In spite of these diversions, and the protests and assertions of

perfect unanimity made by the clerical writers, the indications which

had for some time been making themselves obscurely felt of a Court

party and an Opposition party, had at last emerged into painful

consciousness on both sides. The idea of a sovereign above any party

was too lofty for the place. One party, as we have seen stated by

Sambin, was Rome and her Pontiff, while the other was an opposition,

not against the opinions of Infallibilists, or the plans of a Cabinet,

but against the Sovereign. Both sides had been very reluctant to

acknowledge the reality of such antagonism, even long after its

existence began to be tolerably evident. The Curia had nursed the hope,

as we shall see, of all but unanimous adhesion to its preconcerted

plans. It reckoned on the ascendant of the Pope when in presence, on

that of the Sacred College, on the sympathy of numbers, the witcheries

of ceremony, the baits of promotion, and, if need should arise, on

wholesome fear.

On the other hand, even the prelates who most feared what was about

to be done, disliked the idea of being in opposition, not only to

the Curia, but to the Pontiff, and that on a personal question. They

flattered themselves, moreover, that the good feeling of the Pope would

lead him to moderate his prompters, and would not allow him to expose

bishops to difficulties with their flocks and their governments, which

they clearly foresaw. The men hoped that the general would modify his

plans, and would win the campaign by strategy, without forcing them

against stone walls.

Even before the opening, a painful feeling, according to Friedrich, had

seized upon some of the bishops, when studying the Rules of Procedure.

Fessler, he states, had told Dinkel, of Augsburg, that some dogmatic

Decrees would be forthcoming on the opening day. Yet not a hint had

been given as to what these Decrees might be; and such secrecy on

matters so solemn was taken ill.[223] So far as the Curia was preparing

a counter revolution, it acted only like any other political body in

keeping its plans hidden. But it was a different matter to make secret

preparations for effecting changes in a creed that men had taught until

they were grey-headed, and then to expect them to face the alternative

of either accepting the change or ruining their official prospects.

Scarcely had the opening session passed, when an address was signed by

fourteen French prelates and the powerful Croatian Bishop Strossmayer,

representing to the Pope in humble yet clear terms the danger of any

restraint on the liberty of the Council. They did not rise in their

places and move that the Council itself should frame its Rules of

Procedure; they did not even move to accept the Rules laid before it

in the Bull _Multiplices Inter_, with certain specified amendments.

Nothing short of this would have asserted the freedom of their

Assembly. On the contrary, like all men trained under absolutism,

they did not know how to maintain their inherited rights against

encroachment and at the same time to abide loyal and true; but

submitted, grumbling at their wrongs, and groping for some opening in

the wall which shut them in. Had they attempted to bring forward such

a motion as we have supposed, it would soon have been seen whether

the assertions were or were not true which were made by English and

American bishops about the Council being as free as the Senates of

their own nations. Any one attempting to make such a proposal would

have been informed that in the Pro-Synodal Congregation the Rules had

been issued as a Papal Bull, and that in the first session the forms

therein prescribed had been acted upon; so that those Rules, not being

an act of the Council, but of the Pope, were not subject to revision by

the Council; and, furthermore, that the Council had already practically

adopted them. In fine, the prelates stood to some ideal Council in some

such relation as we stand in to the Parliament; we cannot propose a

motion, but we can send in a petition. Yet our petition would go to the

House itself, not to the Cabinet. It would be named in the hearing of

the House, and noted on its records. The petition of the poor bishops

could not be presented in the Assembly, no trace of it is in the

_Acta_; its only open way was to the steps of the throne. It was never

answered, never mentioned in the official documents, and the faithful

who sought information in the accredited organs that rang with charges

of misrepresentation against worldly ones, never received a hint of any

such transaction.

"Unless the thoroughness of examination and the perfect freedom of

discussion are as clear as day," say the fifteen prelates, it is to be

feared that the effect will be to lower religion in public esteem and

to aggravate the troubles of the Church.[224] The first point on which

the petitioners fastened was the right of proposition. Yet, simple as

this right was, they had not the courage to claim it. Perhaps even they

were deceived, as Quirinus and many other writers evidently were,[225]

at the first glance, by the way in which the denial of that right was

veiled over in the Rules of Procedure. The mode of putting it is one

often employed in the documents of the Roman Court. When some serious

restriction is to be announced, you may find at first a sentence or

paragraph which conveys an impression of something different, perhaps

opposite to what is to be the conclusion. Indeed, practised Liberal

Catholics sometimes write as if with them it was a tacit canon of

interpretation that when in Jesuit teaching you find a principle

affirmed in the opening of a paragraph, that is the principle which

is to be rendered nugatory by qualifications ere you reach the close;

and when you find a principle disclaimed, that is the principle which,

under veils and covers, is to be set up.

In the Rules of Procedure the section on proposals did not say that

no Bishop should be permitted to propose anything in the Council,

which was the thing meant. To plainly say what was meant, would be to

copy the Tower of Babel, the wicked modern Parliament. The section

said that though the right of bringing forward proposals belonged to

the Pope alone, he wished the bishops freely to exercise it. This

sufficed to set many writing good news home. They did not wait to weigh

the following words. These showed that the right of proposition,

handsomely announced to the Fathers of the Council, was just the right

which everybody in the world possessed, that, namely, of forwarding a

suggestion to the Pope. Curiously enough, even that common right was

granted here only in a circuitous way, for the Pope himself named a

Commission to receive propositions from the bishops, to consider them,

and to report to him. If, after such report, he should wish any of

them to come before the Council, he would send them forward. Most of

the bishops, being unused to Parliamentary forms, began only by slow

degrees to realize the fact that thus they had no right of proposition

whatever. It was a good while before they became aware that they were

simply in the position of private people. Anybody in Rome, or in

Calcutta, could forward a suggestion to the Pope without going to a

Royal Commission.

The address of the fifteen bishops requests that authors of proposals

shall be admitted to a hearing before the Commission, and also that

the latter shall be required to assign reasons when it reports against

any proposal. But the bishops do not even ask leave to put their

suggestions upon the books. That would, at least, have given members

the right of letting their fellow members know what they wished to see

done. The idea of entering a notice of motion would of course have been

in that atmosphere not liberty but licence. They do, however, venture

to suggest that some members of the Commission might be elected by the

Council. They also point out that secrecy cannot be really maintained.

The address, as we have said, was not even answered.

Hergenröther, the writer on whose authority Cardinal Manning requires

us to rely, devotes some strength to this question. He begins by

affirming that in Trent there was no fixed order. His proof for that

assertion is that there is no written Code of Procedure, the record

showing only the course actually followed from time to time. He also

asserts that the bishops in the Vatican Council _had perfect liberty_

of proposition. He moreover informs those who learn from such as he,

that in all great assemblies the right of the President includes that

of proposition, at least so far as to give him the decision, as to the

order in which the proposals are taken.[226] Hergenröther, moreover,

affirms that Friedrich wished to deny the right of proposition

to the Pope--a blunder arising from not distinguishing between a

right and an exclusive right. The Directing Congregation made a

distinction as singular as was this failure to distinguish on the

part of Hergenröther. It held that the Pope had the direct right of

proposition, and the bishops the indirect right. But the fact was that

they had no right of proposing to the Council whatever. They had no

right beyond that of making a suggestion to the Pope, which, we repeat,

anybody in the world could do; the only difference being that the one

suggestion went before a Royal Commission, while the other did not.

The Directing Congregation had been first of all inclined to let

the Fathers choose a committee of their own, but finally determined

that the Pope himself should appoint a commission. This was an

arrangement open to objections which even they did not wholly fail

to see; but the Court historian finds a perfect answer by saying

that if a good proposal should rest unheeded the author of it would

have the satisfaction of having done his duty, and he must trust to

divine Providence, which would never fail the Church.[227] Clouds of

words were raised about this simple matter. The Catholics made solemn

asseverations that the bishops had as perfect liberty of proposition as

the members of any public body. The Liberal Catholics protested that

they had not. They were cried down as slanderers.

Hefele, a learned German, gave confused and even contradictory advice

as a consulter; first contending that the bishops should have a right

of proposition, and then suggesting the very arrangements finally

adopted. Sanguineti, a Roman consulter, plainly stated what was to be

aimed at, namely, that the Pope alone should have the right of public

proposition, leaving to the bishops what he calls the right of private

proposition; as the directing Congregation calls it, of indirect

proposition, or, as we call it, of suggestion.[228]

The result, then, was that the bishops could not bring in any

substantive motion, could not move for a subject to be taken into

consideration, could not put a notice of motion on the books, could

not move an amendment on what the President proposed, could not move

the previous question, could not move to decline taking the matter

into consideration, could not move to postpone it. All that they could

do was to speak to what the President proposed, to send suggested

amendments before a committee, and finally to vote Yea or Nay upon the

question, in the form into which that committee ultimately put it.

No minutes of proceedings were printed, or even read day by day. No

knowledge was allowed to speakers even of the reports taken of their

own speeches; no sight of the reported speeches of others.

Notwithstanding all this, bishop after bishop returned from the Council

to denounce in pastorals those who had said that they had not the

liberty of proposition. Even our English tongue had to make itself the

vehicle of such statements for two mighty nations. Bishop bore witness

to bishop, and they were true and all men were liars. Archbishop

Manning told how bishops "of the freest country in the world" had _said

truly_, "The liberty of our Congress is not greater than the liberty

of the Council."[229] We fear that American bishops might have quoted

similar declarations from English ones. It is for members of Congress

and of Parliament to judge.

