itself all the social forces. Some, again, lamented

the violation of the rights of the Church in regard to laws affecting

marriage, to those on the holding of land, to the temporal sovereignty

of the Pope, to the religious orders, and similar topics.

The practice of magnetism, clairvoyance, and spiritualism is

deplored by their Eminences as one great plague and shame of our

epoch. Freemasonry, viewed "in its true aspect," not as a benevolent

association, but as an institution having for its ultimate aim the

erection of a pretended church universal of humanity on the ruins of

all religion, is said by several of the consulters to be the arm which

carries the modern theories into practice, and therefore is viewed as

one of the most potent enemies of the Church.

The next point noted is the influence exerted even upon Catholic

teaching by the Reformation and by rationalism. It is shown that in

philosophy, as taught in some countries, the ancient system of the

schools had been set aside, and, as all sciences are affected by

philosophy, it not unfrequently occurred that authors and professors

attacked the pure doctrines of the faith. Some of them even evinced

a disposition to regard Rome as being ignorant of the relations of

Catholic science to heretical and rationalistic science, or, at least,

as not appreciating the necessities arising out of such relations. Nay,

they even displayed some unreadiness in submitting to her authority.

On the second point, that of the desirableness of holding a Council,

nearly all the Cardinals were agreed. "In the present confusion

of principles and systems, the whole episcopate assembled in

Council, pointing out the way of eternal salvation to nations and

sovereigns, and also the true relation between the natural order

and the supernatural order, with the rights and duties of governors

and governed, would be a luminous beacon scattering the darkness

that covers the world. Perhaps in the presence of such a spectacle,

heretical and schismatical societies would lay aside old prejudices,

and would be drawn to a reunion."

However, the unanimity of the Cardinals was not complete. One advised

that the calling of a General Council should be reserved for times when

some great difference within the Church demanded a settlement. A second

thought that the delicacy of some of the points to be handled, and the

want of that external support which the Church formerly possessed,

outweighed any prospect of advantage. A third could not pronounce

between advantages and disadvantages, but gladly left the decision with

the Sovereign Pontiff, whom God always assisted with special light.

Cecconi's statement as to the general agreement of the Cardinals

appears to clash with that made by persons in Rome, who ought to be

well informed, and who affirm that, at first nearly all the Cardinals

were opposed to the Pope's desire, and only yielded to his ungovernable

longing to have his own infallibility proclaimed. Lord Acton says

the Cardinals gave their counsel against the project, and that the

Pope proceeded heedless of their opposition.[51] Both statements may

be correct; for even if the Cardinals had opposed the project when

informally talked about, they might yield when the official initiative

taken by their wilful sovereign convinced them that it was to be. One

of the counsellors of Ali, the fourth caliph, when rebuked by Abdullah

Abbas for giving bad advice in contradiction to good, previously

given and rejected, replied, "When a person, either through folly or

obstinacy, is found to reject counsels which are obviously salutary, he

must expect to receive counsels of a complexion precisely the reverse."

On the third point, namely, that of the difficulties in the way of

holding a Council, the Cardinals held that great prudence would

be required. The decrees of the Council would be received with

indifference by the ungodly and the worldly, or would be made the

pretext for new trespasses against the Church. Then, as to governments,

would they permit the bishops to attend? Would they not prohibit

the execution in their territories of decrees not conformed to the

interests of those who held the power of the sword? Again, what would

be the use of new canons if the civil power would not further the

execution of them, or would even thwart it? And besides all this, the

political horizon was clouded, and the Council might be interrupted. So

far for external difficulties.

As to internal ones, points noted were, the long absence of the bishops

from their flocks, the risk of dissensions in the Council, and of

consequent scandal--a risk which appeared the greater as the thorny

character of some of the questions to be treated was considered. The

Cardinals also felt that there was some danger that a desire might

arise on the part of the bishops to extend their own privileges,

already too great, so much so as even to be hurtful to the practical

uniformity of ecclesiastical government, as well as to the firmness of

ecclesiastical discipline, and to the union of the bishops with the

head of the Church.

On the most important point of all, the subjects with which the Council

should deal, the summary of the notes given by Cecconi is so meagre as

to suggest the idea either that the views of their Eminences must have

been crude, or that they did not care to put on paper such views as

were matured; always supposing that the summary really represents the

whole of the contents. After a few generalities, the first particular

subject named for condemnation is the liberty of the Press, after which

are named civil marriages, impediments to marriage, mixed marriages,

and such like, with questions of ecclesiastical property, and the

observance of fasts and feasts.

Only two of the Cardinals mentioned the subject of Papal infallibility.

A third named Gallicanism and the necessity of the temporal

sovereignty. Only one mentioned the Syllabus.

The omission to name the Syllabus in this instance is one of a series

of acts of reticence in respect of that document which are at least

curious. It is not mentioned in the Encyclical which accompanied it. It

is not mentioned by the official historian at the time of its issue;

and when, as we shall hereafter see, the Pope solemnly confirmed it

in the presence of five hundred bishops, the act was not mentioned by

the Court organs. Further, the Syllabus was not mentioned even in the

very document by which the collective hierarchy expressed their solemn

adhesion to it. Nor was the adhesion to it by letter of the prelates

then absent mentioned till, as our tale will show, all this was brought

out by the friction of events.

Points in these notes to be borne in mind, as throwing light on the

future of our history, are, that those who desired a Council hoped it

would be a short one, and were of opinion that the powers of bishops

were too great; and that the relations of the supernatural order and

the natural order must be regulated, i.e. reduced to rule. These two

commonwealths, commonly called the Church and State, had hitherto

adjusted their relations, at least wherever Rome represented the

supernatural order, by the rough method of trials of strength and

skill. The object of reducing their relations to rule would be to

restore that harmony of action which, according to the Curia, formerly

existed in happy ages, but had been lost in the changes of time.

Naturally, this desired harmony could only be restored by each abiding,

according to rule, in its own place--the lower under the higher, and

the higher above the lower.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 51: _Zur Geschichte_, etc., p. 3.]

CHAPTER VII

A Secret Commission to prepare for the Council, March 1865--First

Summons--Points determined--Reasons why Princes are not consulted--Plan

for the Future Council.

In March, 1865, Cardinals Patrizi, Reisach, Panebianco, Bizzari, and

Caterini were appointed a secret commission to make preparations for

the proposed Council. It was in the deepening grey of an evening in

Lent that the red coaches drove down the Via della Scrofa carrying

those Cardinals to their first meeting, in the palace of the Vicariate.

Rome did not know that this represented the first move in the

preparation of one of those world-representing displays which had some

part in bringing on her ancient decay, and a greater one in gilding

it over: displays which, while changing in the accidents of form,

have retained the essential character of a sense-subduing pageant,

and retained also the purpose of binding the city to an autocrat. The

significance of the display now contemplated was to consist in showing

both Quirites and Italians that the world bowed down to the tiara, and

so to bind Rome to the Pope for ever.

At this first meeting of the Commission, Giannelli read a memorandum

intimating his belief that France, Italy, and Portugal would prohibit

their bishops from attending a Council,--more particularly Italy; but

as Germany, England, America, Spain, and others, would not do so,

a considerable number would be able to assemble. This indicates a

consciousness that political distrust of Rome was felt most strongly in

Roman Catholic countries.

After hearing this memorandum the Cardinals proceeded to consider the

following questions, and gave to each the answer indicated--

1. Is the summoning of an OEcumenical Council under the circumstances

necessary, and opportune?

Affirmed.

2. Should Catholic princes be previously consulted?

Negatived. Nevertheless, when the Bull of Convocation has been issued,

it would be well and becoming for the Holy See to adopt suitable

procedures with the princes.

3. Should the Sacred College be consulted before the issuing of the

Bull of Convocation, and if so, how?

Affirmed; but in the manner to be determined by the Most Holy--or, in

common speech, in such manner as the Pope may please.[52]

4. Should a Special Congregation be appointed to direct affairs

relating to the Council?

Affirmed.

5. Should the Directing Congregation, after the publication of the

Bull, consult some bishops in different countries as to the subjects

proper to be treated, both in doctrine and discipline, regard being had

to the variety of countries?

Affirmed.

The reason which led the Cardinals to negative the idea of consulting

the Catholic princes is supposed by Cecconi to have been a fear lest

obstacles to the holding of a Council might be raised, and also lest

the proceeding might be interpreted as a recognition of the supremacy

of the State (p. 29).

On the 13th of March these resolutions of the Commission were reported

to the Pope, by whom they were approved with one slight modification.

Instead of a consultation of certain select bishops after the

convocation of the Council, he appointed that it should take place

before.

The first step in carrying out these resolutions was the appointment

of a Directing Congregation, which was composed of the Cardinals of

the Commission, with a few others, the number eventually being nine.

That body was in existence two years and a half before the hierarchy

generally received an intimation, in a Secret Consistory, of the

intention to hold a Council.

At the meeting of the Directing Congregation on March 19, the sketch

of a plan for the labours of the Council was presented by one of

its members, not named. He proposed that the work should be divided

into four branches, and that each should be assigned to a different

committee.

1. DOCTRINE, to be committed to the Inquisition, presided over by

a Cardinal of the Inquisition, the committee to be enlarged by the

addition of some members not attached to the Holy Office. This

committee could be subdivided into sections.

2. ECCLESIASTICAL-POLITICAL AFFAIRS, to be committed to the

Congregation for ecclesiastical affairs, enlarged by consulters and

others.

3. MISSIONS AND ORIENTAL CHURCHES, to be committed to the Propaganda

and the Congregation of Oriental Rites.

4. DISCIPLINE, to be committed to the congregation for bishops and

regulars, with the addition of consulters, canonists, and theologians.

Each committee was to be presided over by a Cardinal, and all were

to report to the Directing Congregation, with which should rest the

ultimate authority.[53]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 52: "_Juxta modum a Sanctissimo statuendum._"--_Cecconi_, p.

29.]

[Footnote 53: _Cecconi_, p. 322.]

CHAPTER VIII

Memoranda of Thirty-six chosen Bishops, consulted under Bond of

Strictest Secrecy, April to August, 1865--Doctrine of Church and

State--Antagonism of History and the Embryo Dogma--Nuncios admitted to

the Secret--And Oriental Bishops.

On April 10 his Holiness sanctioned a letter to thirty-six select

bishops of different countries, intimating under the most binding

secrecy his intention of holding a Council in the Holy City, at some

time yet undetermined, and requesting them to communicate their views

as to the subjects proper to be treated.[54]

In August, nearly all the answers had arrived. Out of the thirty-six,

only three bishops cast doubts on the wisdom of the project; all the

others were rejoiced.

The letters of the thirty-six, according to Cecconi, expressed views

on the present condition of society coinciding with those of the

purpled in Rome. The thirty-six generally remarked on the absence of

any special heresies. When we come to particulars, the subjects which

our author finds specified are: the right of the Church to hold land;

her independence of the State; her right to control education; her

right to judge what promotes and what hinders religion. Among other

matters noted, the chief are: the obligation of the faithful to adhere

to the decisions of the Church, and in particular to those of the Holy

See, and the necessity of the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, with

"similar points."

After Cecconi has apparently concluded his summary of the suggestions

of the thirty-six, a sentence is slipped in, saying, that among the

verities which ought to be propounded by the Council, some mentioned

Papal infallibility--"a doctrine admitted in all Catholic schools,

with a few exceptions." Hereupon departing from his general rule,

and adopting marks of quotation, he gives the words of one particular

bishop, without naming him. These bear directly on the point most

agitated before and during the Council. Such English readers as know

much of the controversy, will probably risk a guess as to the author,

and it may be that persons in Munich will hardly stop at guessing, but

will say they know. It plainly was no Bavarian, not even a German,

neither of whom would fall into such an expression as "Munich in

Bavaria." "At present there are but few who impugn this prerogative

of the Roman Pontiff; and they do so, not from a theological point of

view, but the better to assert and maintain the freedom of science. It

would seem that a school of theologians has sprung up with this object,

at Munich, in Bavaria, in whose writings the principal aim is to lower

the Holy See, its authority and its mode of government, by the aid of

historical dissertations, and to bring it into contempt, and above all

to combat the infallibility of Peter teaching _ex cathedrâ_."

This language intimates that the science for which especially freedom

was claimed at Munich was history, which wants no other freedom than

that of learning the truth and telling it, that of detecting lies

and forgeries and exposing them. Even the Court historian feels the

significance of this announcement of the mutual antipathy existing

between history and the embryo dogma.

Among the "isms" designated for anathema by the chosen thirty-six,

those which have any bearing on divinity proper could be named by

most ordinary readers. One "ism" to be condemned is regalism, or the

doctrine that the king is supreme in his own country; another is

liberty of conscience and of the Press; and of course the bishops

no more forget magnetism, somnambulism, and freemasonry, than their

purpled superiors of the Curia.

Two points brought out under the head of discipline, are, the

mobilization of the clergy, and the educational rights of the Church;

strong condemnation being levelled against mixed schools.

After the secret preparations in Rome had been continued for nearly

twelve months, the circle of confidential advisers was further

extended. On November 17, 1865, the Cardinal President of the Directing

Congregation communicated the intention of his Holiness to the nuncios

in Paris, Vienna, Munich, Madrid, and Brussels; and requested them to

name canonists and theologians of sound principles, exemplary life, and

distinguished learning who might be called up to Rome to serve on the

preparatory committees.

The next extension of the circle was to the Oriental bishops, who

were consulted by Cardinal Barnabò, the Prefect of the Propaganda.

They hailed the prospect of a Council, hoping that it might at length

remove barriers which held the East in separation from Rome. Of these

barriers they name both ancient and modern instances. Among the former

the worst appears to be "national spirit," and among the latter we

find Protestantism and the everlasting Freemasons. "Nationalism" is a

trial to the Papal Church in the west as well as in the east. Cardinal

Manning, in the Pastoral issued just before the Council met, said--

The definition of the infallibility of the Pontiff, speaking _ex

cathedrâ_, is needed to exclude from the minds of Catholics the

exaggerated spirit of national independence and pride, which has,

in these last centuries, so profoundly afflicted the Church. If

there be anything which a Catholic Englishman ought to know, it is

the subtle, stealthy influence by which the national spirit invades

and assimilates the Church to itself; and the bitter fruits of

heresy and schism which that assimilation legitimately bears.[55]

The clearest instance of the national spirit invading and assimilating

the Church to itself occurred in decaying Rome. The military and

absolutist spirit of the empire supplanted in the ministry and

organization of the Church the original spirit of humility and

brotherhood. The spirit of the national pomps supplanted the primitive

superiority to sensation and display. The spirit of the governing

classes set up side by side with the simple code of Christ a new code,

meant avowedly to restore the old Roman domination of law, under the

form of a spiritual empire. The spirit of that domination claimed

to impose upon other churches the will of the Church of the capital

and did not scruple to call her the mother-church, and to support

her claims with lie and forgery oft repeated. But after the Pope,

conspiring with the minister of the Frankish king, and rising with him

against their two sovereigns, had erected himself into a petty prince,

the national spirit of the empire began to narrow down to the municipal

one of aboriginal Rome. Ever since that time the municipal spirit has

increasingly become the spirit of the Papacy. Whatever that power has

effected, it has never been able to make itself a nation. Aiming at

a universal empire, the spirit of its rule has become more and more

close, local, bureaucratic as that of any wee Italian republic of the

middle ages. Men must not only act and move, but must also think and

speak, according to rules excogitated by certain guilds within the

Aurelian walls.