_La Liberté du Concile_ is a tract which, Friedrich says, if not

written by Darboy, was inspired by him.[230] Only fifty copies were

printed during the Council, for distribution exclusively among the

Cardinals, and with the strictest injunctions of secrecy. The whole

is given in the _Documenta ad Illustrandum_.[231] It is introduced by

an article from the _Moniteur_ of the 14th February, 1870. One of its

earliest sentences compresses the secret history of Cecconi into a few

words. "The first unhappy thought, and that from which the Council now

suffers, was the wish, so to speak, to make the Council beforehand,

and to make it without the bishops." It is right to mention that M.

Veuillot says that this writer recounts ill, reasons worse, and draws

inferences worst of all.[232]

For two years, complains this writer, the bishops had been refused

any programme. They had not been afforded any possibility of studying

questions about to be raised, or of preparing themselves to discuss

them.[233] It would seem that the writer did not know that the

preparations had extended over five years instead of two. He says

that the Council had not made its Rules of Procedure; the Pope had

imposed them. It had not chosen one of its officers, not even a

scrutineer; the Pope had selected them all beforehand. The reason

for the restraints imposed on the liberty of the bishops was stated

by M. Veuillot as being to take away the liberty of evil, which the

writer considers an insult to the bishops. We may remark that this

is a principle which, had it been acted upon by the great government

above us all, would have precluded every question as to the origin of

evil. This tract affirms that the Commission for Proposals was composed

exclusively of declared partisans of the Court. That statement is not

quite accurate. Rauscher was a mighty instrument of the Curia in its

ordinary aggressions on the civil power, but too sensible to approve

of its present projects. Cardinal Corsi also, though at last he voted

with the majority, was all along reputed as averse to the definition

of infallibility. The next complaint is that the Committees for the

important subjects of Dogma, Discipline, the Religious Orders, and

Oriental affairs, are permanent, chosen once for all, and chosen by a

strictly party vote, excluding every Fallibilist. Thus, is it urged,

only ninety-six bishops out of nearly eight hundred would ever know

anything of those real deliberations which principally determine the

results of the Council. These Committees would have to decide upon all

alterations to be made in Drafts of Decrees after the first Drafts

had been discussed by the bishops generally. They would have the sole

responsibility of bringing them forward in the definitive shape in

which they must be voted upon, Yea or Nay. Thus, he repeats, seven

hundred out of eight hundred are absolutely excluded from a share, at

any time whatever, in the most important operations of the Council. The

indignation of the author would not have been lessened had he known

that this particular point had been carefully weighed by the Nine.

They at first resolved to allow the Council to elect, as had been done

at Trent, committees for each particular matter as it arose. It was,

however, subsequently foreseen that this regulation might open the way

to the election of men who were not safe. After a discussion, a man

who had displayed ability in treating the matter in hand might be

elected on the committee for that reason alone! If, on the other hand,

committees were chosen once for all, it would be easy to secure the

exclusion of wrong names in that one election, and no opportunity of

changing them would ever arise.[234]

The writer of _La Liberté du Concile_ proceeds to say that a number

of bishops urgently requested the Pope, in order to ensure a wise

selection of these all-controlling committees, to direct that the

Fathers should be divided into groups, and should in these discuss

pending questions separately, on the plan adopted in the _Bureaux_ of

the French and Italian Chambers. Thus the Fathers, who for the most

part were perfect strangers to one another, would in a little time

learn who were the capable men, and would be in a position to make

a proper selection. This appeal, probably the one we have already

mentioned, was not even answered.

The lords of wide dioceses, accustomed to rule their clergy with

military authority and to face statesmen with considerable pretensions,

were now reduced to struggle for very small liberties. They attempted

to form themselves into groups, by nation or by language. So far as

the French were concerned, this arrangement failed. Each of their two

Cardinals, De Bonnechose and Matthieu, received a group in his own

house. Cardinal De Bonnechose would not consent that all the French

bishops should meet together. Even when they divided, he went for

advice to Antonelli, who intimated that they ought not to meet in

_larger groups than fifteen or twenty_. The effect of all this was,

that when the time for making arrangements for the election of the

committees came, they had no concert among themselves; and the writer

states that after that election, the annoyances confronting Cardinal

Matthieu were so great, that he felt obliged for a time to leave Rome.

Hereupon the bishops who had previously met at his house resolved to go

to that of Cardinal De Bonnechose, who had, for once, to receive them;

but he again consulted Antonelli, and declared that this first general

meeting should also be the last.

The bishops desired to select the best men of their own nation to be

nominated as members of the permanent committees. The Curia, however,

had provided for all that. The "ticket" of Cardinal De Angelis, as

it would be called in America, was the counter move. The German and

Hungarian bishops had shown more cohesion than the French. They met

together, and made a selection of the principal men from their own

number; but that resulted in nothing. The Curia had selected those

whom it preferred, setting aside the men who stood high with their

fellow-countrymen, and putting forward those who with them would

have had no chance. An official list was prepared bearing the name

of Cardinal De Angelis. Of course the bishops _in partibus_, the

missionary bishops, and all the mere dependents of the Court, voted

for the official list; and thus the whole of the four permanent

committees were composed, as the secret preparatory commission had

been, exclusively of the nominees of the Curia. The Jesuit Press

gloried over this result. M. Veuillot said that the Committee on Faith

was an echo of the great commission appointed by the Pope. Sambin

recorded the triumph, with satisfaction, for permanent history. The

result showed that the Court could count on about 550 votes.[235] De

Angelis was appointed to the vacant post of Chief President, in room

of Reisach. Cardinal Schwarzenberg was not on any committee, Hohenlohe

was out of the question. Even the Archbishop of Cologne was only on a

petty committee for granting leave of absence. But Bishop Senestrey,

of Regensburg, the author of the throne-upsetting speech, was on the

all-important committee for dogma.

This manoeuvre excited strong indignation amongst all shades of

the marked men. They found themselves shut off from such a part in

deliberations as would have been granted by any worldly cabinet to an

honourable Opposition. Then, the mode of securing the result by the

expedients of a political election caused bitter recollections of

frequent admonitions, given both verbally and in the Press, not to

reason about the Council as an ordinary human assembly, but to evince

a worthy confidence in the all-guiding power of the Holy Ghost. The

_Rheinischer Merkur_ remarked that the Romans had a saying, that at

the beginning of a conclave the devil reigns, then the world carries

all before it, and only at the last does the Holy Ghost turn both out

and regulate things according to His own will. This genuine specimen

of Roman mockery is applied to the Council by the _Merkur_ saying that

as yet the third stage had certainly not set in.[236] The selection,

said the _Merkur_, of committees was one-sided and narrow-minded.

The Archbishop of Paris and the Bishop of Orleans saw themselves

thrown aside, and nominal bishops put in the places they ought to

have occupied. The German bishops, who had strongly confided in the

moderation of the Curia, found that no amount of trimming would avail;

nothing short of a sound profession on the question of infallibility.

Vitelleschi says that the clearest, most sincere and disinterested

opposition was that of the German bishops. They knew what they meant,

and also knew that they expressed the collective sense of their people;

besides, they always acted with moderation. He ascribes this moderation

to two causes, namely, the fact that they consciously did express the

views of their people, and that they were, more or less, influenced

by Protestant modes of thinking. We confess that we see little proof

that any German bishops but the Curialistic ones were clear. We should

rather have said that they were at sea. As to the moderation, however,

Vitelleschi adds that no such moderating influence of Protestant

opinion appeared in the case of the English prelates. "Several bishops,

with Manning at their head, more Catholic than the Pope, are noted for

their Ultramontanism" (p. 45). He adds, that even the Irish bishops

were less uniformly Infallibilists than the English. Of the Belgians,

he says that some naturally took the more liberal direction. De Mérode,

well known in Rome as a Court prelate, placeman, and speculator,

like Dupanloup, had been a champion of the temporal power, but now

proved to be an anti-infallibilist. _Et tu, Brute, fili mi!_ exclaims

the Roman. As to the Spaniards, Vitelleschi says that they had been

trained in the school of Torquemada; and if they were content with

being only Ultramontanes, that was something gained. These are the

divines of whom Quirinus says that if ordered by the Pope to vote that

there were four persons in the Trinity, they would do it. Vitelleschi

remarks that the prelates of the United States were simpler than their

brethren, and less practised in ecclesiastical politics. Their want of

any political importance at home, he believes, had predisposed them to

warmer sympathy with Curialistic views than might have been expected

from them. Nevertheless, it proved in time that, under the forms of

ecclesiastical discipline, the spirit of citizens of a free country did

now and then make its appearance among them. Another of his remarks is,

that, with the exception of Portugal, most of the bishops from small

countries were in the interest of the Curia. Speaking of Mermillod,

from Geneva, Quirinus says that he "rivals Manning in his fanatical

zeal for the new dogma." Of course the Italian bishops, with very few

exceptions, were Infallibilists, and those from South America were all

upon the same side. The bulk of the Opposition bishops were German,

Hungarian, and French, reinforced by some of the older ones from

Ireland, a few of the English, a good many of the North American, and

only about twenty of the entire body of the Italian.

The various groups had now everything to stimulate them to put their

proposals into shape. Those of the Curia were in shape already. They

naturally took the old direction of conforming the creed to innovations

in practice. At Trent this was done with many innovations, which must

either fall into discredit or be lifted above dispute. In this way was

the demand for a reform of the Church to raise her to the level of the

creed, met by a determination to bring down the creed to the level of

the Church. The two movements were confronted. Reformation, on the

one side, renovating the condition of the Church; and Conformity, on

the other side, adulterating the creed. Both together resulted in the

wide separation which has been witnessed ever since. The necessity now

pressing sprang from different causes. No party had arisen to challenge

the primacy of the Pope, even in the form of all but unlimited

monarchy, into which, under cover of the gentle word "primacy," it had

been monstrously developed. On the contrary, indeed, of late years

the faithful had shown increasing submissiveness, proportioned to the

dangers surrounding the Pope. But the Papacy itself was moving for

constitutional powers which demanded a new dogmatic basis.

In comparison with the magnificence of the scheme of one fold and one

shepherd, the notions of the German bishops, as disclosed by Friedrich,

are an illustration of how administrators putter when immense issues

press for solution. While the architects were designing a new coliseum,

the joiners and stone-cutters were great upon cusps and corbels. In

answer to the seventeen questions issued in Rome at the centenary of

St. Peter, the German bishops had deliberated at Fulda for five days.

Marriage, as a mine yielding richly to the local authorities in fees,

and to the Curia in dispensation taxes, and also as a means of power

over females, and over the education of children, was naturally one of

the main points. Another point included the offences for which parish

priests should be liable to deposition. On this the bishops advised the

addition of two offences to the list--notorious fornication and open

concubinage.

Hints were thrown out about abolishing all benefices, as they were

said to be feudal. The clergy could not be fully mobilized but by the

abolition of permanent appointments. The whole effect of the questions

was to bring out the existence in Germany of too great toleration of

intercourse with Protestants; intercourse to a degree not consistent

with the militant footing on which things were to be put. This applied

to christenings, weddings, burials, and other events of life, where

the milk of human kindness sometimes will overflow, and men will

forget that they belong to a society which scarcely regards those who

are not of it as morally entitled to existence. The bishops naturally

desired that the number of _causae majores_, or reserved cases, should

be curtailed, as that would increase their own freedom and power. They

also expressed a wish that censures should not be enforced against

Catholic judges who found themselves obliged to pronounce sentences

adverse to the canon law. This they advised in order to avoid the

exclusion of Catholics from the judicial bench. They moreover suggested

that unreasonably contracting debts and habitual drunkenness should be

added to the list of causes warranting the removal of a priest. They

did touch a few minute points of a properly religious kind, connected

with the forgiveness of sins, ordination, and other questions.

Friedrich remarks that these ideas tended to the omnipotence of the

bishops by sacrificing the parish priests. This object, however, was

a natural complement of the sacrifice of the bishops to the Curia.

If the bishop is himself an absolute dependent on the Court, all his

subordinates must be left to his mercy. The Curia knew how to lure on

the bishops to the forfeiting of their own franchises, by using their

love of power against the franchises of the priests.

Friedrich gravely says that the movableness of the parish priests would

not cure the moral evils complained of. It is not by outward correction

that a man becomes morally better, but by the ennobling of the inner

man, which, alas! is so little aimed at among the clergy. When a French

bishop can say in the Senate, "My clergy are a regiment; they are bound

to march, and they do march," he only shows how the Christian spirit

has evaporated from among the hierarchy. A few weeks before Friedrich

left home he had conversed with Döllinger upon the seventeen questions,

and he says that they were the only points respecting the Council

on which they did converse together. What the aged provost said,

observes Friedrich, will always remain in my memory. "On one occasion,

Windischmann remarked in my presence and that of others, 'If I was

compelled to answer according to the contents of the ordinary's book,

whether celibacy should be abolished or not, I should have to speak

unconditionally for its abolition.'"

We have seen, in a previous chapter, that some of the lower clergy had

indicated plans of considerable range, but they pointed in a direction

in which Rome was incapable of going. Great attention was attracted by

a project, appearing with the name of a learned layman in Switzerland,

Dr. Segesser.[237] His charter had no less than twelve points, which

are well worth a moment's notice.

1. He held that the Church, in having, for the first time in her

history, declined to invite the co-operation of governments with the

Council, must now declare for the separation of Church and State.

2. The Council must be a Reform Council in the fullest sense of the

word.

3. It must certify the freedom of its members to the world.

4. It must be declared that all who believe in the redeeming work of

Christ belong to the Christian communion.

5. No dogma must be added unless urgently called for, not only by

theologians, but by the faithful.

6. The primacy being divine, but the Papacy being only a joint product

of Roman jurisprudence and theology, the dogma of the pontifical

infallibility of the Pope, which would lead back to theocratic ideas,

would set the Church and State on a war of mutual annihilation.

Therefore it is the absolute duty of the Church to declare herself

completely released from the theocratic ideas of the great Popes of the

middle ages.

7. The question of infallibility must not be passed over in silence,

but must be solemnly declared to be in opposition to the right idea of

the constitution of the Church.

8. In mixed questions, such as those of the Church and State, laymen

should have some voice.

9. The temporal power must be treated as a local Roman institution,

and not confounded with the affairs of the universal Church.

10. Freedom of teaching, of organization, and of worship, and equality

with all other communions, must be proclaimed; and the Church would

do well if she gave up all claim to the immunity of her property, and

placed it entirely under the control of the common law.

11. The Index to be given up.

12. We give this in full: "The Christian State was a great ideal, but a

yet greater is a State of Christians. To attain to the last the Church

must not domineer, but must possess freedom, and give it."

The language of this Liberal Catholic, brought up among German

Protestants on the one hand and Swiss ones on the other, would sound

altogether alien to the ears of the Cardinals, and would only deepen

their painful impression of the evil influences of Protestant teaching

upon the children of the Church. Enough occurred at the Council to show

that, even among the bishops, there were one or two who would have

dared to propose some of the points in Dr. Segesser's scheme, had the

members of the Council been permitted to make proposals.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 213: _Acta Sanctae Sedis_, vol. v. p. 279.]

[Footnote 214: Ibid. p. 18.]

[Footnote 215: The popular explanation "hinge" is quite correct; the

ancient hinge was a pivot inserted in a mortise, on which the door

turned.]

[Footnote 216: Compare _Quirinus_, 86, and _Tagebuch_, 25.]

[Footnote 217: _Stimmen_, N.F., vi. p. 170.]

[Footnote 218: Id., p. 172.]

[Footnote 219: _Sambin_, p. 41.]

[Footnote 220: VII. ix. 6.]

[Footnote 221: _Civiltá_, VII. ix. 103.]

[Footnote 222: The first number of the _Civiltá_ for 1876 (p. 104)

contains an account of an audience in which the Pope made a speech to

pilgrims from Brittany. Among other things, calling to mind how, on

the day of Pentecost, the mockers said that the disciples were full of

new wine, he went on to say that there were not wanting leaders of the

revolution shameless enough to call by such names as a gang of topers

the "respectable and truly Christian youths who, forsaking domestic

comfort, came to expose themselves even to blood in defence of this

holy see." Liverani, as Canon of Santa Maria Maggiore, lamented his

good opportunity, as living near barracks, of estimating the Christian

virtues of the "OEcumenical Army." He says very hard things of them;

and as to drunkenness makes no scruple of describing the Irish members

of the force, in particular, as being not unmindful of home traditions

that are no rule of faith, and a bad rule of practice.]

[Footnote 223: _Tagebuch_, pp. 13, 14.]

[Footnote 224: _Documenta ad Ill._, Ab. II, p. 380. The exact date is

not given, but only as "before the 10th of December."]

[Footnote 225: See _Quirinus_, p. 62.]

[Footnote 226: The statement of this writer is no worse than that

of many bishops made in pastorals. It is this: _Den Bischöfen war

vollständig ein Propositionsrecht zugestanden, welches nur der Controle

der dafür be stimmten Deputation unterlag, ähnlich wie das auch zu

Trient geschehen war_.--_Katholische Kirche und Christlicher Staat_, p.

50.]

[Footnote 227: _Cecconi_, p. 162.]

[Footnote 228: _Cecconi_, p. 160. Hefele, when recommending that the

bishops should have the right of proposition, quotes what occurred at

the Council of Trent, when the Archbishop of Capaccio-Vallo, on May

10, 1546, repelled the claim of the Legate, Cardinal De Monte, to the

exclusive right of proposition. The Archbishop cried, "What am I to

do if anything occurs to me which ought to be proposed in this holy

Council?" To this De Monte replied, that if either his Grace or any

other prelate wished to propose anything, they must submit it to the

Legates, who would bring it forward, if they thought well. But should

the latter unjustly, or without cause, refuse to bring it forward,

then the author, whoever he was, should himself do so. But Hefele does

not point to the fact that De Monte made this concession only after

being driven to it by force of opposition. Earlier in the very same

day, he had asserted the exclusive right of the Legates to propose,

and had been confronted by the Cardinal Archbishop of Trent with the

plump declaration that he did not want to take the right of proposition

from the Legates, but he thought he also might propose what seemed to

him right. Then the Legate and the Cardinal, who had been for some

time engaged in a passage of arms, apologised to one another. That,

however, did not prevent De Monte from again attempting to establish

the claim of the chair to the exclusive right of proposition, by once

more asserting it. It was on this second attempt that the Archbishop of

Capaccio-Vallo reclaimed, and then the Legate had, with ill grace, to

give way. (See _Acta Genuina_, vol. i. pp. 100, 101.)]

[Footnote 229: _Priv. Pet._, Part III. p. 32.]

[Footnote 230: _Doc. ad Ill._ ii. p. vi.]

[Footnote 231: I. 129.]

[Footnote 232: I. p. 275.]

[Footnote 233: This complaint is ably put in the _Rheinischer Merkur_,

first number.]

[Footnote 234: _Cecconi_, pp. 181, 182.]

[Footnote 235: _Acton_, 68.]

[Footnote 236: Vol. I. p. 2.]

[Footnote 237: Reviewed in the _Literaturblatt_, vol. v. p. 157.]

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.

Authors differ as to the actors in an incident which marked the second

General Congregation, on December 14. Quirinus and Fromman say that

Darboy and Strossmayer (Friedrich says that Dupanloup and Strossmayer)

attempted to speak on the Rules of Procedure, but were stopped by

Cardinal De Luca, on the ground that what the Holy Father had decreed

could not be discussed. The official writers at the time said not a

word of the incident, nor is it named in the _Acta Sanctae Sedis_, nor

in _Frond_.