There is a curious but striking contrast between this professedly

supernatural institution and one which scarcely claimed a regular place

among natural institutions. Coming up amid the decline and corruption

of an empire older, richer, and more populous than had been the empire

of Rome, the East India Company, in a couple of generations, made a

nation out of some hundreds of States among which had raged yearly

conflicts. That nation still contains many thrones, but within its

circle, and in spite of their jealousies, no less than two hundred

and forty millions of men, a family immensely greater than Rome ever

cursed with war or blessed with law, now live in peace and freedom

such as were unknown to the ages which had aforetime passed over their

country. On the plains around the presidential cities of India, where

a century ago Mahratta, Moslem, and Rajpoot were wont to ravage, now

reigns peace at seed-time and peace at harvest. Security sits and sings

on every tree, and Industry, building her nest in every bush, sends out

broods that, free from fear, busily cover the land. What a contrast

with the endless whirl of war which in what are called the Ages of

Faith--ages when the spells of the chief priest in Rome had power over

semi-barbarous chiefs--ever eddied on the plain around Rome, a glorious

plain, growing waste and more and more waste, while kings came, now

to be crowned, now to put a Pope in prison, and while Italians and

foreigners rose and sank by turn in the alternating surges--foreigners,

however, most frequently coming into the fight at the call of a

self-asserting but mongrel and parasitical government, which claimed to

be the heaven-sent superior, not only of commercial corporations like

the East-India Company, but also of the very kings and emperors whom

it played off against one another, and on whom it had always to rely.

A national spirit indeed! Such a national spirit as we see in reformed

countries, and as was once in an inferior degree seen in the Gallican

nation, is large, tolerant, and magnanimous compared with the tight,

pretentious municipal spirit unconsciously depicted by Liverani when

he enumerates the small men from small towns, puffed up with the name

of cities, who, in the Curia, swelled themselves out with notions of

world-commanding importance--notions rendered possible only by their

own helpless narrowness.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 54: _Cecconi_, p. 324.]

[Footnote 55: _The OEcumenical Council_, p. 52.]

CHAPTER IX

Interruption of Preparations for Fourteen Months, through the

consequences of Sadowa--The French evacuate Rome--Alleged Double

Dealing of Napoleon III--_Civiltá_ on St. Bartholomew's--Change of

Plan--Instead of a Council a Great Display--Serious Complaints of

Liberal Catholics.

It was on May 24, 1866, that the Directing Congregation held its

third meeting, Monsignor Nina acting as secretary in the absence of

Giannelli, who was indisposed. But, soon afterwards, dark clouds

enveloped the Vatican, and ere the Congregation could again meet

fourteen months had passed away.

On July 3, 1866, a shell burst at Sadowa which struck in three

different directions, and in each case the blow was heavy. Austria fell

from the primacy of Germany, and from her place among Italian States.

Italy, acquiring Venice, entered into full possession of herself, Rome

alone excepted. The disjointed members of Germany moved to union under

Prussia, like bone coming to its bone.

These were deplorable reversals of Papal policy, unfriendly both to

the temporal dominion at home and to the spiritual dominion abroad.

By the instrumentality of France and Austria it had been possible,

for ages, to keep Italy and Germany parcelled into small States,

easily played off against one another, inimical to great national

organizations or high national sentiment, and glad of an alliance with

a small State possessing an organization by which it could interfere

almost everywhere, and in almost everything. The long-continued success

of the policy directed to this end seemed to stamp it as almost

miraculous. Had Germany united under the Hapsburgs, ready to keep

Italy disunited, it would have mattered less to Rome. But her uniting

under the Hohenzollerns, and aiding Italy to become one, was doubly

dangerous. Reconstruction as going on in Italy and Germany must be met

by reconstruction on a universal scale.

On November 4, 1866, the people of Venetia carried their suffrages to

the feet of King Victor Emmanuel, while Austria and France sullenly

acquiesced. The king said, "Italy is made if not completed"--a hint

which the Vatican both understood and resented. Five weeks later,

at four o'clock on the morning of December 11, Mr. Gladstone, whose

name had already left a beneficent mark on the history of Italy, was

watching by the gaslight from a window in Rome as the French troops

wound round the corner of a street, and he felt that the seed of great

events lay in that evacuation![56] That day the flag of red, white, and

blue which for seventeen years had cast a light on the Vatican and a

shadow on the Tiber, was lowered at St. Angelo. The Pope felt that it

would soon be succeeded by the red, white, and green. So that as if by

a historical parody on the old furor of the circus, the rage of parties

in Rome was once more lashed up by the blue and the green respectively.

"Do not deceive yourselves," said the Pope to General Montebello, when

he presented himself to take leave; "the revolution will come hither:

it has proclaimed it: you have heard it, you have understood it and

seen it."

The _Civiltá Cattolica_, alluding to the "soporifics" administered at

this irritating moment by French journalists and diplomatists, asked

whether France would hold the same language to Italy, now menacing the

Pope, as she had held to Austria and Spain when preparing to assist

him, namely, that "any departure from the principle of non-intervention

would involve a war with France." She had not so spoken to Italy, and

would not do so, for had not Billault said, "It is not possible to turn

French bayonets against Italy." This being the case, France might hold

her peace and not tease the respectable public with soporifics.[57]

When Napoleon III, in the discourse from the throne, alluding to the

fear of Rome being taken from the Pope, said that Europe would not

permit an event which would throw confusion into the Catholic world,

the _Civiltá_ bitterly exposed his double dealing. Some would take this

language as a pledge to uphold the temporal power, but others would see

that it was only a shuffling of the responsibility off the shoulders of

France on to those of Europe. Had he said France will not stand it? No,

but that Europe will not allow it.

It would be about this time that Viscount Poli and Arthur Guillemin,

a lieutenant of zouaves and a zealous crusader, sitting over a cup of

coffee, saw five gentlemen enter the coffeehouse who were not Romans,

but superintendents of a railway then being constructed. One of them

laid on the table a nosegay, so arranged that the colours formed "the

cockade of a king hostile to the Pontiff"--doubtless red and white

camellias, forming, with their green leaves, the colours of Italy.

Guillemin, who was in uniform, heard remarks which showed that the

gentlemen knew what the flowers signified. He rose, seized the nosegay,

dashed it to the ground, and trampled it to pieces. Then, as the others

grumbled, he drew out his revolver, laid it by his side, and went on

sipping his coffee, and chatting with the Viscount.[58]

The _Civiltá_ was at this time publishing a series of articles on the

massacre of St. Bartholomew's, sometimes calling it "the slaughter" and

sometimes "the executions of Paris"; and calculating that there might

have been some two thousand Protestants put to death in the capital,

and, say, eight thousand in all France!

Among his other crimes, Bismarck stayed the preparations for the

Council by the campaign of Sadowa. The most reverend Court historian

evidently has no sense of any need for giving the world other reasons

for the total interruption of those preparations than the political

troubles. Yet one who learned Christianity at the feet of Christ would

not readily see why the studies of holy men in the mysteries of divine

revelation should depend upon a battle in Bohemia, or on the flitting

of a French garrison. Surely, divines might go on searching into

naturalism, rationalism, pantheism, somnambulism, and freemasonry,

whether Germany was uniting or splitting up again. Nevertheless,

studies in regalism and Caesarism in the regular subordination of

the natural order to the supernatural, and in the best measures for

replacing the political system of Europe on the _divine basis_, or, as

we should say, for subordinating civil and restoring ecclesiastical

jurisdiction, were liable to be influenced by the flights of the

eagles. And the augurs who were tracing the lines for the foundations

of the reconstruction, found in the movements of the eagles of Prussia

and France omens that counselled delay.

According to the original design, the Council was to be opened on the

day observed as the eighteenth centennial anniversary of St. Peter's

martyrdom. But, owing to these sad interruptions, when 1867 approached

the secret preparations were not sufficiently advanced. Such, at least,

is the only reason given by Cecconi why the Council was postponed.

The Pope, however, was resolved to cover St. Peter's day with glory.

So his own thrice sacred anniversary, that of "the Immaculate," and

of the Syllabus, was once more signalized by the issue of letters to

the bishops of the whole world, citing them to Rome for the 29th of

the ensuing June. They were not only to celebrate the centenary of

Peter's martyrdom, but to take part in the canonization of some twenty

additional saints, and also to attend certain consistories. The second

name upon the list of the "new patrons in the presence of God" about

to be created was that of PETER DE ARBUES, "Spanish inquisitor and

martyr,"[59] of whose canonization we shall hear again. This invitation

was dated three days before the French evacuated Rome. As trusty

bayonets were failing, additional celestial powers were to be called

into the firmament.

All this time the Liberal Catholics were becoming increasingly uneasy

at the prospect of the dangers on which the Church was drifting. They

had hoped to see her first embrace and then dominate modern culture

and liberties. This was a dream of O'Connell, of Lammenais, and of

Gioberti. At this aimed the erudite and steadfast German Catholics.

But every new utterance of the Court, whether in official document or

inspired organ, showed that it was determined upon dragging the Church

in an opposite direction. According to the policy to which it had fully

committed itself, the Church was to conquer, not by adopting the modern

age, but by restoring the middle ages. The dominion of the Pontiff over

the whole earth as spiritual despot and temporal suzerain was the ideal

to which everything must give way. Montalembert, who had been flattered

by the opening career of Pius IX, as sailors say they are flattered by

what they call foxy weather, expresses himself as follows: "I began as

early as 1852 to wrestle against the detestable political and religious

aberrations summed up in contemporary Ultramontanism." He showed that

when in 1847 he defended the Jesuits of the Sonderbund against Thiers,

as he did with equal eloquence and want of foresight, he did not utter

one word of the modern doctrines, and that for a good reason, because,

he says, "No one had thought of setting them up when I entered on

public life." Indeed, he affirms that, in 1847, Gallicanism was dead,

but that it had been revived through the encouragement given to extreme

pretensions during the pontificate of Pius IX. He then quotes an

important letter addressed to himself, in 1863, by Sibour, at that time

Archbishop of Paris--

The new Ultramontane school is conducting us to a twofold

idolatry--idolatry of the temporal power and idolatry of the

spiritual power. When you, like myself, made a splendid profession

of Ultramontanism, you did not understand things in this fashion.

We defended the independence of the spiritual power against

the usurpations and pretensions of the temporal power; but we

respected the constitution of the State and the constitution of the

Church. We did not sweep away every intermediate power, or every

gradation of order, nor yet every legitimate resistance, nor all

individuality and spontaneity. The Pope and the Emperor were not

then--the former the whole Church, the latter the whole State.

Montalembert goes on to say that the old Ultramontanes had recognized

the right of the Pope, in a great crisis, to rise above all rules;

but they did not confound the exception with the rule. These cares and

apprehensions were for the time concealed, and were only brought to

light by the anguish of that moment when the final leap downward was

about to place a gulf that could never be re-crossed between Rome and

all things free and equal. But when the expression did come, it bore

with it the record of previous irritations.

"The Ultramontane bishops," said Montalembert,[60] "have pushed

everything to the extreme, and have argued to the utmost against

all liberties, those of the State as well as those of the Church."

"If such a system was not of a nature to compromise the gravest

interests of religion, in the present, but much more in the future,

we might content ourselves with despising it; but when one has the

presentiment of the ills which are being prepared for us, it is

difficult to be silent and resigned."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 56: _Quarterly Review_, No. 275, p. 293.]

[Footnote 57: _Civiltá_, Serie VI, vol. ix, p. 126.]

[Footnote 58: _Civiltá_, Serie VII. iv. 418.]

[Footnote 59: _Cecconi_, p. 133.]

[Footnote 60: Letter quoted in the _Unitá Cattolica_, March 10, 1870.

_Friedberg_, pp. 118-121.]

CHAPTER X

Reprimand of Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, for disputing the Ordinary

and Immediate Jurisdiction of the Pope in his Diocese--Sent in 1864,

Published in 1869.

Within a twelvemonth of the issue of the Syllabus, letters of

significance were passing between Paris and Rome. One of those letters

throws light on the steps taken to grind down any bishop who dared to

assert, as bishops used to do, some authority for their own office,

independent of the direct and universal meddling of Rome. That some

prelates were still tempted to this offence we have seen hinted by the

Cardinal consulters, in the original notes upon the question of holding

a Council.

One of the most considerable figures in the hierarchy was Darboy,

Archbishop of Paris, to whose name a historical death has given tragic

immortality. When the preparations for the issue of the Syllabus must

have been far advanced, in 1864, he had drawn upon himself letters

of censure from Rome. To these he had replied both publicly in the

senate, and privately, in a manner which showed that some remnants

of old French doctrines yet survived the modern influence in primary

schools and episcopal seminaries. And wherever any sense of the

ancient office of a bishop did survive, there was constant irritation

in the condition of dependence to which the system of _quinquennial

faculties_ reduced the men who, bearing the old name, held the modern

post under the bureaux in Rome. Only a few weeks before the Magna

Charta of reconstruction was promulged, on October 26, 1864, a letter

was addressed to Darboy which fills no less than ten octavo pages of

small type in the documents of Friedberg.[61] Besides its solid value

as instruction, this epistle has the interest of a sharp lecture.

Furthermore, its very language coloured the most important of the

Vatican decrees.

The quarrel arises on the old subject of the "exemption" of the

regulars from episcopal control, and the direct action of the Curia in

a diocese, over the head of a bishop and under his feet. Readers of

Church history will be tempted to think lightly of the Pope's candour

when he speaks of Darboy's complaint as a new one, but however this

suspicion may touch those who furnished the materials for the letter,

it does not attach to the Pope personally, for he is not usually

supposed to read history, though he often sets it to rights.

If inaccurate in his facts, Pius IX is orthodox in his policy, for

just as bishops must be independent of the government of the country,

so must the regulars be independent of the bishops, that power to set

wheels in motion may be carried from the engine-house in Rome into the

midst of a nation by two perfectly independent shafts. When the Church

is a national one, a bishop has some stake in the country, though

slight compared with his stake at the Vatican; and he must, at all

events, keep up relations with the authorities. The former circumstance

brings temptations to a "national spirit"--one of the standing evils

cried down by the Curia. The latter circumstance may make it convenient

that the bishop should not always know what is really the course of

action being prepared. In both points of view the regulars can be

utilized. Darius took care to have three separate powers in each

province, all directly dependent on the Imperial Court alone.[62] And

from his days highly organized Asiatic governments have had, besides

the apparently omnipotent lieutenants, confidential agents in every

province, depending directly on the metropolitan authorities.

The Pontiff commences his letter by reminding his venerable brother

that he made professions of devotion to the Holy See on his elevation

to that of Paris. Then he tells him that certain of his letters

replying to animadversions of the Pope, show him to hold views opposed

to the divine primacy of the Roman Pontiff over the whole Church.

Darboy had asserted that the power of the Pope, in a diocese other

than his own, was not _ordinary_ and _immediate_, but such as should

be interposed only as a last resource, in cases of manifest necessity.

He had represented the intervention of the Pope, by the exercise of

_ordinary_ and _immediate_ jurisdiction, as turning a diocese into a

mission, and a bishop into a vicar apostolic. Moreover, he had said,

in the French senate, that when such intervention took place at the

private instance of individuals, it rendered the administration of the

diocese all but impossible; and he had added that regulars, Nuncio,

and Curia all aimed at bringing about such intervention as an ordinary

thing, and that he would resist it and call upon the bishops and people

to do so. He had even spoken of submitting letters apostolic to the

government, and of having recourse to the lay power; nay, he had gone

so far as to mention the _Organic articles_, though he could not be

ignorant of how the Holy See had always protested against them.