Thus the bishops had now ascertained their position, but too late.

Quirinus naturally says that had the assembly been, in some measure,

prepared for the Rules, there would have been opposition; but good care

had been taken that the assembly should not be prepared, and should

not have any chance of offering opposition. The first gleam of hope,

adds this author, excited by the announcement that the bishops would

be allowed to propose measures, had speedily vanished. Lord Acton says

(p. 63): "The bishops felt themselves in an entangled position. Some

began to speak of going home. Some complained that the Rules foreclosed

questions involving divine rights, and said that they felt bound to put

even the existence of the Council to stake."

The election of the Permanent Committee on Dogma was the great work of

the day. Archbishop Kenrick's Latin note[238] states that lithographed

lists were distributed some days before the election, with the

inscription, _To the honour of Mary, conceived Immaculate_; and that

these lists were recommended by the name of Cardinal De Angelis. Four

hundred of the votes sent in gave the list entire. It was by these

tactics that every Fallibilist, without exception, was excluded from

the committees. But Canon Pelletier, who wrote what in _Frond_ passes

for the history of the Council and is a good history of the ceremonies

and the dresses, declares that the election proved the perfect freedom

of the Fathers, for though all the names on the official list were

chosen, they were not brought in according to the order in which they

stood on that list. The French prelates of the minority were especially

incensed, both against their leaders and against those whose superior

tactics had frustrated their unskilful attempts to unite. Every

Frenchman felt that all who represented the traditions and the spirit

of the Roman Catholic Church in France were now, in Rome, placed under

a species of ostracism. The Fathers left this exciting sitting with

another Bull in their hands. Again Letters Apostolic to the present!

The _Acta Sanctae Sedis_ affirm that the work of preparing this Bull

could not be got through in time to send it to the Fathers before the

Council. Its title was gentle. It was a Bull to Limit the Censures of

the Church. Quirinus mentions a mission undertaken by Cardinal Pitra,

a Frenchman, with the intention of bringing the prelates of his own

country into accord with the Curia. This he followed up by a similar

attempt with the German bishops. Pitra began by describing Dupanloup to

the latter as "a mischievous teacher of error," but he was stopped, and

told that the Germans agreed with Dupanloup.

A favourite topic of conversation now was the chance of disorganizing

the Opposition. The first checks appeared to have had the effect of

consolidating it, but the resources of the Court were generally assumed

to be efficacious. Over and over again was it asserted that the hope

of a robe of some distinguishing hue, or of a title on the list of

domestic prelates of the Pope, would win over almost any bishop, an

assertion which proved not to be correct.[239] Quirinus, in common with

German writers generally, speaks of the honour of being on that list

as one that ought to be coveted rather by menials than by dignitaries;

and Italians may often be heard saying much the same thing. Again,

faculties enabling a bishop to give absolution, or dispensations, in

certain reserved cases, yield to him both power and fees. "Nine bishops

out of ten want favours"--an assertion of Quirinus--seems bold, but it

was written in Rome.

The Bull professing to limit the censures of the Church, was found

to be another case of a winning title to a dreadful document. The

censures with which it dealt were only a portion out of Rome's store,

those, namely, under which one falls by the very act of committing

the offence, without any need of trial or sentence. They are called

offences _Latae Sententiae_, or judged already. He that confesses to

one such act is, _ipso facto_, excommunicate, or, in the less heinous

cases "suspended." The Bull, as we have said, professed to limit the

number of these cases; many of which represent multitudes in all Roman

Catholic countries, who must either shun the confessional, knowing that

in that tribunal they are judged already, or must go to it to find

themselves pronounced outside of the kingdom of grace, and incapable of

restoration except by special powers granted from Rome, which always

imply special fees.

It was freely said, This is a re-issue of the Bull _In Coena Domini_,

the terrible syllabus of excommunications, at one time annually

published; a custom which had ceased since the days of Clement XIV.

This cessation was often cited as indicating greater mildness in

the spirit of the Roman Court. In the new Bull _Apostolicae Sedis_

these excommunications reappeared. They were under different heads.

Three classes were reserved to bishops, so that no ordinary priest

could release from them. Twenty-nine classes were reserved to the

Pontiff, so that no bishop could release from them. Four classes were

not reserved to any one.[240] Some bishops declared that they found

excommunications here of which they had never been aware up to that

moment. Vitelleschi said that if some found in old books were omitted,

the Bull re-enacted all of the penal code of the Church that was

in force. According as men looked at this document, from a fiscal,

hierarchical, or monarchical point of view, their appreciation of

it varied. Beyond excommunicating all heretics and heretical books,

with the readers, abettors, and so forth, it dealt with few matters

which any true theologian would not gladly banish from his bounds, as

trespassers.

The hierarchical aspect of the Bull was striking. More than one of its

sections pronounced excommunication upon the sin of appealing from

any act of the Pope to a future General Council. This was the mortal

blow to the doctrine that a Council could judge, and even depose, the

Pope, as Councils had done. Being issued in the face of a General

Council actually sitting, no alternative remained but that of conflict

between the Council and the Pope, or else final abandonment of this

once vigorous doctrine. The defiant crowings of the Gallican cock were

for ever hushed by this one grip in the claws of the Vatican eagle.

This Bull, as compared with the action of the Council of Constance,

which deposed two Popes and itself elected one, served to measure the

decline of the episcopal and the growth of the pontifical power in the

Church. Many of the bishops were old enough to have maintained the

doctrine that the Council was above the Pope, against Protestants,

who innocently accused all Roman Catholics of being Papists. If any

one of them thought of standing by the old flag, what was he to do?

To put a notice of motion on the books? That was not permitted. To

send a suggestion to the Twenty-six? It might as well go into his own

wastepaper basket as into theirs. To speak upon the point? That would

be out of order, for bishops were to speak only on matters proposed,

and nothing was to be proposed but what the Pope proposed. Moreover,

even if in speeches irrelevant matter should be allowed, such matter as

that now contemplated would be at once pronounced rebellion. It would

be an attempt to discuss what the Holy Father had already decreed.

Thus the question of the relative judicial powers of the single Bishop

of Rome, and of all the other bishops of the world collectively, was

settled by an arbitrary sentence, uttered in the face of all the

bishops assembled in conclave; and their assembly, though called a

General Council, had no liberty to canvass the decision!

It was a hard dilemma for a man to be placed in who had a sense either

of human rights or of a divine office to defend. But the hand of power

was over the bishops. No man who opposed even embryo Decrees could

ever reasonably hope for a hat; and he who should venture to attack a

Bull actually issued must expect to see his mitre reduced to an empty

dignity by the withdrawal of his faculties. So the bishops saw a Bull

which "thrust the souls entrusted to them by thousands out of the

Church"; and what could they do? "The more excommunications, the more

perplexed and tormented consciences," cries Quirinus--reminding us

of what might often be heard in the old times from thoughtful men in

Rome. The whole effort of the priests, they would say, is to keep the

conscience in agony, or at least in unrest; for this drives people to

the confessor, and hence no end of gains.

A diplomatist regarded the political aspects of the Bull as

serious.[241] Excommunicating men for an appeal to a General Council

was, as he took it, both the forerunner and the application of the

dogma of infallibility. Excommunicating all who should punish bishops,

or higher officers of the Church, without making an exception for

any breach whatever of law, and, moreover, excommunicating any who,

directly or indirectly, should obstruct the execution of Papal

mandates, were not only blows but stabs at all civil authority. The

diplomatist argued that the way in which the Pope abolished privileges

granted by his predecessors was a poor pledge of the value of any

engagements into which the Papacy might enter. The diplomatist ought to

have known that the immunity of the clergy from lay jurisdiction was an

essential part of the restoration to be accomplished. He ought also to

have known that "the free communication" of the Pope with the faithful,

or his right to promulge in all countries his decrees as their highest

law, was equally essential. The excommunication, not only of heretics,

but of all who should harbour or defend them, ay, or should even read

their books, led Vitelleschi to raise a question for young theologians,

whether the Pope has not excommunicated himself and his own government,

seeing he had done more than harbour heretics in an inn, by allowing

them a church outside the _Porta del Popolo_.

The Bull, said some, is only one of a series of measures to be framed,

assuming the infallibility of preceding Popes. The dispute as to Bulls

which taught any dogma in theology or morals must for ever end. The

very points which Liberal Catholics had alleged to be without binding

force must be beyond appeal bound on earth, and of course ratified in

heaven. A little circumstance not without significance was the fact

that, in publishing this document, the _Civiltá_ did not, as it usually

does with official documents, furnish a translation of the Latin; and

the _Stimmen_, for Germany, followed the example.

In Germany or other Protestant countries an unfavourable impression

might be taken of the means to be resorted to for restoring Papal

ascendancy when, in the terrible category of offences judged already,

without power to remit the sentence being _reserved to any one_,

even to the Vicar of God, were found the following deeds, which many

Christians would do with as cool a sense of duty as that with which

under slavelaws they would have befriended a fugitive slave: "Injuring

or intimidating Inquisitors, informers, witnesses, or other ministers

of the Holy Office; tearing up or burning the papers of its sacred

tribunal; or giving to any of the aforesaid aid, counsel, or favour."

If the day ever comes for attempting to put this law in force on the

now happy soil of England, blessed among her sons or daughters will

that one be who first has grace to endure the torments of the Holy

Office rather than not break the wicked law!