The Pope could scarcely believe that his venerable brother had uttered

such things, and was moved with wonder and anguish at finding him

avowing the condemned opinions of Febronius, which a bishop ought to

abhor. In denying the "immediate and ordinary" jurisdiction of the

Pope, he had denied the decree of the fourth Lateran Council. The words

"feed My lambs, feed My sheep" mean that believers all and singular

are to be subject to Peter and his successors, as to the Lord Christ

Himself, whose vicar upon earth the Roman Pontiff truly is. Every

Catholic would reply to the charge as to a diocese being turned into

a mission, and a bishop into a vicar apostolic, by saying that it was

as false as it would be to say that prefects, judges, or provincial

magistrates were not ordinary magistrates, because a direct, immediate,

and ordinary power was held by the king or emperor.

St. Thomas Aquinas, continues the letter, had said "the Pope has a

plenitude of pontifical power, as a king in his kingdom, but bishops

are received into a share of the solicitude, like judges set over

particular cities." As a Catholic bishop, Darboy ought to know that

all had a right to appeal to Rome, none to appeal from her. Such a

complaint as that the interference of Rome rendered the administration

of a diocese almost impossible had never been made either in past

ages or in the present one. When Darboy spoke of appealing to bishops

and people, he ought to have known that the same had been done by

Febronius, and that it was an offence against the divine Author of the

constitution of the Church.

The Archbishop had not been informed against, proceeded the Pope,

by the regulars, but, from other quarters the fact came before his

Holiness that the Archbishop had exercised the right of visitation

over them, on which he had been admonished, and of this admonition he

had been pleased to speak, in the senate, as of a sentence delivered

without the cause having been heard. It was hardly to be believed! The

Archbishop knew the Decretals, and knew how, in all ages, the Popes

had written in the same manner to bishops when they became aware of

something in their sees which was not quite right.

As it was a question of the visitation of regulars, it must be

remembered that the right of exemption had long been enjoyed by the

Jesuits and Franciscans in Paris, and that the Apostolic See had

exercised its own special or "privative" jurisdiction. Darboy had

alleged that, by the law of the Council of Trent, regulars could not

have canonical existence in any diocese without consent of the bishop,

which consent had never been received by the monks in question. But,

having been long on the ground, they had acquired a prescriptive right,

by virtual, if not by express, consent of successive bishops. And as

to the fact that the civil law forbade them to possess land, of what

use were such laws in ecclesiastical administration? In these most

turbulent and miserable times of noxious, odious rebellion, civil law

might even deny to bishops their civil standing.

The Pontiff cannot dissemble his extreme surprise and annoyance that

his venerable brother had attended the funeral of Marshal Magnan, the

Grand Orient of the Freemasons, and had given the solemn absolution

while the insignia of freemasonry were on the bier, and brethren of

the condemned sect wearing its orders were present. The sect aimed

at corrupting all minds and manners; at destroying every idea of

honesty, virtue, truth, and justice; at diffusing monstrous opinions

and abominable vices, fostering detestable crimes, and undermining all

legitimate authority; yea, at overturning the Catholic Church and civil

society, and at expelling God from heaven.

His Holiness cannot pass over the fact that it has come to his ears

that an opinion has been expressed to the effect that acts of the Holy

See do not compel obedience unless the civil government has given

authority to carry them out. This opinion is pernicious, erroneous, and

injurious to the authority of the Holy See and to the interests of the

faithful. Furthermore, the Pope's venerable brother had incorrectly

asserted in his speech that Benedict XIV in his Concordat with the

King of Sardinia had agreed that the royal sanction should be required

before pontifical acts were carried into execution; and that according

to the instructions annexed to the Concordat, they were to be submitted

to the senate, except when they dealt with matters of dogma or morals;

which false assertion the venerable brother would not have made had

he weighed the words of the instructions. The letter concludes with

protestations of the Pope's affection for his venerable brother and his

flock.

This epistle, after being long held in reserve, was launched into

publicity at a time when Darboy's influence was threatening to be

inconvenient in the Council, and when the French government had

requested a cardinal's hat for him.[63]

It is, perhaps, not superfluous to remark that the terms "plenitude

of power" as denoting the prerogative of the Pope, and "_received_

to a share of the solicitude," as denoting the origin and nature of

the bishop's authority, are not merely happy phrases, but scientific

terms fitted to express the Papal theory of the Church constitution as

opposed to the Episcopal theory. The Episcopal theory, holding that

the office of all bishops is of divine institution, regards the Pope,

not as the source of episcopal authority, but as supreme and ultimate

arbiter. According to the Papal theory, the authority of the bishop is

an emanation from that of the Pope, who, as monarch, unlimited by any

co-ordinate authority, retains in his own hands not only extraordinary

but ordinary, not only ultimate but immediate jurisdiction over every

subject within the bounds assigned to a bishop. The latter is a

prefect, not only liable to be discharged or imprisoned, but liable

while retained in office to have any matter taken out of his hands and

settled contrary to his views. This is the theory which, like a scourge

of not small cords, is employed to flog Darboy, while the incongruous

epithet "venerable brother," dangles at the handle--a vestige of a

past age and an exploded theory. An emperor does not call his prefect

"venerable brother."

A portion of the letter which will well repay study is that indicating

the attitude of the Curia to all authority not immediately within its

own hands, even if in the hands of its "prefects." Against any such

authority it will receive the reports of its private agents, and treat

those reports as having the status of a legal appeal. It will act, if

need be, without hearing the accused, and maintain that none shall

appeal from it, though all may appeal to it. This is the case even

with the episcopal authority; what, then, is the case with the civil?

It is swept aside as an unclean thing; "of what use are such laws in

ecclesiastical affairs?" If Archbishop Darboy, strong in his character,

strong in his see--the largest in the Roman Catholic world--and strong

in his influence at the Tuileries, is thus treated when complained of

by the Jesuits, what must be the case with small prelates who venture

to provoke their power?

As to the Freemasons, one is tempted to wish to be in their secret, for

then one would possess a rough test of Papal infallibility. If they do

not aim at overturning all government, and expelling God from heaven,

infallibility does not carry far.

The time for the great assembly was now approaching, and, meanwhile,

the Papal organs were enlivened by the prospect of a war between France

and Prussia, on the question of Luxembourg. When this hope was deferred

the readers of the _Civiltá_[64] were informed that nevertheless every

possible preparation for war was being pushed forward by the French on

the largest scale, and with greatly improved arms.

On the 9th of May, 1867, the deputies Angeloni and Crotti were called

up in the Italian Parliament to take the oaths and their seats.

Angeloni did so; but Crotti, a well-known member of the Ultramontane

aristocracy, after pronouncing the words, "I swear to be faithful

to the king and constitution," added, "saving always divine and

ecclesiastical laws." This formula was at once recognized as being

that which had been published in Rome by the _Penetenzieria_, with

the declaration that the repetition of it was the only condition on

which Catholics could accept seats in the Italian chambers. Called

upon to take the oath in the form prescribed by the law of the land,

Count Crotti stood firm by the higher law of the _Penetenzieria_, and

the Chamber disowning his _salvis legibus divinis et ecclesiasticis_,

refused to admit him.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 61: _Aktenstücke_, pp. 257-67.]

[Footnote 62: Rawlinson's _Ancient Monarchies_, vol. iv.]

[Footnote 63: _Ce qui se Passe au Concile_, p. 16.]

[Footnote 64: Serie VI. vol. x. p. 384.]

CHAPTER XI

Great Gathering in Rome, June 1867--Impressions and

Anticipations--Improvements in the City--Louis Veuillot on the Great

Future.

The whole earth had been moved in the hope of not only exhibiting a

pageant outshining former ones, but also of carrying the dogma of Papal

infallibility by an ecclesiastical _coup d'état_, or, as it is called,

by acclamation, without the delays of a discussion.[65] Had this been

accomplished, the legislative form of a General Council would have

been rendered futile for the time to come, or at the most, would have

been but a grander method of working the institution of "consultative

despotism," to adopt the strict definition of Montalembert. The

invitation had been enthusiastically responded to. The spectacle of

the Papacy menaced with the loss of Rome was touching, and the belief

was cherished that a great demonstration of the interest felt by the

Catholic world on its behalf would contribute to ward off the peril.

Besides these motives, another in full activity was the ever powerful

one, especially powerful with Romanists, the desire to see a pageant;

and this sight was to surpass all the former displays of Rome.

The city put on its best, the churches were newly embellished, the

streets decked in festive array. Bishops came from all the ends of the

earth, till the thoroughfares were mottled with the toilets of five

hundred. Priests crowded in till, it is said, twelve thousand breathed

the sacred air of the city, every one of them proud to tread that spot

of our unruly earth, where the priest was king of men.

Besides the clergy, came such multitudes of pilgrims that, according

to Cecconi, the population of the city was almost doubled. The

Romans saw their familiar rite, the worship of the statue of St.

Peter--_l'adorazione della statua di San Pietro_--performed on a

prodigious scale. In modern as in ancient Rome, adoration has its

degrees; all worship does not imply the ascription of supreme, but

only of celestial, honours. No Pontiff in the days of the Republic

ever pretended that Quirinus was creator of the world and father of

eternity. He was the protecting divinity of Rome, but with very limited

powers in comparison with Peter, carrying no sceptre equal to the keys.

Such of the visitors as had seen the city in former times, if not

too much pre-occupied with the sanctity of the place to observe such

matters, would find several improvements. Side pavements had been

allowed in the main streets. Gaslight had, after long and painful

efforts, been admitted.

Railways had entered the walls. The personal liberality of the Pope

had effected several improvements, both in public works and charitable

institutions. The French had done a great deal for the cleansing of the

streets, although the filth of some of them, and the indecency of some

of the bye ones, were still beyond belief to any one from England. The

Pope's army, which as late as 1860 was an odd-looking array, was now a

sightly and active force, composed mainly of foreigners, in large part

French. And, finally, it had become possible to tell the time of day.

Formerly, midday had been one of the mysteries of Rome. It seemed as if

the right of private judgment, banished from the churches, had taken

refuge in the steeples, for each particular clock went off at some

mysterious impulse, and struck twelve at the noon of its own. Thus

for good part of an hour, they do say often longer, the air continued

thrilling with the tidings that it was just noon of day. Naughty Romans

ascribe the change to General Baraguay d'Hilliers, while in command

of the French garrison. Having vainly endeavoured to get a standard

of time established, he presumed, with French audacity, to carry the

case by appeal from the sacristy to the sun. Placing a gun on Fort

St. Angelo, with a burning-glass upon it, he stole the tidings from

another world which were not to be got from the temples at hand.[66]

One of the most powerful of the pilgrims was M. Louis Veuillot, who as

editor of the _Univers_ had for very many years done much to second

in literature the work done in schools, of reviving antipathies and

superstitions which were in danger of dying out in France. His notes of

this visit form part of his two octavos. As soon as he reaches the foot

of the Alps, at Susa, he begins to scold Italy and the Italians, takes

every opportunity of doing so, and goes out of the country scolding

worse than when he came in.

But if Italy and the Italians were exceedingly evil in the eyes of M.

Veuillot, he found compensation in the perfect loveliness of Rome and

the Romans. The very cabmen are loudly praised, and the cabs carry

"ideas;" the Press, especially the _Civiltá_, is of course far above

the French level. But the Pope was the grandest spectacle of all. As he

entered the Basilica, preceded by a train of five hundred prelates, it

made an impression of power greater than if four millions of men had

defiled past, armed with the most perfect artillery.[67]

Naturally, however, the imagination of M. Veuillot was most fired with

the prospect of that historical future which was about to open on the

human species. Darkness still covers the chaos after the cataclysm,

but the breaking of the light draws nigh. The news of a projected

Council has reached the ears of M. Veuillot. His first word is, "Rome

is officially taking the reins of the world into her hand." Other

expressions scattered up and down his animated pages are as follows--

The day that the Council is convoked the counter-revolution will

commence.... Pius IX will open his mouth, and the great word, Let

there be light, will proceed out of his lips.... It will be a

solemn date in history; it will witness the laying of the immovable

stone of Re-construction.... At the voice of the Pontiff the bowels

of the earth will be moved, to give birth to the new civilization

of the Cross.... Here is the great reservoir whence the future will

pour out and overflow the human race.... These days in Rome are a

revelation of the state of the world, and the starting point of a

renovation.... The pilgrimage of Catholic Europe to Rome in 1867

will have consequences of which the _Moniteur_ [alluding to remarks

in that journal] will be informed hereafter, and of which the world

will become aware when the _Moniteur_ would wish them to be unheard

of.... For centuries Rome has not seen the Pope in such splendour,

nor has he so manifestly appeared in his character as head of the

human race.

M. Veuillot is of course one of those who look on the modern liberty of

the press as a great curse. We may insert here what came to hand long

after these pages were written, as an illustration of the kind of Press

that is to be quenched. The _Times_ of January 26, 1876, in the letter

of its Paris correspondent, gives a morsel from the _Univers_, in the

style of M. Veuillot. The _Times_ had said something about an interview

of the Marquis of Ripon, as a new convert, with the Pope. The _Univers_

devotes to that article "a column and a half of invectives," and thus

winds up: "The _Times_ is now the giant of the Press, and prospers

in both hemispheres. But the day will come when the two worlds will

want no more of its agony column, or of its bad literature; and its

last compositor, inactive before his immense poison machine, suddenly

idle, will wait in vain for copy which will never come." Will the

compositor look out of the top window in Queen Victoria Street to see

if Macaulay's New Zealander has arrived on London Bridge?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 65: Acton, _Zur. Ges._, p. 14.]

[Footnote 66: This was first told me by a Roman tradesman, in presence,

among others, of a very good-natured canon, who joined in the general

laugh at my innocent surprise. This year (1875) an ex-officer of the

Pope's service added, "Ay, but the priests bribed the artillerymen

to steal half the charge of powder, and to turn the gun toward the

Campagna, so that the report should scarcely be heard." Probably

the last statement is a mere rumour, not representing any actual

transaction, but indicating, really enough, the state of mind of the

people as to what their masters were likely to do. I have heard it said

that Sir James Hudson used to declare that when first appointed to

Turin he could walk all round the city while it struck twelve o'clock.]

[Footnote 67: _Rome pendant le Concile_, vol. i. p. 35.]

CHAPTER XII

The Political Lesson of the Gathering, namely, All are called upon to

recognize in the Papal States the Model State of the World--Survey of

those States.

"_Opportuneness of the Centenary of St. Peter for reviving the True

Idea of the Political Order among States_," is the heading of an

article in the _Civiltá Cattolica_ for 1867. The first words are, "He

who comes to Rome finds St. Peter become a king"; a proposition of

which we should modify the predicate, saying, He who comes to Rome

finds a king, professing to be St. Peter. "He (i.e. Peter) has joined

the tiara of the Pontiff to the crown of the Prince." Why did not the

writer say the "tiara of the Apostle"? That would be too great an

offence against antiquity. It is the tiara of the Pontiff, as if Peter

had taken over that office from Nero.

However, these are but the introductory notes. The writer proceeds to

expound the political effects of baptism. Christianity has not changed

the civil power as to its substance, but as to its relations, by making

a change in the subject of power. That subject is no longer mere man,

but man made Christian by baptism. This doctrine--which frequently

reappears as the theological basis of reconstruction--is more fully

stated by M. Veuillot: "They will not deny that the true human race is

baptized humanity.... It is, then, baptism which constitutes humanity,

and all that has not been introduced into the Church by baptism is, in

reality, only a sort of raw material, which as yet awaits the breath

of life" (p. cxii.). In order to prevent any conflict between baptized

man and the law of the Church, the _civil power must be subject to the

Church_. Suarez is quoted to the effect that as a man would not be

rightly constituted unless the body were subject to the soul, neither

would the Church be rightly established unless the temporal power were

subject to the spiritual. And hence, the political conclusion is firmly

drawn: "The idea of such a subordination is realized in the pontifical

government. Because, owing to the peculiar character of him who here

holds the temporal power, it cannot rebel against the spiritual power,

civil law can never here set itself against evangelical law, nor is any

political act possible which should offend against morals."