The fiscal bearing of the Bull would be the one first to strike and

most to occupy the Romans. Among men of the different orders, it

would occasion many a chat over questions of sin, sacraments, crime,

communion, dispensation, remission, and redemption from purgatory, and

of the fees flowing from each respectively. Quirinus represents the

Jesuits as beholding both the present and the future in rosy hues. The

bishops would not be able to give absolution in the reserved cases, but

the Jesuits, in very many of them, would have _plenary power_. Hence

the bishops and the parochial clergy would suffer both in fees and

influence, while the confessionals of their powerful rivals would be

thronged. "So, each of those multiplied excommunications is worth its

weight in gold to the Order, and helps to build colleges and professed

houses."[242] Against the complaints which greeted the Bull, the

_Civiltá_ alleged that it contained nothing new, and above all that it

had been posted up in the customary places in Rome, and was therefore

already the law of the Church universal. It was, on the other hand,

boldly alleged that there were many new cases of suspension, interdict,

or excommunication. Cardinal Antonelli, however, said that there were

three hundred excommunications which were not included in the Bull.

Lord Acton (p. 70) quotes a passage from the organ of the Archbishop of

Cologne, which shows that a good many more will have to be added before

all actions are placed under perfect control. The Bull, it is said,

does not prohibit "the works of Jews, since Jews are not heretics; nor

does it prohibit heretical pamphlets and journals, for these are not

books; nor is the hearing of heretical books when read aloud forbidden,

since hearing is not reading."

Some doubt hangs round the feeling of Cardinal Antonelli as to the

Council. It was often asserted that he had been opposed to it from

the first, and was still decidedly so. This seems very probable. A

worldly-wise man, capable of amassing a colossal fortune amid the ruins

of a petty State, was hardly likely to believe that the _à priori_

fabric of Tarquini and the other Jesuits, and the hot-headed schemes

of the Pope, were solid enough to bear what was to be built upon them,

or would lead to anything but defeat of the Papacy, and misery to

the nations. But in contradiction to this view, Quirinus says that

Antonelli was too good a statesman and financier not to see the gain

that would flow from the new dogma in power and revenue. The new dogma

would doubtless enormously increase the power of the Curia within the

Church and over all her organizations. It would thus increase the

facility of bringing pressure to bear on a government by threats of

disaffection and agitation; but it would at the same time arouse all

statesmen, and eventually all intelligent men, except real disciples,

against this sacerdotal empire. The most likely explanation of any zeal

Antonelli may have shown for the new order of things would perhaps be

that while retaining his own view of the risks about to be run, he knew

that what was to be was to be, and determined to make the best of it.

Papers immediately preceding the Bull in the pages of the

_Civiltá_[243] seemed to indicate steadiness in the purpose either to

bend the States or to break them. One article rang the changes on the

old theme of the royal _placet_ or _exequatur_, "the crime whereby

ecclesiastical judgments are submitted to lay examination." "The

Church," it adds, "is not a foreign power, and hence concludes that the

State has no right of precaution _jus cavendi_, in respect of her." The

internal power on which the Curia counts, in any country, being that of

threatening political agitation, the denial to the State of all right

of precaution is essential to the full application of the principle

of the Pope's "free communication" with all his subjects. A physical

impediment to the promulging of a Bull was, in old times, not more a

precaution than is, in our day, the principle that the law of the land

is supreme. Just as the physical impediment was unlawful, so is the

legislative one; both stay the free course of "the divine word." The

old dukes, kings, and emperors, knowing that in the popular conscience

the law of the Pope ranked above all civil law, put a check upon the

promulgation of his Bulls. We say, Promulge what you please, but the

law of the land is the only law in the land. "Here is the ground on

which the future battle is to be fought out."

Just between this article and the catalogue of excommunications came a

discussion on unfulfilled prophecy. The Jesuit Father, Soprano, had,

by comments on the prophecies of Balaam, Daniel, and the Apocalypse,

clearly proved (according to his reviewer) that the city of Rome was

destined of God to be in perpetuity the centre of the Catholic Church.

The war against the kingdom of Christ was to fail, because "she" could

not lose her empire. But certain points as to the issue of the war now

raging between the innovators and the kingdom of Christ, were open to

inquiry--"What dynasties will survive, what forms of government will

prevail, what end will such and such kingdoms come to? Finally, we

may ask whether the Holy City, the mount of God, the capital of the

Catholic world, Rome, may _for a time_ fall under the power of sinners

and parricides, to be outraged by fire and sword, and defaced with

crimes." But, on the other hand, as to Rome being the stable domicile

of catholicity, we might doubt of that only if the mount which cannot

be moved could be levelled with the ground.

This expositor is true to the old interpretation that the Babylon of

the Apocalypse is Rome, but that was the Pagan Rome, which "fell with

the victory of Constantine." It will be observed that he takes the

possibility of a temporary fall of the sacred Rome into the hand of the

enemy as but an episode in a war that is to continue through a long

series of years.

Since 1870, such forecasts as the above, when uttered, have not the

same triumphant tone. Nevertheless, they are now as clearly expressed

as ever. But at the time of which we speak, if the bishops only read

what was written for their learning they could not doubt as to the

kind of service which was expected of them in the future. Friedrich

intimates that they did not read it, when he relates that, in trying

to enlighten one of them, he told him that the only way to understand

the Council was to study it with the _Civiltá Cattolica_ in one's hand.

But some of them showed a solicitude that could not be explained on

any ground short of a perception of the dangers on which the Pope was

running the hierarchy. They evidently did not take the view either of

those who thought that the Pope, erected into a vice-God, was about

to become the real as well as the titular governor of the world, or

the view of those who looked on such dreams as matter to laugh at. The

calculations which produced the Crusades and the Thirty Years' War,

were dreams; but could the Church afford the indemnity which mankind

would exact for the miseries of such another struggle?

December 16 marked the second failure in the organization of the

Council. The first was the irremediable one of the absence of

Cardinal Reisach, and now, before serious discussion had begun, the

third General Congregation had to be postponed from the 16th to the

20th,[244] because nobody could be heard in the hall. So six days

passed without a sitting. Debates were actually to take place--a thing

which had neither been desired nor expected. The hall was a good place

for spectacle, but a bad place for a parliament. In vain do bishops

frown and editors sneer at the writers who said that the Curia had not

expected much discussion. Cecconi comes to the support of the "liars,"

as in official indignation they were called who told just what there

was to tell (p. 180)--

It was a deeply-rooted belief of the Directing Congregation that

but rarely would anything have to be referred to the committees

of the Council, because the Directing Congregation so well knew

how profound had been the attention given by the Preparatory

Commissions, that it seemed extremely difficult to believe that the

Drafts so prepared should not be received with general favour by

the Fathers.

This, in fact, is the excuse put forward by the Nine for not having

given the bishops a word to say to the Drafts of Decrees before they

were confronted with them, as being already in a form to be voted upon.

The practice at Trent had been to state the question as a question.

Then it was first discussed by the doctors in the presence of the

bishops, who after that appointed a small committee of their own number

to put resolutions into shape. The Council proceeded to discuss the

Drafts so prepared, amending and again amending them, until they were

in a form on which (if the subject was doctrine) almost every one could

agree.

It was now, however, coolly assumed that so complete had been the

work of the secret commissions that the bishops would not raise any

difficulties.

Great variety of opinion, say the Nine, would probably be rare,

seeing that the matters to be treated would be already prepared,

with great accuracy, by the special Commission, formed by

his Holiness, in conjunction with the Directing Congregation

(_Cecconi_, p. 180).

Cecconi repeats that the great confidence felt in the excellence of the

work of the theologians had generated in the majority of the members

of the Directing Congregation this conviction. He is candid enough to

give the reason for bringing the Drafts ready made into full assembly,

which was to prevent them from being exposed to the influences which

a restricted number of prelates might exert. That amounts to saying

that the able men whom a free assembly would have chosen to consider

and digest its forms of resolution, were not to be allowed any chance

of unitedly studying the forms prepared in secret for them. The Court

would bring its own plans, with all their details and complex notes,

before the full assembly, which could never thoroughly sift them, and

in which the majority was assured.

While in almost everything else the rejection of parliamentary forms

was commended, as becoming an assembly which had to contend against

both the principles and results of parliamentary government, the

practice of our own Houses in bringing in Bills ready drawn was pleaded

in favour of the course taken in preparing extended drafts of dogmatic

decrees. But our Parliament has never yet been called together to vote

that laws are as good if issued by the Crown, without the advice of

Lords and Commons, as with it. Nor has it ever been asked to pass a

measure which neither it nor any succeeding Parliament could recall.

Our Parliament is never asked to discuss a Bill without first having

the right to say whether it shall or shall not be brought in. It

never finds a Bill before it which, if it pleases, it may not refer

to a special committee. Any member can move the rejection or the

postponement of the whole, can move the omission or amendment of any

part, and can take the sense of the House. None of these things could

be done at the Vatican Council. The bishops could make Latin speeches

in a row, first on the Draft as a whole, and then, in a second row,

on the parts. But only twenty-four of their number could ever put a

hand to the amending of the proposed statute. With those twenty-four

were associated irresponsible persons, non-members. As that mixed body

finally shaped the propositions, must the Fathers vote upon them, with

a Yea or Nay that sealed the creed of their churches for ever.

It was not wonderful that the Curia should believe in the perfection of

the Roman theology, since they took their own government for perfect,

and the capital for a model city of the saints. The German estimate of

the Court theology is indicated by Quirinus when he says that "though

the Pope had four hundred theologians, theology is now rare, very rare,

in Rome." He goes on to assert that if one should say that ability to

read the Greek Testament and the Greek Fathers in the original was a

necessary qualification of a theologian, "he would be ridiculed." As to

the divinity even of the bishops, the evidence of Quirinus is little

more flattering than that of Friedrich; but the discussions yet to

come will show that men of real power were not wanting.