The last affirmation will appear boldest to those who best know what

political acts have been done in the Roman States, and in the present

reign. No one of these acts could offend against Christian morals! for

the all-sufficing reason that Peter had become the king, and Peter does

no wrong. Thus we find infallibility, as received in the court creed,

covering measures of taxation and police, as well as lotteries and

monopolies--an abuse of the doctrine made still more obvious by what

follows, in which the infallibility of the Government is grounded on

its immaculate conception, and consequently perfect nature. Since in

the Pontifical States "the laws must be sanctioned by him who holds

the place of God on earth, him whom God has given to us for guide and

teacher, they can never be in conflict with the divine will.[68] The

infallible Depositary of evangelical interests can never sacrifice them

to earthly ones. Though in such a government the two powers [spiritual

and temporal] are distinct in form, they are in complete harmony and

duly co-ordinated one with the other, presenting to lay States the

perfect example of the Christian civil power."

It is granted that lay States can never equal this example, but they

ought to imitate it. By their very conception they can never be free

from the original taint, owing to which it becomes possible for "the

temporal power to rebel against the spiritual power." Not only is

it possible, but, by their nature, they are predisposed to that sin

of sins. But all rulers of lay States are to know that in becoming

subjects of the Church the subjects of civil power have been changed,

though the substance of civil power has not been changed. We do not

stay to inquire what may be the substance of civil power, after its

subjects have been lifted above obedience to it by another human

power, higher than itself in all things wherein the two may come into

collision.

In conclusion, the faithful are told that the centenary of St. Peter,

by bringing together people from all parts of the world, will give to

them the opportunity of beholding "a State in which peace, morality,

and justice reign. It is like an oasis amid the desolation of the

desert; and it is so because the political order is in full harmony

with evangelical law."

The approaching pilgrims, in comparing the oasis into which they were

about to enter, with the deserts from which they had emerged, would

be able to judge by the experience of centuries as to whether, where

Peter reigns, the lifting up of the subject above lay government

into the supernatural order had led to the elevation of the laity to

supernatural goodness, or to the lowering of the clergy to the level of

political officials.

Two writers, as dissimilar as Addison and Edgar Quinet, had, in some

degree, anticipated the comparison here challenged, each speaking

from a point of view suited to his own day and mode of thinking. The

Englishman remarks how great is the difference between Roman Catholic

populations where they touch upon reformed countries and where they are

under the unbroken influence of the Papacy. Ignorance, superstition,

and crime gradually deepen till the Alps and the Pyrenees are passed,

when all these become strikingly worse.

The Frenchman says that there was only one model country in Europe.

This was correct; for France had never cast out the influence of the

Reformation, or made away with all the Protestants; and had, moreover,

been the hotbed of what Quinet calls the philosophers. Italy, again,

had always been a stronghold of the so-called philosophers, although

all the Protestants had been consumed. In Spain, however, as he points

out, the Inquisition had really fulfilled its mission; both Protestants

and philosophers having been annihilated, schools and letters having

been reduced to order, and the whole nation having been made to move

for more than two hundred years on the Papal lines. The consequence

was the total ruin of religion in the country.[69]

The comparison to which strangers were challenged by the Curia had

the great advantage of being a comparison of good, not of evil. If

the Papal States are to lay States as the oasis to the desert, proof

actually lies before us of something more than human superiority--of

something amounting to a higher dispensation. If the Papal States are

but moderately superior to others, proof of any higher dispensation

fails; but proof of human superiority remains. If they are only

equal to lay States even proof of human superiority fails. If they

are inferior, proof fails both of divine commission and of human

superiority, and proof arises of the presence of greater human fault.

The only true book of Positive Philosophy yet (we do not say of

Positive Science) is the blessed old Books of books. It brings

everything to the test of fruits. It puts the extraordinary man to the

test before ordinary men. He who refuses the ordained appeal to the

Word, and to fruits, and to the verdict of every man's conscience,

writes his own description as a false prophet.

We shall not, therefore, set out to compare evil, but good. We shall

not inquire if there are more waste acres in the Papal States, more

filthy huts, more wretched villages, more mean little towns called

cities, more blighted prospects, talents thrown to waste, and families

brought to decay, more liars, thieves, drunkards, blasphemers, and

libertines, more depraved homes, more guilty conspiracies, more

strikers, robbers, and assassins, more beggars in the streets, more

idlers and extortioners in office, more wretches in prison, and more

dead men in graves dug by the law, than, say, in our own far from

immaculate or infallible England. We shall only look for the opposite

of all these, and more of it--so much more as would furnish proof of a

special dispensation of God's loving-kindness to men.

In one particular, such of the pilgrims as had heard of the desolation

of the Roman Campagna would feel surprise, somewhat similar to that

often felt by travellers in the Desert of Sinai. The latter, expecting

to find extended plains of burning sand--a Sahara--find a country

like another, only that it has no vegetation. So when pilgrims on the

Campagna found green plains basking under a lovely sky, they would

wonder how men could call it waste. Only by degrees would they realize

the fact that there were no farm-houses, no labourers' cottages, no

hamlets. In Arabia vegetation has failed, and with it animal existence.

This region is a degree less desert: the herb enjoys life and supports

the beast; only man has failed.

A trained observer seeing the plain forsaken and the villages in

military positions on the heights, would at once say, as he would

in Syria: The land has not learned what rest is! It has not yet

experienced, for any continuance, that lot of conscious security in

which the family suffices to itself, the lonely house is safe, and

the village needs neither wall nor steep. The valleys of Tuscany or

Piedmont tell a better tale of law and government.

When, at wide intervals, an inn or what is called a _Tenuia_ occurs,

perhaps it is announced by a few fine children, ill-clad and begging.

The house has an expression of fear. The windows are few and small, and

the yard, instead of a fence or low wall, is defended by a high one.

There are no stack yards, no farm store and treasure spreading securely

and ornamentally around as if conscious of strong, benign protectors.

There is no grass-plot, no gravelled or flagged walk, no flower-bed

before the door, no flower pot in the window, no garden. The house

has never blossomed into the home. It is, after all these ages, but a

shelter from weather and violence.

Entering, you find dirt to a degree neither easy to believe nor

pleasant to describe, which grows worse and worse the longer and

more minutely you observe. The furniture consists of a few stools,

a rough table or bench, with a sack or two of straw for a bed. The

few utensils, whether of earthenware or metal, are, like the stools

and bench, poor in quality, rude in form, and ill-kept. Scarcely

ever is there against the walls a print or photograph, an engraved

sheet, a clock or plaster bust. You look in vain for book, periodical,

or journal. The idea of children's picture-books, or of a cottage

library, is out of the question; and the Bible is not to be seen.

If there be a picture of the Madonna or the patron saint, it is,

in point of art, far below the pictures which often light up the

cottage of our humblest labourer. If there is a book, it is a wretched

dream-book teaching how to succeed in the lottery. No polished chest of

drawers, no white dresser, no fire range bearing witness of taste and

"elbow-grease," no pretty crockery, no easy-chair. You may perhaps see

a man asleep on the bare bench and another on the floor.

As you let the picture print itself, with all its inevitable comments,

upon your mind, it calls up comparisons with what you have seen in

the unlettered countries of the world--not with the homes that grow

up around a family Bible. Here the arts which bring Art home to the

multitude have found no entrance. Engraving, printing, carving,

ornamental work in metal, wood, or pottery, gardening, or artistic

husbandry, are graces that have not crossed this dirty threshold. The

aesthetics, which have had some part in the government of the country

have never developed the blessed aesthetic of home.

Physically, you find a race of great capacity. The frame, if wanting

the compactness of the French and the solidity of the English, is large

and shapely; such as after a few well-fed and well-housed generations

would probably be one of the finest in the world. There is a certain

sluggishness, which is generally called laziness. Perhaps it is not so

much laziness as a lack of that physical elasticity which comes with

successive generations of hopeful effort and good condition, but sinks

away under hopelessness, or the effects of poor food and bad air. The

natural intelligence is quick, and the manners generally polite, often

winning. The pleasant word and the obliging act are both ready. But

when did these carters and labourers wash? Was anything ever done to

cleanse these garments, partly of goatskin with the hair attached and

partly of heavy cloth? We do not call raids now and then to keep vermin

under, an effort at really cleansing. And the heads of the women and

children! Whatever the prevalent aesthetics have accomplished, they

have never awakened the sacred aesthetic of the human person, which is

not to be confounded with the lower aesthetic of dress.

Turning towards the villages, the observer is again reminded of Syria,

where he may have been led on by the prospect of a beautiful city set

on a hill, and found a squalid village. Self-defending construction, as

in the case of the lone house on the plain, reappears here. No outlying

cottages before the village, no detached ones within it, no gardens

or orchards behind. The backs of the houses form a continuous high

wall, pierced with small windows, constituting an irregular but not

despicable work of defence. Again you find the absence of any bit of

green, or of flower-beds before the house, or of flowers in the window.

The gardens of Nottingham alone would put those of all the Papal States

to shame, excepting such as are attached to palaces.

Before entering the houses one feels as if it would be unfair to

compare them with those of English villages in our more cultured and

sunny counties. But we may take a Yorkshire manufacturing village, near

collieries. There the ground is dirty with coal slack; the air dirty

with coal smoke and heavy with damp vapours; the houses are of the

colour of baked mud, called brick; the sky is low, and more brown than

grey. Nature and art seem to have combined to make the house dirty.

Here, on the contrary, the ground is as dry as a board, the air bright,

the walls of warm-coloured stone, the sky lofty, luminous and blue.

Nature has done everything to suggest cleanliness, and also to reward

it with such brilliant effect as we can only see in the brightest

moments which summer lights up within our English homes. And as to

manufacture, its grimy fingers have never touched the place.

Yet under the unfavourable conditions you find tidy women, with tidy

children, by tidy firesides. The floor, seats, tables, drawers,

dresser, walls, all show that the domestic arts of ornament, in however

humble a style, are represented. The cottage child sits with its book

on its knee, and you are not afraid to look into the corners. The Bible

and hymn-book are probably upon the shelf; and if you do not know that

the scene of the cotter's Saturday night is actually enacted there,

you feel that it might be.

Under the favourable circumstances, on the other hand, floor, stairs,

wall, furniture, utensils, and the persons of the women and children

are kept in such a style that one of the women from the Yorkshire

cottage would not like to pass a night in the place. And you must not

look into the corners. Any stray picture which may be on the walls,

only serves to remind you, by contrast, of the wonderful development

of illustrative art in England, Germany, and America, and of its

penetrating influence in the homes of the remote and poor. Here,

sometimes, you may find, even in the village church, prints and dolls,

the former of which in England would be considered poor, and the latter

tawdry in the village shop. Yet in the same church there may be some

real work of art, which has for generations had every opportunity of

forming the public taste.

The land in these Papal States, like the people, is nobly capable; but

our present inquiries turn, not upon the future, but upon proof of

immaculate and infallible government, for the last thousand years or

more.

Fixing, then, our attention on the works of man, we find cause

repeatedly to wish that we had some measure for exactly determining how

much progress has been made, amid these lovely scenes, by the human

mind since it passed from under the dominion of Pagan Romanism into

that of Papal Romanism. At present we have not the means of accurately

settling this question, and perhaps we never shall have, though honest

research may yet sufficiently elucidate it for a practical judgment.

So long as Christianity worked by its legitimate forces, those of

the Spirit alone, with its legitimate instrument, the Word alone, it

cast out the cruel and obscene spirits of paganism, silently, but not

slowly. In individuals and in families real Christians were made. This

continued so long as the ministers of Christ ministered like their

Master, reading the Word of God, and preaching it, but no more thinking

of performing "functions," like the heathen, than He did; so long as

they had neither place nor name in the posts graded and rewarded by

human powers; so long as they enjoyed no consideration but what was won

through wisdom, goodness, and spiritual fruitfulness; so long as their

whole inheritance was not a profession, but a calling, which renounced

the world, not by cutting God's holiest human ties, but by abandoning,

for life, every hope of title, pomp, or power. So long as this spirit

reigned, and whenever it again reappeared, they could point to numbers,

whom they found vile but left created anew in Christ Jesus unto good

works.

But from the time when Christianity became a public power, the

courtier, the priest, and the crowd began to flow into the Church,

and carried part of their heathenism in with them. When the device

of the Emperors was parodied--and as they had assumed the office of

Pontiff to confirm the civil dictatorship, the Roman Bishop assumed the

temporal supremacy to confirm the spiritual dictatorship--all the three

paganizing forces of statecraft, priestcraft, and popular superstition

came more vigorously into play; with the result stated by Gregorovius:

"So that Church which arose out of the union of Christianity with the

Roman Empire, drew from the latter the system of centralization, and

the stores of ancient language and education; but the people utterly

corrupted, could not yield her the living material for the development

of the Christian ideal. On the contrary, it was just they who in

early times defaced Christianity, and permeated the Church, scarcely

yet established in the Empire, with the old heathenism."[70] It was,

however, on the new system of conversion that the people could not

yield the material for developing Christianity. On the old one they

had done so. When the Church waits for converts till the Spirit of God

brings her penitents, she will always find material (often raw and

foul, but capable) for doing all her work.

But we find the first step in an inquiry as to the progress which has

been accomplished challenged by the Vatican philosophy, which decries

modern improvements like the railway, telegraph, steam engine, and

so on, as "material progress." When we ordinary mortals say "mental

progress" we mean a progress of mind; but when the Pope says "material

progress," does he mean a progress of matter? No; then what does he

mean? Perhaps to suggest some such idea as the progressive ascendancy

of matter over mind; but if so, it is unfortunate for him, as a

philosopher, that the inventions he despises represent the advancing

ascendancy of mind over matter. And very unhappy is it for mankind that

all his influence goes to employ matter in colour, form, and movement,

to make man a creature of sensation, and to stay the operation of

reason and of faith, exchanging reason for sentiment and faith for

sight.

Suppose that an observer before passing from the valley of the Sacco

into that of the Anio looks at a historical place like Palestrina,

situated on one of the noblest heights of the land; a point whence

Pyrrhus and Hannibal, in succession, looked with the longing of

warriors across the Campagna to the distant Rome; and whence the

Temple of Fortune, emulating Egyptian proportions, and overspreading

a whole hillside, dominated the plain, and held forth its lights to

the far off sea. This city has a Cardinal Bishop, and a palace of the

great Papal-princely family of the Barberini, and yet is what a homely

Englishman would call a nasty village. If such a one had to pick his

steps up the alleys that serve for streets, in the afternoon, when

the issue of the cow-houses is flowing down them, he would rather be

at home. The people are civil and apparently industrious, but the

energy of the children goes out in begging. The decay and dirt which

conquer all, furnish to an English eye a plain instance of material

progress--matter gaining upon mind. The palace is neither kept up

nor abandoned as a ruin, but, as if to set the town an example of

thriftless filth, it is used partly for an aesthetic exhibition,

containing as it does one wonderful mosaic, with frescoes and portraits

of the Pope and Cardinals of the family, and is partly given up

to--matter. Just as confidently as a skilled observer would conclude

that Middlesbrough or Cincinnati bore witness against any claim to

great antiquity, would he conclude that Palestrina bore witness

against any claim to supernaturally good government. How much lower was

the place when it was heathen?