The first Scheme or Draft of Decrees on dogma now appeared. It was

nothing less than a book of one hundred and forty quarto pages,

containing eighteen chapters and fifty-four paragraphs. Frond makes it

folio and of 131 pages.

The _Rheinischer Merkur_ quotes a Catholic journal which in admiration

of this masterpiece says that when adopted by the Council it would form

a text-book. Yet this mass of divinity, any phrase, almost any word

of which might affect the vital truths of religion, was put before

the bishops with only a few days to study it, and they were expected

to vote it as an irreformable creed, to be ready for promulgation, as

bound on earth and bound in heaven, on January 6, the day decreed in

the first session! Friedrich, looking at this bulky pamphlet, cries,

All through we have the language of the schools; any one familiar with

the Jesuit writings sees at once by whom it has been prepared.

Graf W., a Roman prelate, paid Friedrich a visit arrayed in all his

vestments and decorations. Surprised at such a display by a stranger,

Friedrich asked himself, Does he want to make an impression upon me,

or to excite a longing for similar clothes? The conversation turned

upon infallibility, and the Count Monsignore said that it would be

carried through; for when the Curia had committed itself to anything,

it was not to be balked. Friedrich, saying that for his part he had

nothing to do but to speak according to his conscience, and that as a

priest he knew well what must be his course when once the point was

decided, went on to state that, not having his eye on a canonry or a

bishopric, and being happy in his independent position as a professor

in the university, he felt free. This surprised the Curialist, but

Friedrich in turn was still more surprised when the man in soft raiment

and living in kings' houses said that it was otherwise with him. He

belonged to the Roman prelacy, and if he meant to continue in it, he

must do what he was bid.

The German doctor was struck by hearing people assure him that life

was tolerably safe in Rome if you were sure of your cook, your doctor,

and your chemist (p. 30).

The German bishops had not, like the French, asked permission to meet

among themselves, but their place of meeting had been cared for.

Monsignor Nardi, a slashing writer, and a conspicuous member of the

Curia, spared no pains to secure them for his own house. Cardinal

Hohenlohe offered his for the purpose, but he scarcely received a civil

answer. Even German bishops said as much as that they should compromise

themselves by being identified with him. They began to feel their

position very delicate. As they were assembled on December 22, with

Cardinal Schwarzenberg in the chair, they were joined for the first

time by three favourites of the Curia--Senestrey, Martin, and Leonrod.

But when Senestrey found that they were discussing the propriety of

petitioning the Pope for a relaxation of the Rules, he remembered that

business required his presence elsewhere. We may be ready to smile at

men, holding professedly the position of members of a Council, who

durst not rise in their places and insist on having liberty to propose

what their consciences dictated; and who, when refused that liberty,

instead of declining to take part in the mock Council, went into a

caucus, and drew up a petition to the autocrat who had snatched away

their rights.

But their position was very difficult. If they attempted in their

places to speak on the matter, the fatal sentence fell upon them that

what the Holy Father had decreed could not be discussed. What then

could they do but decline to take part in the Council? This would

be coming into direct collision with the Pope. The moral education

of their lives had aimed at fixing in their own minds, and they, in

their action upon others, had aimed at fixing in their minds, one

conviction--that the crime exceeding and comprehending all others was

to break with the Pope. They were so placed as to have no alternative

but either "disobedience" or the surrender of their individual and

collective rights. They seem, indeed, to have thought that it was

rather a spirited proceeding to send in a petition.

Archbishop Haynald of Hungary proposed that they should request the

Pope to divide the Fathers into eight national groups. This was

suggested with some idea of counter-balancing the fictitious majority

made up by titular bishops and vicars apostolic. Had one nation been

allowed to balance another, the effect no doubt would have been

considerable; but how these venerable men could imagine that this

scheme had any chance with the Pope, we cannot tell. The bishops _in

partibus_, and the missionary bishops, being mostly Italians, would

have been well nigh lost in such an arrangement. The Curia well knew

that it had been tried at Constance, and was not to be caught.

What Friedrich heard of the opinions of the prelates as to the Draft

Decrees, was unfavourable. Cardinal Rauscher was reported to have

said that he would allow the paper to be read in his seminaries as

the work of a student, but that to propose it to a German Council

was too bad (p. 35). Many of the bishops said that its condemnations

were untimely, and that it was unworthy of the dignity of a General

Council. It was said to be the work of the Jesuit Fathers Schrader and

Franzelin; but instead of the latter, Kleutgen was often named. The

Dominicans spoke slightingly of it. The Bishop of Ascoli, a Carmelite,

said he had only patience to get through half of it, and then he threw

it away. Strossmayer said to Friedrich, Why must the Council at this

time of day pronounce condemnations as to squabbles heard of only in

the schools, and worn out even there? (p. 37). Kagerer told Friedrich

that the bishops had agreed not to tell their theologians what passed

at their private meetings; on which Friedrich remarks that the bishops

were right, for the chaplains and secretaries by whom they were served

could not be properly described as theologians. He then gave a sigh

for Hefele. Meanwhile, he said, it was hard to listen to the talk of

men, like Kagerer, who had come up without preparation, who were not

furnished with books, and who drove a trade in theology by guesswork.

Monsignor Nardi's hospitality to the German bishops had not a smooth

course. After having met at his house for the greater part of December,

when they alighted one night in the Piazza Campitelli, they found the

servant of Cardinal Schwarzenberg posted there to send them back again.

The Cardinal had received from Nardi a request to be relieved of their

further presence, giving so short notice that there was no means of

meeting the case but that of setting the servant to turn the bishops

away from the door. Thenceforth they found a German host, Cardinal

Rauscher.[245]

The General Congregation of December 20, after learning the names

chosen for the Permanent Committee on Faith, had been occupied with the

election of the Permanent Committee on Discipline; but as the _Acta_

contain no records of any transactions of the Congregations, beyond the

bare lists of the committees elected by them, the strictly official

means of ascertaining what passed are all but _nil_. The _Acta Sanctae

Sedis_ may be fairly considered as official in a looser sense; and it

is strange how the brief but clear occasional notes of particulars

which they contain, almost invariably confirm the profane writers

in statements denied, or apparently denied, at the time by faithful

ones. Deputations, including among others Strossmayer, went hither and

thither in search of a hall to meet in. Quirinus thought that the one

in the Vatican by the Sistine Chapel would not be of good omen, on

account of the picture of St. Bartholomew's massacre. Had any real wish

existed to find a place in which seven hundred gentlemen might sit and

speak, it could easily have been done; but the wholesome exhalations

from the tomb of St. Peter would not have been so potent anywhere else,

even in Rome, as in the Vatican. One-third of the space in the hall was

now curtained off. The debates were to open on December 28, that is,

after twenty days had been lost.

News of the death of Cardinal Reisach destroyed the hope that his

influence might prevent the Germans from standing with the Opposition.

The preparations for a code regulating civil and ecclesiastical

relations, on which he had spent years, were not to see the light.

It had already been resolved not to present to the Council the Drafts

prepared by his Commission on Ecclesiastico-Political Affairs. Cecconi

(p. 266) thinks that probably the absence of the Cardinal "contributed

to the shipwreck" of his proposals. The subject was "thorny"; and

again, it was not decorous to make inoperative laws, or expedient

to make combative ones. It would seem that the supreme cause of

the shipwreck was the practical consideration that nowadays civil

governments, "which form an essential element in such matters," oppose

ecclesiastical laws, instead of taking charge of their execution. The

official historian, however, is of opinion that the failure of this

first attempt to indite a code of ecclesiastico-political law is not

final. A time, he thinks, may come when it can be renewed, with hope of

success--a declaration full of instruction as to the future. The time

for renewing the attempt to prepare such a code will, according to the

Archbishop of Florence,

arrive when this rapid and ceaseless movement, political and

social, going on under our eyes, and making us daily spectators

of great and often of unlooked-for events, shall have reached its

ultimate period, to which will certainly succeed (unless the last

days succeed) an entirely new era in the history of the human

species. When that day comes, I know not what portion of the old

institutions will remain standing; but sure I am that one of

them will have survived, though peradventure externally bruised

and lacerated. She alone will be mistress of the field that day,

and the princes (if indeed the sound of that name will still be

heard), but certainly the nations, having then, after long and

cruel experience, made up their minds that out of her there is no

well-being, either in this life or beyond the tomb, will demand

from her the laws of tranquil repose, together with the earnest of

eternal happiness (p. 301).

This language is the more significant as having been written since

the war in 1870, and even since the outbreak in Germany of imperial

resistance to the movement for priestly domination. With regard to

princes, it seems to breathe the threat which was screeched out by the

Jesuit organs in 1869 and 1870, that if they were not to sink in the

coming struggle, they must make peace with the Church.

As to the nations and the laws of the Church, it adroitly represents

the nations, not as submitting to receive the law at her dictation, but

as demanding from her the laws which give repose. The ever-recurring

alternative of submission or disturbance, if not destruction, is

smoothly but gravely put. Still, the historian seems as if he wrote

thus rather by official duty than by personal impulse. But, like all

the "inspired" writers, he takes it for granted that the Church holds

the "repose" of nations in her power. Cardinals count on the effect

of thorns planted in the pillows of statesmen. They know how to teach

principles that form a people within the nation ready to obey a foreign

word of command, and they know how and when to give the word. They

always--so say men in Italy--know how to find an Ahithophel, and how a

Delilah!

Fears were often expressed lest an attempt should be made on December

28 to carry Papal infallibility by acclamation. The bishops, however,

seem to have had backbone enough to determine upon a formal protest

should this occur. Friedrich tells how those dignitaries who make

little of denouncing the laws of their respective countries were

very anxious in Rome to find some mode of giving expression to their

complaints and desires without printing, which in the Model State they

durst not do.