From the ridge between the two valleys, by Civitella, the stranger has

one of those prospects of which no previous travel blunts the charm,

and no subsequent travel blunts the memory. Here he finds well-made

men ploughing, and women with busts worthy of Sabine mothers carrying

stones. Looking at the plough, he finds it only a few degrees stronger

and better than that used by the ordinary Hindu ryot. It is very far

behind the improved ones to be seen in northern Italy, and would be a

real curiosity to Bedfordshire or Lincolnshire ploughmen.

If the observation of implements is extended to those of the

handicrafts, it confirms the impression of want of taste made by those

of agriculture. But tools are not things to make a show, and the noble

aesthetic of labour has not been fostered. Labour is not part of the

supernatural order, only of the natural; it serves but temporal ends.

And who made the natural? And who dares to teach man, created in the

image of God, that the daily duty appointed to him--duty to himself,

his family, his country, and his race--serves but temporal ends? If

neglected, are only temporal ends frustrated? When our Father sends us

what fills our hearts with food and gladness, is He working nought but

temporal ends? For what is helpful to sanctification commend us even to

the stones on the head of the female hodman, rather than to the beads

at the waist of the novice nun! Albeit the former is a coarse toil not

to be seen without a blush by man born of a woman, yet is it a real

lift at the load of life--a load natural and therefore divine; whereas

the other is neither work nor play, not tending either to lift the load

of life or to cheer on the labour of lifting it, but tending only to

weaken all the powers by rendering the mind a slave of charms. Least of

all is it spiritual or supernatural. It is simply manipulation applied

by the master with sensational skill, and in the subject suspending

thought on sensational routine.

How far do the villages of the thrice beautiful Sabina exceed those of

our Lake District or of Wales in that poetic property of all villages,

"innocence"? The last thing we should do is to set up our own as a

standard. But if you hear the friars talk of the villagers, and the

villagers of the friars and police, the townsfolk of the countryfolk,

the doctor of his practice, and the priest of the refractory, you will

hear mention made, with incidental ease, of crimes which, if committed

in the Lake Districts of England, or in the tourists' haunts in Wales,

would fill the journals for weeks. And how often here does scandal name

the priest before all others!

Do the towns in Papal territory contrast with those in "lay States" as

the oasis does with the desert? Suppose the observer to stand before

Subiaco, seated amid Sabine peaks in the smiling valley of the Anio--a

favourite haunt of artists, and worthy of their favour. A marble arch

marks the entrance to the town; a summer palace of the Pope crowns it.

A little way off stands the sacred cave where Benedict first taught.

That is the Lupercal of Roman monasticism. There arose the institution

which became the one grand public institution of Papal Italy--arose

out of purposes not only pure, but lofty, though upon plans departing

from those both of Moses and of Christ. These made the love of God in

the individual a spiritual force to leaven the family, and made the

family the basis of all institutions. The monasticism of the further

east made spiritual life a dainty too delicate for the fireside. The

Christian system made each new convert a moral agent acting within the

social fabric. When Christians adopted the Oriental system, each new

convert was abstracted from the social fabric, was taught to turn his

or her back on the family, and to call being in the family being in the

world, and renouncing the family renouncing the world. Out of a life of

three-and-thirty years spent among men, our Lord has left us scarcely

another trace of thirty of those years than this, that He spent them in

the family.[71] This convent of Benedict still preserves its celebrated

gardens, boasted of as a beauty for the whole earth--including the bed

of roses, the lineal descendants of those which were transformed from

thorns by miracle.

On the principles of Christianity, if this place has for ages enjoyed a

spiritual government free from religious error, and a temporal one free

from moral fault, and has, in addition, been blessed with the presence

of the representative of God upon earth, we shall without fail find it

a scene of enlightenment, righteousness, and bliss. It must in these

respects be far before places where frail human nature has been in the

hands of churches liable to err, and of governments which commit faults

every day. If, on the other hand, they who have here been stewards of

the unrighteous mammon have employed it ill, who will entrust to them

the true riches, who will give to them the keeping of his soul?

At the entrance of the city, on a morning in May, the sound of chanting

floats down the street, and a procession of clergy moves along, passes

under the marble arch, and proceeds to a church in the suburbs. Then

the priests bless the fields to secure good crops, as is done by the

priests in India.

The streets of the city paraded by this procession are not beautiful,

and had they been steeped for a few years in a smoky, moist Lancashire

atmosphere they would be exceedingly ugly. They are not clean but

dirty, below the condition of any country town in the Protestant

parts of Ireland. They are not busy, but have a listless air, as if

people had little to do and not much heart in doing it. The signs of

enterprise and of improvement which in towns under good governments

silently tell the tale, are not to be seen--signs which already, in

1867, might be traced in most of the towns of the New Italy. The

well-dressed portion of the people is small, and the proportion of

those poorly but tidily dressed extremely small. A gala costume even

of the poor is fine, for whatever is for effect is studiously done.

Many men and women, evidently not in abject poverty, but capable of

dressing up for a state occasion, are not tidy, but badly the reverse.

The number of ragged adults is great, and that of ragged children very

great; it is hard to estimate that of the beggars, for even young

women employed and not very miserably dressed, will take advantage of

a passing stranger to seek a penny; and as to the children, begging

appears to be a recognized branch of street life.

A young gentleman from Rome, tall and handsome, on the point of getting

into a carriage with his companions, anxiously inquires if the road to

Palestrina is safe. Have there not been attacks of brigands lately?

The fact is not denied, though he is assured that all will be well.

In any talk about quarrelling, the use of the knife--that is, the

dagger-knife--is alluded to as a common incident. When any occurrence

illustrates the amount of confidence felt by the people in the honesty

or truthfulness of one another, it seems generally low on the first

point and almost _nil_ upon the second.

If the working classes show no sign of having been blessed with a

government better than that of all mankind, does any sign of it appear

among the trading classes? Beginning at the upper strata of finance and

commerce, a merely English eye would look in vain for tokens of their

existence. Coming down to the shops, perhaps an episcopal city in the

"oasis" would so impress Roman Catholic shopkeepers from Thurles or

Tuam that they would think a comparison profane. Their evil lot has

been cast in a lamentable portion of the "desert," the misdeeds of

whose rulers, and the wrongs of whose pastors and people, have often

made the hearts of the devout in Italy to bleed. Protestant shopkeepers

of Munster and Connaught would not be so awestruck but that they

could make a comparison. They would not find under the fairer sky,

and the theocratic rule, what they would take for symptoms of divine

superiority. The shopkeepers of Enniskillen and Portadown, not blessed

even with a heretic bishop, would smile at the comparison.

As to the professional classes, they are nearly absorbed in the clergy;

for this is a state in which the only way to "found a family" is to

begin by taking vows of celibacy, and the only way to bequeath coronets

is to begin by renouncing the world. The one unworldly profession

counts, among its prizes, a triple crown, scores of princedoms,

ministries of state, of finance, and even of war, embassies, exceeding

many palaces, honours surpassing those of nobility, gorgeous uniforms,

lofty titles, revenues of enormous amount, with powers and dignities

bearing a double value--one measurable by the standards of the world,

and one immeasurable in the eyes of the faithful. The bulk of the land

has passed into the possession either of corporations of clergy or of

families founded by priests successful in their profession.

The Mosaic economy is generally taken to be more carnal than the

Christian; but Moses, leaving Egypt, where the king and the priests

were the only landowners, enacted that the priests should not hold

land, and though married men, should have only a house and "a cow's

grass." Here, on the contrary, the priest, though renouncing the world

in some spiritual sense, comes a hundredfold more into possession of

it in a material one. If mind shows its dominion over land and sea,

over adamant and wind, over time and space, the feat is labelled for

contempt as "material progress." If ministers of the Gospel become

immersed in the management of manors, provinces, taxes, lotteries, and

even of brigades, the fall is certificated for reverence as "spiritual"

ascendancy. In Israel the royal tribe was one "of which no man gave

attendance at the altar," and the priestly tribe one of which none came

to the throne. Here the priest is king, and the temporal prince kisses

his foot. A favourite image is that of the mystic David, pastor and

king in one. Here is the cure of _political_ NATURALISM.

The clergy of the Pontifical States included the two widest extremes

of professional life to be found in Christendom--that of show and

dressiness beyond what our courtiers or soldiers display, and that

of personal meanness and social degradation to which no professional

class among us approaches. Society seemed to avenge itself for the

humiliations it had to suffer from the court priest, by the contempt

with which it treated the clown priest. We once asked an advocate if

all the priests did not read the _Unitá Cattolica_, and we give his

reply, not as describing what priests are, but as showing what men of

education may say of them--"All?" said the Dottore; "well, nearly all

that can read." "But you do not mean to say that there are priests who

cannot read?" "Well, not precisely; but there are many that could not

read a journal intelligently, so as to enjoy it."

The co-existence of fear with hatred of a dominant priesthood may be

observed in any country where priests have been the governing class,

and perhaps, after the Pontifical States, may be best observed in

India. The Brahmans, however, have not in the popular eye so direct a

command over the lot of the departed as Rome has secured for her own

priests, nor have they any such pecuniary profit out of the faith of

the survivors. On the other hand, no class of Brahmans sinks so far

below the average of respectability, among their countrymen, as do the

lower clergy of the Roman and Neapolitan States.

But the contempt of the Italians for the priesthood is no more thorough

than is their reverence. The man who will not introduce a certain

priest to his daughters, will pay him to save the soul of his mother

out of the pains of purgatory. To the Monsignore Don Juan, to use a

term of Gregorovius, he will manifest profound respect, while in his

heart he scorns him. To the not worse but less successful priest he

will manifest contempt and spend some wit upon his vices, and yet, in

his heart, will fear his occult power over the souls of his departed

kindred.

The worldly professions have no such lot as the sacred one. Except

the show corps for inglorious pomp around the sovereign, the military

sphere for Romans is narrow, foreigners taking the lead. _Letters are

no profession._ The civil service is principally in the hands of the

priests. The law exists, and there are men with the titles of advocates

and judges. But if we drew any idea of the status and "chances"

belonging to such titles, from England, it would be altogether

misleading.

Chief Justice Whiteside has shown how wide the difference is, and he

spoke of the great city. In the little one of which we now speak, two

English gentlemen, who could not find room in the inn, were directed to

the house of an advocate, who played my host with assiduity and good

humour, and charged four francs each for dinner, bed, candles, and

service. The doctors seem most like men with a professional standing;

and if they keep from politics, they have a fair chance of leading a

quiet life in obscure usefulness.

Yet is the whole world called to take this state of things as the model

of the subordination of the layman to the priest. "The idea of that

subordination," we are told, "is realized in the Papal government." The

ideal! This absorption, then, of the State into the so-called Church,

this suppression of king, nobles, and people under the priest, is not

an abnormal and monstrous _lusus ecclesiae_, but is the ideal of the

new "political order." Any one can understand it--the king merged

in the prince-bishop or else a vassal of the priest; the noble the

retainer and jewelled ornament of the priest; the people the helots of

the priest. That is the model. Here is realized for us the ideal of

_the one fold and one shepherd_.

The English labourer knows that his son may, like James Cook, walk the

quarter-deck, or, like Robert Stephenson, sit in the legislature. The

Roman noble knows that the utmost his son, if not a priest, can rise to

is to wear pearls and stars at the court of a priest, and kiss his foot

when he makes a great show.

The kindly monk who, at Subiaco, shows a stranger over the Sacred Cave

of Benedict, glories in far-famed gardens, which any peasant from

Appenzell could tell him might be equalled in some private houses in

such a village as Heiden. Fame sometimes draws out the dying notes of

her trumpet unaccountably long. The monk is careful to enlist your

admiration for several meritorious works in painting and sculpture, but

to Protestants one gem is shown only by request. It is a portrait of

the devil painted on the wall, in dark passages, and not visible except

when a light is flashed upon it. This done, it appears for a moment,

or longer, as the operator pleases, through one opening, fitted with

real iron gratings, athwart of which the demon glares out of the gloom

upon the spectator. Such a picture is capable of being put to uses

that would meet the strongest views of those who call for something to

strike the senses, and through them to affect the feelings.

As long ago as the days of the man of the land of Uz, the monotheistic

way of depicting a spiritual presence was, "I could not discern the

form thereof"; and, surely, even in that remote time, the aesthetic was

higher than that of the Sacred Cave.

Following the smiling valley from Subiaco to Tivoli, one would, in

1867, probably see youths in the uniform of the zouaves, lounging on

a bank, near one or both of the towns. Foreign mercenaries! would the

Italians say. Foreign, certainly, and some of them mercenaries; but

some, even in the dress of a private, would unmistakably show the

gentleman--no mercenary, but a crusader who, in answer to the cry

raised after Castelfidardo, has come from afar to fight for St. Peter,

to "die for religion."

Even in this mountain valley the villages still keep to the heights.

Where is the squire and his generous hall?--no room here for his

magisterial office or commanding influence! Where is the farmstead,

full and cozy, warm nest of fruitful brood sure to store a land with

golden eggs? When the squire was quenched under the mitre of the

abbot, the farmer was smothered in the cowl of the friar. Where are

the parsonages and manses, homes where thought-culture is generally

at the maximum, and external show often at the minimum, Christian

families rooted in nature, blessed by divine ordinance, where woman

is doing what the Mother of our Lord was doing at the head of her

house--families holier a hundred times than the "religious" family,

artificially substituted for nature and gospel? If from the list of

bright names written up in England since the Reformation were blotted

all that were first inscribed in the family Bible of parsonage or

manse, that list would be more shortened than most men would imagine.

From the Villa d'Este at Tivoli, with its grandiose, ill-kept gardens,

the prospect across the Campagna, when the distant city and its unique

dome are limned against the sunset sky, is one of rare enchantment.

Suppose that on these Sabine or on the Alban Hills you ask some

intelligent inhabitant if these are not the Delectable Mountains, the

summits of the true Celestial Empire, where no act of moral wrong has

been done by the authorities for, say, the last ten hundred years.

Perhaps you might hear such a statement as we once heard. It was from

a gentleman in the pay of the government; but he knew that he had

not to speak either to a priest or to that denationalized creature

which Romans soon detect under the English form, a _convertito_. The

statement may not have been correct. But it was such as under our

unblessed lay government is never heard. It was such as under a good

government could never be invented. Such a statement, professing to be

made from a man's own knowledge, one never heard in Europe, except in

Naples under the last two kings; but one might hear such in Egypt, and

one could easily hear such, many years ago, in the Mysore, from old men

talking of the times of Hyder Ali.

The desolation of the Campagna is the true and terrible material

progress. Here physical impediments to health and life have conquered,

not being encountered by moral and mental force. What natural riches

are here! If England has wealth in its coal, how much has Italy in

its sunshine? How much has that saved in the last thousand years in

clothes, bedding, and fuel? How much in the wear and tear of buildings,

and of implements? How much has it given in ripening what we can never

ripen, and in ripening quickly and perfectly what we can ripen but

slowly and in part? How much has it both saved and given in diminishing

the physical temptation to intemperance? This soil, this sun, and in

addition the tribute of nations, poured out here for ages in all the

endless forms of Peter's gain--where is all that wealth gone? Here

we are amid the riches of nature, to which successive centuries have

brought riches of tribute, and yet are we wrapped around by silence,

vacuity, and fear. Sleep not here! whispers every friendly voice.