He also states that on the day before the opening of the discussion the

Pope was greatly depressed. It may have been a diplomatic depression.

What bishop could be so heartless as to make speeches that would weigh

on the spirit of the Holy Father, and in fact to call in question

Draft Decrees prepared by his authority and proposed in his name?

What bishop, by obstructing their adoption, could occasion a risk

that the day fixed by Decree for the second session should arrive

without any Decree being ready? One of Friedrich's statements, which,

before Cecconi published, seemed the most improbable of all, was that

Cardinal Bilio, the President of the Preparatory Commission on Dogma,

had reckoned on the Draft being carried with scarcely any discussion.

Much as we knew of the displacement of the idea of conviction by that

of submission, this statement seemed too monstrous. But the Archbishop

of Florence appears unconscious of anything strange in the case. If

Italian novelists and journalists, with whom the indifference of the

national mind to religion is a favourite idea, had combined to give

an illustration of that indifference, they could hardly have invented

anything so expressive. A Cardinal taking it for granted that seven

hundred bishops could hastily adopt for ever as doctrine binding upon

themselves, their successors, and their Churches, a considerable

work, every single phrase of which any serious man would weigh before

he accepted it for his own creed, but would weigh ten times more

carefully before he imposed it upon others--before he took it upon

his soul to curse all who did not accept it, and to declare them cut

off from the kingdom of God! Yet it is plain that not only Bilio, but

the Curia generally, expected the passing of the Draft as almost a

matter of course. In their minds the idea of submission to the Papal

authority had first displaced, and then completely replaced, the idea

of religious conviction.

The first Vatican Decree passed after the Council had been declared

open, fixed the feast of Epiphany (January 6) as the day of the

second session, in the expectation that this Draft, or a portion of

it, would by that time have been adopted. But, like the first Vatican

appointment, the first Vatican Decree had been not ratified in heaven.

The _Civiltá_ said (VII. ix. 227), "As the discussion on the Draft

proposed is not terminated, no Decrees will be published in the second

session." The _Acta Sanctae Sedis_ curtly wrote, "No Decree was

published because none was ready."[246]

Meantime the relative attitudes of the Council and of the Catholic

governments had become more clearly defined. Following France, and

rejecting the view of Bavaria and Portugal, the governments had

determined not to interfere. Portugal had sent to her minister his

credentials as ambassador to the Council, but finding that he should be

alone, Count Lavradio did not present them. France, which for the last

ten years had been abused by the Papal organs, was now loudly praised.

Even M. Veuillot said that she was more liberal and more Christian than

the other nations, for her bayonets were at Civitá Vecchia to restrain

the violence of the Italians, and God would not forget it to her. True,

French statesmen every now and then did show some apprehension as to

what might come to pass if every child in France should learn in his

catechism that the Pope was infallible, and if most of them should grow

up under teachers who would gently show how the Modern State rebelled

against the divine constitution of the world as implied in that

fundamental truth, for the government of the nations. It was even said

that Darboy plainly declared that should infallibility be proclaimed,

the French troops would no longer remain in the Papal States. However

that might have been, all that fell from the inspired pens was pervaded

with quiet reliance on France. It seemed as if the writers believed

that, just then, events depended more on one Spanish lady, in the

Tuileries, than on all the Frenchmen in Paris and the departments.

It cannot be said that the compliance with the wishes of the Curia

shown by politicians, was repaid by a milder attitude. The new Bull,

technically called _Apostolicae Sedis_, popularly called the new _In

Coena Domini_, was menacing. The grave _Civiltá_ (VII. ix. 134) said--

Whom would the people obey? God and the Church, or the State?... As

it is evident that the Church assembled in Council can only repeat,

and that more strongly than ever, that as between God and men,

as between the Church and the State, obedience is to be rendered

to God and the Church instead of to man and the State, and as it

is evident that in Catholic and civilized countries, in spite of

all the efforts of sects, respect for the Church endures, and

increases, while all respect for States and governments diminishes,

it is clear that the Liberals, who are dominant almost everywhere,

tremble at the Council, which is bound to proclaim more loudly than

ever, We must obey God rather than men.

Even the little review at the Villa Borghese set M. Veuillot reflecting

on the restoration of that "Christian order" which consists in the due

submission of the natural to the supernatural order--

If we only think that the Council has to re-establish the Christian

order without restoring the ancient aristocracy, irremediably

fallen, and has to replace the social laws in a position where

property and liberty shall be freed from the grasp of democracy,

which is no more than an administrative aristocracy, we shall

conclude that the task is not a trifle, and that the seed to be

sown is not of a kind to ripen in a day.

In most Papal countries, indeed, the ancient aristocracy has fallen,

and, much as priests like titles and stars in their train, they like

broad acres still better, and legislative power even better still. Even

when barons held lands in fief under prince-bishops and abbots, they

were frequently tempted to insubordination. And in the Model State,

the career open to a lord was as nearly as possible that which in our

chaotic state is open to a lady. So, the aristocracy were not to be

restored. But in the new Christian order both freedom and property

were to be taken out of the hands of the democracy. This had been well

done in the states of the Church, and partly done elsewhere, in the

middle ages. In the formula, "The Pope and the People," people does

not, we repeat, mean democracy, but subject populace, with a ruling

priesthood and nobody to come between priest and mob. Matters would

be greatly simplified if both an aristocracy and an administrative

democracy were removed out of the way. But, true to the far-aiming

plans of the school, M. Veuillot was thinking of the seed-time, knowing

that the harvest was as yet far off. When the prize is no less than the

supremacy of the world, a year may well be counted for a day.

M. Veuillot, alluding to those profane creatures the correspondents

of worldly newspapers, said he had had to do with government spies,

but Press spies made him respect the former. The Press spies detested

respectable men, seeming to think that they spoiled the profession, and

prevented it from enjoying all the hatred and contempt it merited (i.

33). M. Veuillot could afford to assume this attitude. The _Univers_

was sanctified by the Pope's blessing, and certified by his brief. This

high-caste scribe had not, however, said a word about the device by

which the election of committees had been carried, though he gloried

in the choice of men. He had not mentioned the electoral tickets,

nor alluded to the prohibition of collective meetings of the French

bishops, nor to the petition sent in by some of their number for a few

morsels of liberty. He had, however, told the faithful that none of the

bishops had any desire to be put on the committees, and that a prelate

from South America, on finding himself elected, wept and said, "What do

you mean? I am not fit. I know nothing." Writing on January 20, after

the division of parties had become clearly defined, M. Veuillot said

that should an Opposition group be formed, as some feared would be

the case, it would only be small, and would be rather outside of the

Council than in it. "Outside," said a bishop to me yesterday, "there

is some room for the spirit of man; inside there will be no room for

anything but the Spirit of God; and though unanimity is by no means

necessary, it will nevertheless seldom fail." It was, at this time,

still hoped that the "pontifical secret" would leave no chink by which

the tenor of the debates could leak out. "How," exclaims M. Veuillot,

"will this assembly be able to distribute its incalculable labours, and

carry them to an end? Immense questions arise on all sides. It is the

human species that has to be set in march. Nature feels its infirmity."

Still, it will prove, he asserts, that the Council can more easily make

decrees for centuries, than modern governments can make constitutions

to last a few months.

An address to the Holy Father, from the Society of Catholic Italian

youth having its headquarters in Bologna, declared that in answer

to the infernal fury of the enemies of the sacred Council, they

protested their resolution to obey its Decrees as the holy gospel,

as the decrees of God Himself, and to defend its disciplinary acts

as the acts of God Himself. In conclusion, they call the Pope, among

other titles, the living Peter, the infallible mouth of the Church

and of Christ Himself, the Vicar of God, "whose word for us and the

Catholic universe is the truth of God which endureth for ever."[247]

A strong force of equally well-trained youths in every country would

do something to give substance to the dream of universal empire, by a

Crusade of St. Peter.

To say that the _Civiltá_ and the _Unitá Cattolica_ contradicted nearly

all the facts reported by the journals of Europe, would be a tame

statement of the case. They not only gave the lie, but did so with all

sorts of aggravating epithets. The Italian papers were most belied,

because they, feeling no respect for the men of the Curia, did not

care to put on any, but tore off false covers relentlessly, and even

with mockery. According to an ordinary Italian saying, respect for the

Curia begins outside the walls of Rome, and increases in proportion

to distance. Still, the French, German, and English papers, though

more respectful--the last, in comparison, deferential--were denounced

as lying and lying again. This went smoothly till the lie-givers

descended to particulars. Even then it answered, to some extent,

till time brought facts to the test. Now, it is sad to look at these

contradictions, and compare them with documents registered in the

same pages, or with facts which even there are no longer disputed.

Any one who wants a lesson in the art of giving the lie may go to an

article in the _Civiltá_ (VII. ix. p. 327), and succeeding ones. After

studying them an Englishman would be more charitable to Romans when

they say that if the Jesuits contradict a thing well, they begin to

think it must be true. But he would discover that, under an apparent

contradiction, there is often preserved a possibility of saying that

there was no real one. A statement has been made containing one main

fact, which was perfectly true, but with two or three accidental

appendages, some one of which was not true, and the whole is treated

as false. For instance, the whole tale of Nardi dismissing the German

prelates is to appearance ridiculed, because one journal says that

Nardi had made a secret door, at which he played the eavesdropper. Of

course it was an Italian journal--_La Nazione_--which thought that a

probable action for a monsignore of the Curia.

The _Nuova Antologia_, a review of high standing in Italy, published

articles on the Council, which formed the basis of Vitelleschi's book.