Wealth of matter, poverty of man! The Papal government is sometimes

accused of bringing the malaria. No; it only let it come and let it

stay. Like many who will not believe in invisible mind, it would not

believe in invisible matter. The miasma was the hand of God, and was

not to be fought against.

The Papal government is also accused of bringing all the foreign hordes

who wasted this once glorious plain. It did not always bring them. It

only brought them so often that had it been done by any faction in

the heart of a country not being priests, mankind would have sunk the

memory of the faction under eternal disgrace. Now, the sickly Campagna

labourer, the thing like a Fijian hut which to him is home, and the

buffalo, seem a meet monument to the memory of Saracen and Lombard

destroying, and of Cardinals plundering, till only the grass was left.

Who would have the heart to ask himself, Is this the proof that the

oasis of priests amid the desert of lay States, is a garden planted of

the Lord?

Roughly speaking, Rome is about the size of Dublin. All the Catholic

world sighs over the woes and desolations inflicted on Ireland by

Protestant cruelty. Where has Rome set up a suburb like Kingstown,

Dalkey, or Bray? Where sown a tract of country with rich smiling homes

like those which spangle the emerald from Dublin to the Wicklow hills?

Where in the oasis could a bishop on returning to Belfast point to a

creation of wealth and beauty made in Papal times equal to Holywood,

or the Antrim shore? And could his colleague of Cork dare to make the

people who look on the lone banks of the stream from Rome to the sea

mourn for those who hang their harps by the "pleasant waters" that

flow within sound of the bells of Shandon? Had the Roman Curia reigned

there, the vale would now be insecure; a wretched village or two, with

skeletons and clouts by way of relics in tawdry churches, would crown

the heights; instead of villas, mansions, and cots, a monastery or two

walled up to heaven would hold the best points on the hills, inviting

artists, but perhaps ill rewarding them, while nursing idlers within

and beggars without. And had Rome less reigned at Cork than she has

done, a scene many degrees livelier and richer than that which now

surrounds the fair city would have noted the response of intelligent

industry to the boons of a very bountiful Providence.

Inside the capital of the oasis!--capital of a region where for a

thousand years, at the very least, no act morally wrong has been done

by authority, true bower of a peerless Eden! Let no Englishman say that

these pretensions are not to be treated seriously. We should all have

said so thirty years ago. But now men from any nation in Europe, some

blaming us, some vaunting over our return, will tell us that of late

years more has been done to accredit these pretensions by a portion of

the English clergy than by any educated class in Europe, and that more

to adorn and sanction these pretensions has been done by a portion of

the English aristocracy than by any privileged class in Europe. This is

one instance more of the fact that not interests but principles are the

safeguards of mankind.

Is the city, then, morally the perfection of beauty? Is it so rich in

the Christian graces as to accredit the claim to be the central seat of

an infallible power, the one spot on earth where it is directly touched

by a divine authority? The priest at once tells you how holy the

city is: there are eight basilicas, more than four hundred churches,

and more than two hundred convents. Yes, but perhaps the "religious

family" fabricated by teaching woman that her holy place is not the

family which God founded, and in which every man has his own wife and

every woman her own husband, may not in operation have proved a better

thing than the Christian family. Poor creatures put into an artificial

family where duties ordained by God are made void, and ties set by

Him as strings in the harp of nature to make holy melody, are rudely

unstrung--a "family" in which many of the things called _good works_

are neither virtues nor graces, but vain repetitions of fantastic

forms--a family where the obedience called for is not obedience to

any natural authority or to any divine law, but to arbitrary will;

communities of poor creatures such as these, we say, may not in the

long run have proved centres of holiness. When we ask if the city is

holy, we mean nothing about basilicas, or churches, or convents; but we

mean, are the people like Jesus Christ, like a people prepared as a fit

population for a sinless heaven?

We shall in reply give nothing but a statement on one side from the

_Civiltá_, and one on the other from the prelate Liverani, so that

neither heretic nor foreigner, nay, not even a layman, shall disturb

the testimony. The _Civiltá_,[72] after the occupation of the city by

Italy, showed that one of its characteristics had been the perfect

subordination of all civil arrangements to evangelical law. _Christ

reigns, Christ governs._ This motto had in Rome a worthy and complete

application. Not only individuals, but the family, the city, laws,

policy, all social institutions, felt the salutary influence. In the

metropolis of Christianity, marriage, education, instruction, the

administration of justice and charity, public and private manners, had

to be regulated by Christian laws and evangelical principles:--

Such to a nicety was Rome. It was called the holy city, that is,

the city more than any other consecrated to God and forming the

expression of the kingdom of God upon earth. And the effect of

this Christian order was seen in the very virtues of the civil

population. The Roman people was not second to any other in piety

towards God, and in propriety of conduct; and not only so, but it

seemed the most dignified, the gravest, and the furthest removed

from vulgarity and tumult.

The prelate on the other hand says--and we begin at the Vatican (p.

87):--

Thus came it to pass that at the Court of Rome, that is, the

house of the lieutenant of Him of whom it is written, "_The evil

shall not dwell with Thee, neither shall the unjust remain within

Thy sight_," turned into a sink of scandal and a sewer of every

foul iniquity (p. 87).... It was always to me a mystery how the

Roman clergy, rich in gold and lands till most of the Agro Latino

is in their hands, with their splendid temples and sumptuous

ceremonies, with their retainers diffused among all classes,

with control of the charities, the pulpit, the confessional, the

confraternities--how it is that with all these elements of power

in their hands I hear from one end of Rome to the other the cry,

Death to the priests! (p. 87).... The particulars hitherto related

disclose [in the Court] an iniquity only too deeply rooted, and

even turned into blood and nature; they disclose sores both

inveterate and envenomed, hard to cure and hard to eradicate. It

was this that made Clement VIII say to Bellarmine, "I have not

strength to contend with such a flood of bad habits; pray to God to

release me soon, and to shelter me in His glory." Also the brave

Marcellus II was accustomed to repeat a sentence of Onofrio, which

I do not wish to copy (133).

As to the people, we shall give but one word. Liverani, remarking on

objections raised against modern Italian rule by the "good Press,"

because certain houses existed in the cities, says:--

It reminds me of a pleasantry of the old rector of the parish of

St. Angelo in _Pescheria_, who one day said to me that when he

took charge of the parish he found one house bad and one not so,

turn and turn about; but he soon found that they were all alike.

This editor is ingenuous and innocent as if he wrote in a land of

angels, instead of in the place where not long ago a prelate-judge

abused his office to the point of using violence with arms in his

hands against the sister and daughter of the convicts, so that he

was prosecuted before the Vicar and before the Holy Office, and

removed from the bench; but after a few years, the good nature

of the prince being overcome by powerful intercession, he was

reinstated in another judicial office.

We shall not go further into this subject than to add that one of the

bitter reproaches cast upon the Italian senate by the _Unitá_ was that

when the most noted and most respected living man in Italian literature

and politics, Mamiani, said, speaking on the conscription, that at all

events the morals of the barrack-room were better than the morals of

the convent, the senate received the statement with loud applause.

However correct or incorrect may be the views of the several witnesses

from whom we have heard a word, there can be no hesitation in

pronouncing that any attempt to show evidence of divine superiority

utterly fails--so utterly as to be more than ridiculous. But if there

is not divine superiority, there must have been false pretensions. The

one or the other is inevitable. If the States of the Church have not

for the last thousand years been ruled by the representative of God,

they have been ruled by one who was himself deceived and a deceiver of

others.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 68: "I have no need to declare myself ready to repel and

reject that which the Pope cannot do. He cannot do an act contrary to

the Divine law."--_Cardinal Manning_, _Vat. Dec._, p. 41.]

[Footnote 69: _Ultramontanism et la Société Moderne._]

[Footnote 70: Vol. i. p. 14.]

[Footnote 71: The principle here alluded to is elucidated in an

instructive manner in _Nazareth and its Lessons_, by the Rev. G.S.

Drew.]

[Footnote 72: VIII, i. 132.]

CHAPTER XIII

Solemn Confirmation of the Syllabus by the Pope before the assembled

Hierarchy, and their Acquiescence, June 17, 1867.

The twenty-first anniversary of the accession of Pius IX occurred

shortly before the day for which the great assembly of 1867 was

convened. As the Court historian omits all mention of the Syllabus

when first issued, so does he also omit to say a word of its definite

confirmation by the Pontiff on June 17, 1867, and of its formal

acceptance by the episcopate. We are indebted for the details in this

case to an author who published before the events of 1870. Important

as the transaction was, we cannot find that at the time any of the

ordinary organs of the Vatican notified it to the world. Many of the

learned disputants in the controversies which were soon to arise took

ground which showed that they were unaware of this decisive event.

It was Archbishop Manning who related how Mass was celebrated in the

Sistine Chapel, and how the Pope retired, at its close, to robe in

the Pauline Chapel. Here the Cardinal Vicar, Patrizi, followed by the

whole of the Sacred College and the bishops, presented an address of

congratulation, concluding with hopes for many years of additional

life to Pius IX, that he might behold the peace of the Church, and her

triumph.

As recorded by the Archbishop, the terms employed by his Holiness in

reply were of historical importance.[73] It will be remarked that the

watchwords, deprecated by the Pope, are not those of heretics, but of

statesmen--Unity and Progress; and no Italian or German could doubt

what were the unity and progress decried--

I accept your good wishes from my heart, but I remit their

verification to the hands of God. We are in a moment of great

crisis. If we look only to the aspect of human events, there is no

hope; but we have a higher confidence. Men are intoxicated with

dreams of unity and progress, but neither is possible without

justice. Unity and progress based on pride and egotism are

illusions. God has laid on me the duty to declare the truths on

which Christian society is based, and to condemn the errors which

undermine its foundations; and I have not been silent. In the

Encyclical of 1864, and in what is called the Syllabus, I declared

to the world the dangers which threaten society, and I condemned

the falsehoods which assail its life. That act I now confirm in

your presence, and I lay it again before you as the rule of your

teaching. To you, venerable brethren, as bishops of the Church, I

now appeal to assist me in this conflict with error. On you I rely

for support. When the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness,

they had a pillar of fire to guide them in the night, and a cloud

to shield them from the heat by day. You are the pillar and the

cloud to the people of God.

Here the bishops learned, with the full weight of pontifical authority,

that the Syllabus was "the rule of their teaching." Some explained the

Syllabus as affecting discipline, and therefore liable to alteration.

The _Civiltá_ and the _Slimmen_ had always asserted that it was purely

doctrinal, and therefore above all change. In pronouncing it the "rule

of teaching" the Pope settled that vital point. Some, again, had been

tempted to think that the Syllabus might be laid up, like an ancestral

weapon; they were undeceived, and given to know that it must be tested

in war. Such were placed in the dilemma of having to offer resistance

to the sovereign thus surrounded, or of having to observe a silence

which must ever after carry the effect of consent. Even if they did

not feel with the Pope, that the foundations of universal society were

crumbling in unprecedented decay, they did keenly feel with him that

the foundations of his own temporal power were crumbling. Every doubter

held his peace, and the Pope's act became virtually what, as we shall

see, in a few days it became formally,--the act of the whole episcopate.

The Pope is not fortunate in quoting Scripture, often showing that he

takes glosses for the text. He imagines that the "cloud by day" was not

a pillar before the host, but an extended field of clouds overshadowing

the wide-spread multitudes and not merely the tabernacle.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 73: _Centenary of St. Peter_, p. 6.]

_BOOK II_

_FROM THE FIRST PUBLIC INTIMATION OF A COUNCIL TO THE EVE OF THE

OPENING_

(_June 1867 to December 1869_)

CHAPTER I

First Public Intimation of the intention to hold a Council, June 26 to

July 1, 1867--Consistory--Acquiescence in the Syllabus of the assembled

Bishops--The Canonized Inquisitor--Questions and Returns preparatory

to Greater Centralization--Manning on the Ceremonies--O'Connell on the

Papist Doctrines--The Doctrine of Direct and Indirect Power.

June 26, 1867, was the day of the Secret Consistory, to which not

less than five hundred bishops from all regions of the earth lent

their splendours. The Pope in his allocution deplored the evils which

had overtaken the Church, and, as he supposed, in equal measure had

overtaken all society. And now, at length, did he reveal his intention

of convoking such an assembly as had not been witnessed for three

hundred years. He had firm hope that from a General Council the light

of catholic truth would shine forth and scatter the darkness which

enveloped the minds of men; and that the Church, like the battle-array

of an unconquered host, discomfiting her enemies, rolling back their

onset, and triumphing over them, would spread abroad over the earth the

dominion of Christ.

Though journalists and bishops at the time bravely reproduced this

martial figure, the Jesuit historian Sambin (p. 13), writing after the

battles of 1870, makes the Pope say that the Church would gain her

fairest triumphs by converting her enemies.

The very name of an OEcumenical Council, uttered in the tones of

Pius IX, instinct with personal and official hope, caused among the

assembled prelates a movement of effusive joy. They felt that such a

council would prove a "marvellous source of unity, sanctification,

and peace." On July 1, assembling in the great hall over the portico

of St. Peter's, with all possible accessories of form, they presented

to his Holiness what they called a Salutation. This had been drawn

up by Archbishop Haynald of Colocza, assisted by Bishop Dupanloup,

Archbishop Manning, and others. It had been proposed to proclaim Papal

infallibility in the document itself; but this set the French prelates

up in arms.[74] Though stopping short of that goal, the bishops go far

in their approaches to it.

"May the unmeasured benefits assured to society by the Roman

Pontificate," say the bishops, "be, by this deed of Thy providence,

once more displayed to the world, and may the world be convinced of

the powers of the Church, and of her mission as the _mother of civil

humanity_!" They were persuaded that a Council would have the effect

of showing that everything tending to consolidate the foundation of a

community, and to give it permanence, is fortified and consecrated by

the example of authority, and of the obedience due thereto, presented

in the divine institution of the Pontificate. Princes and peoples

would not, "in the face of such a display, allow the highest sanction

of all authority, the august rights of the Pope, to be trampled upon

with impunity, but would see him secured in the enjoyment both of the

liberty of power and the power of liberty."[75]

The words in which the bishops confirm their testimony of 1862, to

the "necessity," of the temporal power are few and firm. They then

proceed to cover the space between that time and the present. "With

grateful feelings do we recall, and with fullest assent do we commend,

the things done by Thee subsequent to that time, for the salvation of

the faithful and the glory of the Church." This is a waymark showing

that the old doctrine still ruled the practice of the Court, though

long banished from its theory. The acquiescence of the bishops was

practically necessary to give the ultimate sanction to the acts of the

Pope.

Then comes the solemn adhesion of the assembled hierarchy to the

condemnations collected together in the Syllabus--"Believing Peter to

have spoken by the lips of Pius the things which have been spoken,

confirmed, and pronounced by Thee, for the safe keeping of the deposit,

we also declare, confirm, and announce; and we reject with one heart

and voice those things which Thou hast adjudged to be reprobated and

rejected, as being contrary to divine faith, the salvation of souls, or

the good of human society."[76]

So it was done. The Pope had called for the express submission of

the episcopate to his own acts, hitherto variously understood and

discussed, and they had given it in round terms. Dr. Manning, in

characterizing their document as "The Address or Response, in which

they united themselves in heart and mind to their supreme Head,"[77]

might well speak of "the gravity and moral grandeur of that act," for

with him vastness always seems to prove grandeur, and an act of vast

moral consequence this surely was. We shall hereafter see the fact

tardily come to light that absent prelates were called upon to give in

their adhesion by letter, and did so.

On either the Papal or the Episcopal theory, the Syllabus had now the

status of Church law, and had become to all the clergy "the rule of

your teaching." On the Papal theory, because it was the formal act of

the Pontiff for the teaching and ruling of the whole Church; and on the

Episcopal theory, because the collective hierarchy had not only tacitly

acquiesced but openly accepted it.

Yet it is worthy of special remark that the Syllabus is not mentioned

in this Salutation. More than two years later, however, the _Civiltá_

said, "There is no doubt that the prelates had the Encyclical and

Syllabus in view, since in these two documents are contained all the

things which the Pope has _spoken_, _confirmed_, _announced_, and

_reproved_ in matters of doctrine."[78] And even as early as one year

from the time, we shall find that the double authority of the Bishop of

Rome, and of all other bishops, was declared to be outraged by Darboy

when he practically disowned the Syllabus.

The next point touched by the prelates was one lying near to the heart

of the Pope. They had been moved with joy on beholding the loyal faith,

love, and reverence of the Roman people for their most indulgent

prince. "Happy people and truly wise"--_Felicem populum ac vere

sapientem_.[79] So, whoever had doubted as to the Model State, it was

not the five hundred. Were they sincerely ready to make the people of

their respective nations "truly wise" by bringing them to look on that

government as the model?

The bishops evidently knew that they were initiating a movement which

would test the combative qualities of both Pope and prelates. Every

discerning man among them must have felt what Archbishop Manning

expressed, "This event may be taken, I believe, to be the opening of a

new period, and to contain a future which may reach over centuries."[80]

Under anticipations so serious do these old men, addressing a very old

one, thus conclude--

Courage, most Blessed Father! Guide the bark of the Church with a

firm hand, as has been Thy wont, certain of gaining the port. The

Mother of divine grace, whom Thou hast saluted with fairest titles

of honour, will defend Thy course, by the aid of her intercession;

she will be to Thee the star of the sea.... Thou wilt have the

celestial choirs of the saints favouring Thee; those whose glory

Thou hast, with diligence and apostolic toil, sought out, and also

hast proclaimed to the exulting world, both aforetime and in these

recent days. May the princes of the Apostles Peter and Paul stand

by Thee!... At the helm now held by Thee once stood Peter. He will

intercede with the Lord that the bark which, by the aid of his

prayers, has for eighteen centuries traversed the deep sea of human

life, may under Thy command enter the celestial haven, all sail

set, and laden with richest spoil of souls immortal.[81]

It is to be remarked that in this passage Peter is not honoured, like

his successor, with capitals to all his pronouns. Again, he and Paul

are coupled together as if they might have been somewhat on a level.

Perhaps in both points the bishops made an unconscious concession

to history, but in the state of things now initiated, such jots and

tittles were to become symptomatic.

One allusion in the Address, which would pass with a smile in England,

had great significance for the mind of Pius IX. It is that made to his

claim to peculiar aid from the Blessed Virgin, because of the higher

exaltation which he had procured for her, and also to his claim upon

new saints whose titles he had made out. In the case of the Japanese

saints, we have already seen how practical were his views. He was

fighting for the territory of his predecessors, and, finding that he

had not hosts enough on earth, he reversed the ordinary process of

binding on earth and leaving it to be ratified in heaven, and now bound

in heaven, by creating "new patrons in the presence of God," leaving it

to be ratified on earth by a corresponding increase of forces.

The vision of these new heavenly auxiliaries dazzled the imagination.

Even the professor of history in the university speaks of the awful

moment when the Pope raised them to their thrones as "the sublime rite,

during which heaven and earth hung upon the lips of the Pope."[82] The

expressions of confidence in these new-made powers, as champions in the

thickening struggle for that patrimony which, though costing so much

blood, forgery, and intrigue, so much dependency on foreign arms, so

much slaughter of Italians, had been retained through evil report and

good report, irresistibly remind one of Licinius when menaced by the

advance of Constantine, under the auspices of one God only. Licinius

feels the advantage he has in the numbers of gods on whom he can rely.

"This present day," he, as reported by Eusebius, says, "will either

declare us conquerors, and so most justly demonstrate our gods to

be the saviours and true assistants, or else, if this one God of

Constantine's, who comes from I know not whence, shall get the

better of our gods, which are many, and at present do exceed in

number, nobody in future will be in doubt which God he ought to

worship, but will betake himself to the more powerful God, and

attribute to Him the rewards of victory. And if this strange God,

who is now a _ridicule_ to us, shall appear to be the victor, it

will behove us also to acknowledge and adore Him, and to bid a

long farewell to those to whom we light tapers in vain. But if our

gods shall get the better--which no person can entertain a doubt

of--after the victory obtained in this place we will proceed to

bring a war upon those impious contemners of the gods."[83]

Even if this does not describe what Licinius really said, it does

represent the view of the early Christian, as to the heathen mode of

thought, putting confidence in a multiplicity of celestial patrons, in

the lighting of tapers and such like.

The name of Arbues, the Spanish Inquisitor, has been mentioned as being

second on the list of those now to be canonized. Professor Sepp, of

Munich, long known as a Catholic theologian and Oriental traveller,

says in his _Deutschland und der Vatican_ (p. 52)--

Nothing was more calculated to degrade the Church, and render her

unpopular, or to bring a flush of shame to the cheek of every

Catholic, than this revival of the most disagreeable recollections

of history. Had Arbues contended against the burning of heretics,

we should have welcomed him, in the name of God, as a saint.

But history gives us no information about the man except that

he discharged the odious office of a Torquemada, and that the

long-persecuted Jews brought him to an untimely end. The most

that can be said for him is that he died for the idea of the

Inquisition; and for that he is to be set up on our altars.

Many another Liberal Catholic blushed with Sepp. Baron Weichs, in

Vienna, cried, "A single example will show you the difference between

the spirit which reigns here and that which reigns on the banks of

the Tiber. While here we speak of abolishing the penalty of death,

there they canonize an Inquisitor, covered over with the blood of the

victims whom he had immolated because they worshipped God in their own

way." The _Civiltá_ exclaims, "And men of this sort are to be reputed

Catholics, and to make laws for Catholics. _O tempora! O mores!_"[84]

The Cardinals of the Holy Office had drawn up a list of questions on

points of Church discipline, which was delivered to the bishops while

in Rome, and afterwards sent to many, probably to all, of those who

were absent. Lord Acton points out that these questions do not touch

the depths of existing wants.[85] And Michelis seems to look upon them

as a blind, to cover the real point at which the Council was to aim.

They are, however, clearly framed to elicit facts bearing on uniformity

of discipline, and especially on points of administration in mixed

questions--that is, questions wherein both civil and ecclesiastical

authority are concerned; for instance, schools, mixed marriages, civil

marriages, domestic relations, and the like. The returns which the

answers would supply would be of great value in the study of plans for

reconstruction, and would seem to be of more practical importance than

Lord Acton imagines, for the purpose of governing a mobilized clergy

through bishops turned into prefects, by orders from one bureau, and

of impressing through them a uniform movement on both institutions and

families, in matters affecting national law.

The five hundred bishops soon dispersed to the four corners of the

earth, carrying into their respective spheres enthusiastic descriptions

of the beautiful, the grand, the splendid, the superb, the glorious,

the unutterably majestic ceremonies which they had just witnessed, and

no less enthusiastic hope of "the greatest event of the age," when the

princes of the Church should assemble around her head to overawe her

enemies and build her up anew. We do not use the epithet "divine," but

it is perhaps right to say that the _Civiltá_ described the appearing

of the Pope "upon the portative throne, in all the majesty of his

divine rank ... the Pope-king, the supreme representative of the

two-fold authority which rules the nations in the name of God."[86] It

of course celebrates the "standards which represented the glory of the

Princes of the Apostles," and does not forget the "twenty thousand wax

candles."[87]

Archbishop Manning reminded his clergy that in the solemn adherence

of the bishops to those acts of the Pontiff, they did not confirm

those acts as if needing confirmation, or accept them as if needing

acceptance, or imply that they had been "of imperfect and only

inchoate authority until their acceptance should confirm them." ...

"They did not add certainty to what was already infallible."[88] The

infallibility, he contended, belonged to all the approbations and

condemnations alike--not, as some "blindly say," by virtue derived

from canons, councils, or ecclesiastical institutions, "but from the

direct grant of our Lord Jesus Christ, before as yet a canon was made

or a council assembled." This is a somewhat crude statement of the

doctrine which all the Irish and French Catholics we ever knew in our

younger days resented, when ascribed to themselves by Protestants. They

called it the doctrine of the "Papists," and contended that Protestants

wronged all such Roman Catholics as were not Papists, by calling them

so, indiscriminately. What we call "temporal authority," what the

Jesuits have taught Rome to call "spiritual authority over temporal

affairs," was one point, and the infallibility of the Pope was a second

point, on which the Papist was at issue with the Liberal Catholic. In

this sense Montalembert and O'Connell were not Papists. The latter

says--

I am sincerely a Catholic, but I am not a Papist. I deny the

doctrine that the Pope has any temporal authority directly or

indirectly in Ireland. We have all denied that authority on oath,

and we would die to resist it. He cannot, therefore, be any

party to the Act of Parliament we solicit, nor shall any Act of

Parliament regulate our faith and conscience. In spiritual matters

too the authority of the Pope is limited: he cannot, although

his conclave of Cardinals were to join him, vary our religion

either in doctrine or essential discipline in any respect. Even in

non-essential discipline the Pope cannot vary it without the assent

of the Irish Catholic bishops. Why, to this hour the discipline of

the General Council of Trent is not received in this diocese.[89]

The utterances of Archbishop Manning, though sweet to the ears of those

who had the dispensing of the purple in Rome, were, nevertheless, hard

on those who, as children, had learned that such doctrine was no part

of their creed. In his day Alban Butler had proudly said, "But Mr.

Bower never found the infallibility of the Pope in our creed, and knows

very well that no such article is proposed [propounded] by the Church,

or required of any one."[90]

Dr. Manning went on to declare that he had received the Syllabus at

the first "as a part of the supreme and infallible teaching of the

Church."[91] In this he proved how far he went before most prelates of

experience on this side of the Alps and Pyrenees, although he coolly

credits them, every one, with having done likewise.[92]

Just as the episcopate had been committed in 1862 to the temporal

power, so was it committed in 1867 to the Syllabus. Whether a bishop

believed that his assent had any constitutional effect or not was

now a matter of comparative indifference, for his future action was

bound; and the Syllabus was to prescribe the decrees and direct the

deliberations of the future Council--in fact, to be its basis and its

guide.

The language of Manning was treated by many Catholics as the menaces

of a zealot; but the zealot knew that he spoke for the Pope and the

Jesuits. During the conflict now on the point of breaking out, many

honest men fought against the supposed design that the Syllabus

should receive "doctrinal authority" from the Council, while in the

mind of those in whose hands lay their future faith, the Council was

under the doctrinal authority of the Syllabus. The Council might

contribute to administration by turning the propositions into canons or

constitutions, but could not add to their authority.

The anticipation of Archbishop Manning as to the political effect of

the doctrinal change then impending was clearly recorded, and in terms

never to be forgotten--

"Civil governments, so long as their Catholic subjects can be

dealt with in detail, are strong and often oppressive. When they

have to deal with the Church throughout the world, the minority

becomes a majority, and subjects, in all matters spiritual, become

free. We are approaching a time when civil governments must deal

with the Church as a whole, and with its head as supreme; and a

General Council which makes itself felt in every civilized nation

will powerfully awaken civil rulers to the consciousness that

the Church is not a school of opinion, nor a mere religion, but

a spiritual kingdom, having its own legislature, tribunals, and

executive."[93]

Some seven years after sounding this note, preparatory to a powerful

awakening of civil rulers, the Archbishop, having seen some beginning

of the results of that policy to which he was helping to hurry on his

Church, could say, "I must add that they who are rekindling the old

fires of religious discord in such an equal and tempered commonwealth

as ours, seem to me to be serving neither God nor their country."[94]

The language of O'Connell, as above quoted, was not employed loosely.

He spoke as a Catholic, and as a lawyer; but, above all, as a

politician. Had his declaration with regard to the spiritual power been

less explicit, that upon the temporal power might, though not without

violence, have been open to an Ultramontane interpretation. It might

have been said that he only meant that the Pope had no authority in

Ireland, which either directly or indirectly sprang from a temporal

origin; for, in the language of the Ultramontanes, temporal authority

does not mean authority over temporal affairs, but authority of

temporal origin. His statement on the spiritual authority however,

precludes any such interpretation. Even the spiritual authority

he declares to be limited, both in doctrine and in discipline: it

cannot "vary" doctrine, and cannot even vary the essential points of

discipline, without the consent of the Irish bishops. If spoken to-day,

this reserve in favour of the bishops would involve nationalism; and

O'Connell's denial of the Pope's infallibility, without the consent of

the bishops, would be heresy. Archbishop Manning, with a great many

others, sought to prove, before the Council sat, that the latter

position was proximate to heresy. So O'Connell and Montalembert must

always lie under the brand of having lived and died as proximate

heretics. The elect champion of the Pope's faith to-day may, if he

refuses to change, be the butt of his anathema to-morrow.

NOTE

DR. NEWMAN ON THE SYLLABUS

It was eight years after the Syllabus had been formally confirmed

by the Pope, and after its ratification by the collective hierarchy

had been officially communicated to the Papal clergy in England by

Archbishop Manning, that Dr. Newman treated of it in his letter to the

Duke of Norfolk, in reply to the "Expostulation" of Mr. Gladstone. The

assertions in that reply are among the most unaccountable known to the

history of our literature. Still, such as they are, they have been made

in a pamphlet bearing the name of an English duke on its title-page,

and that of an English gentleman at its end. Moreover, they were

received by our Press--and the fact is known throughout Europe--with

perfect gravity.

Dr. Newman (p. 78) asks and answers an important question as follows--

"Who gathered the propositions out of these Papal documents, and

put them together in one? We do not know." After no more than three

sentences he adds: "The Pope has had the errors, which at one time

or other he therein condemned, brought together into one, and that

for the use of the bishops." On the next page he asks: "Who is its

author? Some select theologian or high official, doubtless; can it be

Cardinal Antonelli himself? No, surely; anyhow, it is not the Pope."

First he tells us that we do not know who put it together, then that

the Pope has done it, or has had it done. Again, in the same manner,

he first tells us that it is not Cardinal Antonelli's, and then more

than once calls it Cardinal Antonelli's (p. 91), as if his authorship

of the document was an established point on which arguments might be

grounded. Dr. Newman in this manner procures for himself a double set

of premises, which he employs throughout, with frequent shifting. His

argument now assumes the affirmative, namely, that the Syllabus is the

work of the Pope; and now it assumes the negative, that the Syllabus is

not the work of the Pope; and this is what the English Press with, so

far as we know, unanimity agrees to call logical.

"But," asserts Dr. Newman, "the Syllabus makes no claim to be

acknowledged as the word of the Pope" (p. 80). The very heading of

the Syllabus sets up the claim to be accounted the word of the Pope;

ay, and his word in official, public, and teaching acts. The heading

is, "The Syllabus of the Principal Errors of our Time set forth in

Consistorial Allocutions, Encyclicals, and other Letters Apostolic, by

our most holy lord, Pope Pius IX." This claim is not incidental, but

formal and capital, incapable of being either overlooked or put aside.

No man's judgments are here introduced but those of Pope Pius IX, and

of his judgments not one here recited is less official than are Letters

Apostolic.

"The Syllabus, then," further asserts Dr. Newman, "has no dogmatic

force. It addresses us not in its separate portions, but as a whole"

(p. 81). The affirmative is true, the Syllabus addresses us as a whole.

The negative is not true, namely, that the Syllabus does not address us

in its separate portions.

Does Dr. Newman mean that there is a single one of the eighty

propositions which does not bear the Papal brand, "error"? It is very

wide of the mark--no man in England better knows _how_ wide of it--to

talk about different brands, some more and some less damnatory, such as

"heretical," "false," "impious," or the like.

"There is not a single word in the Encyclical to show that the Pope

in it is alluding to the Syllabus" (p. 82). This is said to refute

an allegation of Mr. Gladstone, which Dr. Newman calls "marvellously

unfair." That allegation is, that the Encyclical virtually, _though not

expressly_, includes the whole of the errors condemned. It will be seen

by any one who refers to our own remarks upon the Encyclical (pp. 5-7),

that had Mr. Gladstone read it as we do, he would not have written

what he did. He would have written instead of it something to this

effect, that the Encyclical includes the whole of these condemnations,

not by reciting them, but by clearly expressed reference. What he did

say, instead of being unfair, comes short of what is required by the

evidence contained in the documents. The reference in the one to the

other is formal. "In pursuance of our apostolic ministry, and walking

in the illustrious footsteps of our predecessor, we have lifted up our

voice, and in several published Encyclical Consistorial Allocutions,

and other Letters Apostolic, we have condemned the errors of our sad

times." This language proves that Mr. Gladstone in saying that the

whole of the Pope's condemnations were virtually though not expressly

included in the Encyclical, was within the limits of the evidence. They

are expressly referred to, and those additional ones contained in the

Encyclical itself are linked on to the previous ones as a complement,

making them a whole. In itself the point is of no consequence whatever,

but Dr. Newman has chosen to make it important, and for _his_ theory it

may have some importance.

"All we know," says Dr. Newman, "is that by the Pope's command this

collection of errors is sent by his Foreign Minister to the bishops"

(p. 78). That is not all we know. We also know that the Foreign

Minister did not, by the Pope's command, send it as the work of

Cardinal Antonelli. We know that he did send it as the work of Pope

Pius IX. We know that he recited in one and the same note, once for

all, the language common to the two documents. 1. As regards what is

condemned--"the principal errors of our times." 2. As to who it was

that condemned them--the Pope. 3. As to the official acts in which he

did condemn them, namely, Allocutions, and so on.

The next assertion we have to note is made in a strong interrogative

form. "How can a list of errors be a series of pontifical

declarations?" (p. 84). We reply, how can it be otherwise? What does

an error mean in the language of such a document? It means errors

declared to be such by the Pontiff; a list of such "errors," therefore,

is simply a list of pontifical declarations. Dr. Newman knows as well

as he knows his own name, that every clause of the Syllabus is a

pontifical declaration that the words there written express an error.

Alluding to the forty-second of the condemned propositions, namely,

that in the conflict of laws, civil and ecclesiastical, the civil law

should prevail, Dr. Newman says this is a universal, and the Pope does

but deny a universal. A universal may be denied in two ways. First by

its contradictory, which may amount only to saying in popular language

that the rule is not without exceptions. But there is another way of

denying a universal, namely, by its contrary; that is, asserting that

the rule is just the contrary of what some one has stated.

Now if Dr. Newman believes that when the Pope denies that, in case of

conflict, the civil law should prevail, the Pope means no more than

that there are exceptions to that rule, he believes what is in flat

contradiction to the whole tenor of the Pope's language, and that of

his organs year by year--language cast in forms as forcible as the

case admits of. If he does not mean that, his repeated statement about

denying universals is, in a technical sense, incorrect, and, in a

popular sense, misleading.

Dr. Newman's treatment of the Sentence (24) which condemns those

who say that the Church has not the right to employ force, is very

instructive. First, he says (p. 89), "Employing force is not the Pope's

phrase, but Professor Nuytz's." And what then? Is this phrase, "It is

an error to say the Church has not a right to employ force" Professor

Nuytz's or the Pope's? Next Dr. Newman says that what the Pope means

is, "It is an error to say with Professor Nuytz that what he calls

employing force is not allowable to the Church." And what then? What

does Professor Nuytz call force but force? Schrader translates it

"outward force." Dr. Newman does not venture so far as to translate it

"spiritual coercion." The whole sentence is about temporal power and

the use of force--_Vis inferendae--potestatem temporalem_; it never

glances at spiritual censures in the popular sense.

At the next step, Dr. Newman professes to "set down what the received

doctrine of the Church is on ecclesiastical punishments" (p. 89).

Does he do so, or make any straightforward attempt to do it? Not by

any means. "Ecclesiastical punishments" is a term of wide extension,

embracing great varieties of penalty, from the deposition of an Emperor

to the paltry penance of a nun. In all this range of inflictions, the

single point touched by Dr. Newman is that of corporal punishment. The

selection of this one point proves that he was perfectly aware that

both Nuytz and the Pope meant force when they said force; and this fact

reduces the talk about Nuytz's sense of that term to what it is.

But having selected corporal punishment as the whole of ecclesiastical

punishment, how does Dr. Newman set down the received doctrine

regarding it? By quoting a passage which, under the appearance of

surrendering something, really claims something additional, according

to a common usage with Papal writers (p. 89). Cardinal Soglia, as

quoted by Dr. Newman, makes a merit of giving up on behalf of the

Church "the corporal sword by which the body is destroyed, or blood is

shed." This, however, the Church _formerly_ never claimed to hold _in

her hand_, but _only in her power_ and _at her beck_, in the hand of

the temporal ruler. But, in giving up the corporal sword, Soglia is

not contented to claim for the Church in her own hand what the bull

_Unam Sanctam_ claims; that is, the spiritual sword. He does of course

claim that, but he further claims that the same hand should have and

hold also the corporal instalments "of lighter punishments," such as

imprisonment, flogging, and beating with sticks--anything "short of

effusion of blood." The last penalty is the stroke of the corporal

sword, and is left to the temporal arm. The Church did not in past time

claim two swords in her own hand, the spiritual one and the corporal.

She only claimed a spiritual sword according to Boniface VIII; and

according to Dr. Newman she claims also a cat, a cudgel, and a rack.

Neither in what he writes, nor in what he quotes, on this subject does

Dr. Newman allow even an allusion to appear to the question whether the

corporal sword is or is not _in the power_ of the Church. He cannot

be unaware that untrained Englishmen, in reading the statement of his

authority to the effect that the corporal sword is by some writers

withdrawn from the Church, would suppose that they taught that it is

not in her power. Dr. Newman knows that such an impression upon their

minds would be a false one. He knows that Cardinal Soglia does not give

any hint that the corporal sword is a weapon which the Church may not

employ. Dr. Newman himself does not give any such hint. To ordinary

readers, indeed, he seems to resent the assertion that she may employ

it; but even in seeming to resent it he does not venture to affirm

that she may not do so. Much less does he say, in plain English, that

such is the received doctrine. He engages us in chat about flogging

and thrashing, and forgets all about where his Church keeps her

corporal sword--the only one we care about. Not that we like even the

instruments of flogging and thrashing, much less the instruments of

other corporal pains which fall short of the "effusion of blood."

Dr. Newman, at one time, says that the Syllabus does not address us

in its separate portions; and at another, shows that every one of its

portions refers to an original document, in which that portion is to

be found. These documents, he admits, _are_ authoritative; but the

Syllabus, which culls out the really authoritative parts of them,

is not authoritative. We can hardly credit Dr. Newman with making a

distinction of the following sort: that one is to feel bound by the

Pope's judgments when they lie buried in a clumsy document, and not

feel bound by them when they have been culled out by himself, and put

simply before us. If Dr. Newman feels free to teach in opposition to

any one of the eighty sentences as read from the Syllabus, though bound

to teach according to it when read in the original document, what he

has written on the subject may have some kind of serious meaning for

himself, though incomprehensible to other people.

One other point we would notice. "When we turn to these documents which

_are_ authoritative," says Dr. Newman, "we find the Syllabus cannot

even be called an echo of the apostolic voice." We certainly do not

profess to find that it is so. It is an echo of a voice very unlike an

apostolic one. But Dr. Newman means the Pope's voice. Of that voice the

words in the Syllabus are not an echo, because they are its own words.

Dr. Newman says that, as uttered in the Syllabus, they are not an exact

reproduction of the words of the Pope; meaning by that, as found in the

original documents. The words in the Syllabus are the exact words of

the Pope used on a second occasion, and sometimes slightly varied from

those he originally did use.

Dr. Newman has a passage in his own history which is not to be

forgotten, and which ought to have made it difficult for him to stand

on points about a variation of language made by a Pope, objecting that

it impairs the authority of solemn documents.

There was a moment in the life of Dr. Newman when he still retained

the freedom of a Christian man to teach the Catholic faith, ancient,

strong and true. But he was on the point of parting with it--in the

very act of swearing away that blessed birthright of his soul. He had

already recited the form of sound words called the Nicene Creed, and

had come to the point where the plunge must be made from the rock of

Scripture, on which it builds, into the quicksands of tradition. In the

modern form of oath which, at that dark moment, he was venturing to

take upon his conscience, the first sentences, after parting from the

language of the Catholic Church, the first that are the work of Rome,

shift to another foundation from that laid under the old, scriptural,

abiding verities. The true and noble old words, "the life of the world

to come," built on the living Rock, are immediately succeeded by such

preparation for modern inventions as the following: "I most firmly

admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions, and the

other practices and statutes of the said Church. I do also admit the

Holy Scripture according to that sense which holy Mother Church has

held and does hold, to whom it belongs to judge as to the true sense

and interpretation of the Holy Scripture; nor shall I ever receive or

interpret it except according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers."

This new thing in a creed was said by the Pope to have been ordained by

the Council of Trent. If Dr. Newman had taken the trouble to see how

far the terms to which he had to swear were an "echo" of those of the

Council, he would have found that there was a discrepancy, considerable

in words, but, in practice, monstrous. The Council decreed that no one

should interpret Holy Scripture against the unanimous consent of the

Fathers. That decree was confirmed by the Pope. It had thus acquired

all the warrant of infallibility, and the most solemn guarantee for

being irreformable that Rome had it in her power to give. This decree

was "of faith." How long did it continue to be "of faith"? Only until

the Pope prepared his Bull, collecting the dogmatic decrees into a

novel creed. Then it was altered. The men who, henceforth, were to be

the priests of Rome found themselves called upon to take oath, not as

the Council willed it and worded it, that they would never interpret

Holy Scripture against the unanimous consent of the Fathers, but that

they would never interpret it except according to the unanimous consent

of the Fathers. This was another will and another wording altogether.

The latter amounts to little less than an oath that they would never

interpret it at all, except on very few points.

To make the scope of this alteration clearer, let us suppose the case

of Dr. Newman himself, while yet in the enjoyment of that ministry of

the English Church which he afterwards threw away. Had he then been

required not to preach anything contrary to the unanimous opinion

of the bench of bishops, he might have felt tolerably free. But had

he been required never to preach anything except according to the

unanimous opinion of the bench of bishops, he would have felt--Why, I

can hardly preach at all. Yet this vast change is made in a creed while

its articles are passing through the process of being culled from the

original documents, and presented in a collected form. In this form

it was imposed by oath upon the consciences of men for ever. One and

the same Papal hand signed its infallible certainty and irreformable

permanency in one shape, in a little time afterwards altered its tenor,

destroyed its certainty, reformed its scope, and then signed its

infallibility and its irreformable permanency in the new shape. And an

Englishman who swallows this camel in the creed stands between us and

the light, straining out a gnat that he says has got into the Syllabus.

But what is the real teaching, as to the use of physical force, of

Cardinal Soglia, who is soberly put forward by Dr. Newman before the

English public as justifying him in crying out against Mr. Gladstone

for accusing the Church of claiming the right to use force? Page

216: "The Church, exercising her power in the external tribunal, has

been long accustomed to chastise offenders even with prison, exile,

confinement in monasteries, whipping or flagellation, with fine, and

other similar penalties; which, inasmuch as they affect the body,

are commonly called corporeal." Page 219: "We affirm that in the

inherent authority of the Church, by which she can coerce offenders

with salutary penalties, is certainly contained the right of awarding

such temporal penalties as consist in fine, exile, prison, whipping,

and other things of the same kind." Page 222: "If a case occurs in

which severer punishment appears necessary, the ecclesiastical judge

may not himself resort to it, but he is to hand over the delinquent

to the secular power to be punished according to its will. Besides,

it is evident that the crime of heresy itself was brought under the

cognizance of the ecclesiastical tribunals up to the point when the

heretics, being convicted, and found obstinate, were first punished by

ecclesiastical censures, and afterwards, being subjected by the lay

power to capital penalty, were exterminated." Page 222: "The Church

never pronounced a sentence of blood. Even the Inquisition smote

heretics with the spiritual sword, and prison, but the lay princes

subjected them to the last capital penalty." Page 217: "Perhingius

believes that the Church does possess the right of inflicting capital

punishment, but that she is not accustomed to exercise it, or to

carry it out by ecclesiastical ministers and judges, but through lay

ones, and by means of the temporal power, because the latter is more

becoming, and more appropriate to the claims of the Church." What

follows would, by internal evidence, seem to be added by Vecchiotti,

but no intimation is given to that effect. Page 217: "He [Cardinal

Tarquini] held that there is no kind of penalty with which the Church

may not in her own right punish offenders; and thus temporal goods,

reputation, rights of office and of heritage, and life itself, are

subject to the ecclesiastical power. Otherwise the Church could not

compel disobedient rebels, or avenge herself for their crimes, nor

could she cut off rotten and noxious members from the body." Soglia, or

rather his continuator, speaking of the moderns, Tarquini and "other

doctors," and their doctrine of physical force, says (p. 217), "They

derive it from the character and constitution of the Church herself,

or from the nature of a perfect society and its end. Hence, just as in

a perfect civil society the right of execution _jus necis_ belongs to

the lay power for the good of the commonwealth and of the citizens,

so do they assert that none can deny that by stronger reason the same

right resides in the ecclesiastical power for the spiritual good of the

faithful."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 74: Acton's _Zur Geschichte_, pp. 13, 14.]

[Footnote 75: _Acta_ (Freiburg edition), p. 35.]

[Footnote 76: _Acta_ (Freiburg edition), p. 33.]

[Footnote 77: _Centenary of St. Peter_, p. 5.]

[Footnote 78: Serie VII. vol. vii. p. 587.]

[Footnote 79: _Acta_ (Freiburg edition), p. 34.]

[Footnote 80: _Centenary of St. Peter_, pp. 12, 13.]

[Footnote 81: _Acta_ (Freiburg edition), p. 36.]

[Footnote 82: _Frond_, i, p. 82.]

[Footnote 83: Eusebius' _Life of Constantine_, lib. ii. c. 5.]

[Footnote 84: Serie VII. vol. vii. p. 23.]

[Footnote 85: _Zur Geschichte_, p. 4.]

[Footnote 86: Serie VI. vol. xi. p. 165.]

[Footnote 87: Ibid. p. 234.]

[Footnote 88: _Centenary of St. Peter_, pp. 33, 34.]

[Footnote 89: _The Select Speeches of O'Connell._ Edited by his son,

1862. P. 447.]

[Footnote 90: Life prefixed to the _Lives of the Saints_, vol. i. p.

14. Ed. of 1836.]

[Footnote 91: _Centenary of St. Peter_, p. 38.]

[Footnote 92: Ibid. p. 34.]

[Footnote 93: _Centenary of St. Peter_, p. 95.]

[Footnote 94: _Vaticanism_, p. 155.]