The _Civiltá_ assigned them to Salvatore de Renzi, spoke of them as

being not more inaccurate than others, and after general charges came

to particulars. The author's "want of reflection" appeared in his

supposing that though abbots and generals of orders both had seats,

only the former had votes. Moreover, he had said that in the sessions

the Fathers always wore the read pluvial and mitre; whereas in the

first two sessions they had worn the white ones, and the statement as

to the mitre was _falsissimo_, as false as could be, for in Rome, and

in the presence of the Pope, they always wore one of white silk or

cloth. When all Catholics were in serious excitement, when they knew

that hands were laid on their creed to alter it for them and their

children, it was such matters as the above which weighed upon the minds

of the Jesuits, and justified outcry against men who strove to get and

give some little information.

The first article of professed intelligence in the _Civiltá_ after the

Council had really got to work, spoke of giving only the _external_

news, which was what all the "good Press" professed to give. What it

gave was indeed external. A person turning to these official pages

in hope of learning what he would have to believe by-and-by, found

paragraphs about "clothes" (VII. ix. 99). "We have told our readers

of the vestments worn by the Fathers in the public session. They

will be pleased to have a translation of the notice appointing the

ceremony to be observed in the Congregations"--the ceremony meaning the

ceremonial garments. The men who were undertaking to change for the

priests and people the conditions of their membership in the Church, to

revolutionize their relations with their neighbours and even with their

nations, were yet persuaded that while all this was going on, priests

and people must be thinking of how the gowns of the Fates were dyed,

and not of what threads they were spinning. So, with conscientious

exactness, the faithful were informed that the Most Reverend and Most

Eminent Lords the Cardinals would wear the red and violet mozzetta

and mantelletta over the rochet; and the Most Reverend Patriarchs the

violet mozzetta and rochet, etc., etc., etc.

A touching incident of private life came to soften the feelings of

the Fathers on the eve of the struggle. The son of De Maistre, the

champion of the pen, and the daughter of Lamoricière, the champion of

the sword, had, four months previously, been married. "Two such fair

names," exclaims M. Veuillot--yes, two stately figures, bending in vain

to stay a falling oak. The young wife was smitten with death, and the

widow of the hero could only reach Rome in time to close her daughter's

eyes. The whole city united in sorrowing over the mingled tears of the

houses of De Maistre and Lamoricière. Noble Lamoricière! During the

four dreadful days of June, 1848, in Paris, his chivalrous sword formed

a shield behind which thousands sat in safety. None who were of the

number, as we were, can ever without gratitude think of him, or of the

stainless Cavaignac.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 238: _Documenta ad Illustrandum_, i. 245.]

[Footnote 239: Of those domestic prelates the _Annuario Pontificio_ for

1870 gives above two hundred and thirty names; the list in 1875 is over

four hundred, in the _Gerarchia Cattolica e la Famiglia Pontificia_.]

[Footnote 240: Though issued during the Council, this Bull is not, like

the others, printed in the _Acta_. It is in the Freiburg edition, p.

77; and also in _Acta Sanctae Sedis_, v. p. 287.]

[Footnote 241: _Tagebuch_, p. 32.]

[Footnote 242: _Quirinus_, p. 106.]

[Footnote 243: VII. ix. p. 189.]

[Footnote 244: _Tagebuch_, p. 27]

[Footnote 245: _Tagebuch_, 47.]

[Footnote 246: V. 323]

[Footnote 247: _Civiltá_, VII. ix. 238.]

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.

The moment had come at last when it was to be seen whether the

parliamentary proceedings of a discussion suspended in the Catholic

society for three hundred years, was actually to be revived; or whether

the bishops, justifying the confidence in their gravity and wisdom

which the Curia would fain have cherished, would now set the world an

example of magnifying authority, by adopting the all-comprehensive

dogma of Papal infallibility by acclamation, without running the risk

of any debate. That once done, minor points would settle themselves,

whether in the Council or out of it. The fears of a scheme to organize

an acclamation were strong, not to say feverish. Cardinal Schwarzenberg

wrote, "In case a demonstration is attempted for an acclamation, a

formal counter demonstration is already provided for."[248] Before the

commencement of the sitting, Cardinal De Luca, now Senior President,

gave an assurance that no acclamation would be attempted; adding,

however, that he could only give the pledge for that one sitting.

Strossmayer, relating this fact the next day, in the house of Cardinal

Hohenlohe, added that, should it be attempted hereafter, the bishops

of the minority would put in a protest, in the name of Christ, of the

Church, of their rights, of their people, and of sound reason.[249]

Lord Acton's picture of the scene before the sitting is more distinct

than that of the other writers. It is Darboy whom he describes as

demanding an assurance that there would be no acclamation. When the

promise for the first sitting was coupled with a statement that there

could be no guarantee for the future, he said a hundred bishops were

resolved, in case that proceeding was resorted to, that they would

leave Rome, and "carry the Council away in their shoes."[250]

The uncertainty which had hung over everything but dress was so great

that some prelates had prepared their votes, thinking that, owing

to the determination to have some Decree ready for promulgation at

Epiphany, a division would be pressed on that day.[251]

In print, the tribune, or desk, prepared for the Council, is a

laudable specimen of Roman art. To look at, it is what we must call a

commonplace pulpit. It was carried from place to place--more than one

writer says, carried all round the hall--to try to find a spot in which

it would be possible for a speaker to be heard. When the desk was at

last fixed, two priests, as reporters, took their place in front of

it.[252] Cardinal Rauscher, Archbishop of Vienna, was the first who

ascended. Behind him he saw his own achievement--that Concordat by

which he had secured for Rome the abolition in Austria of the Josephine

Laws. Before him lay the Draft of Decrees, for the most part, as it was

believed, the handiwork of Schrader, whom he had himself installed as a

professor in the University of Vienna, and who was doubtless a fit man

to make it what it was--a dogmatic reflection of the earliest portions

of the Syllabus. The sagacity of Rauscher told him that the success of

these proposed Decrees would be the doom of the Concordat. Hence, he

rose, not to support the theology of his nominee, but to save his own

diplomatic achievement.

So the discussion opened with a brilliant address, as Friedrich calls

it, delivered in the round, rough Latin pronunciation of the Germans.

Darboy soon left the hall, saying that it was undignified to sit

professedly listening to speeches which one could not make out. What

with the mocking of the echoes and what with the pronunciation foreign

to all but Germans, none could understand but the few in whose favour

combined all the advantages of keen ears, a good position, and some

familiarity with German intonation.

All that we know of the discourse of Cardinal Rauscher has become known

in spite of the silence of every official organ; and it amounts to no

more than the fact that he opposed the Draft Decrees with firmness and

ability. The strict Church régime assured by his Concordat to Austria

had not been followed by the halcyon days which such a régime was said

to guarantee. Loud complaints were made that the moral statistics

of Vienna, previously very bad, had, under the new law of marriage,

become worse. However that might be, there was no doubt that under the

Concordat Austria had undergone both Solferino and Sadowa. If, after

all this, new fetters were to be forged, Rauscher was well aware that

the chain would snap.

After Cardinals, Archbishops! So the Irish-Latin of Archbishop Kenrick,

of St. Louis, succeeded to the German-Latin of Rauscher. The voice from

the Mississippi joined that from the Danube in making light of the

theological performance of Rome. The next who followed was Tizzani,

nominally Archbishop of Nisibis, really Chaplain-General of the Papal

army. A blind old man, he did not mount the desk, but, speaking from

his place, he was the first who gave forth the Latin in the clear,

full pronunciation, which must be nearer to the natural one than the

others. He said that the Draft was words, words, and nothing but words.

Three other Italians followed on the same side. It was still the turn

of the Archbishops; and Connolly, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, closed

the discussion of the day. There are two versions of his concluding

innuendo. One is, that the Draft was to be honourably interred; and

the other, that it was not to be amended but erased. _Cum honore esse

sepeliendum ... non esse reformandum censeo sed delendum._ Fourteen

names had been entered, but when seven had spoken, it was one o'clock,

and the weary work of attempting to hear was brought to an end. The

old men had been already four hours in the hall.

The _Giornale di Roma_ and the _Civiltá_ gave the names of the

speakers, but not a syllable of information as to what they said. The

same course was taken by all the "good Press." It professed to give

information only of the exterior of the Council. Even the _Acta Sanctæ

Sedis_, in its Latin veil, does not utter a hint of what view any

speaker took. It does, indeed, say that no one replied to observations

for, against, or beside the proposals of the Decree, thus confirming

the common remark that there was no real debate.[253] Among all the

charges of lying, shameless lying, lurid lying, and so on, brought

against the lay Press, we do not remember any attempt to contradict

the particulars circulated as to this day's proceedings, unless indeed

it be Cardinal Manning's general treatment of all that had been said

respecting an intention to get up an acclamation, as ridiculous rumours.

Cardinal Bilio, as President of the Commission on Dogma, from which

the Draft had emanated, would naturally be, as Friedrich says he was,

downcast; and we may well believe the same witness, that the Cardinals

generally were disconcerted. On the other hand, Cardinal Schwarzenberg

said, "It has gone excellently"; and Archbishop Scherr, of Munich,

thought that it was as if one had heard "the rushing of the wings of

the Holy Ghost"--one of the expressions in which that sacred name was

often lightly taken during the Council, and which, from hints found

elsewhere, seems to have fallen on this occasion also from other lips.

Strossmayer was by no means so elated, knowing that the Curia was in a

position to hold its own.

This discussion raised the spirits of the minority, and filled them

for a while with illusory hopes. It seemed as if the one liberty left,

that of making Latin speeches, might turn to great account. Meanwhile,

according to Lord Acton, speculation ran on the possible effects of

fifteen vacant hats, which were supposed to have the power of doing

wonders, and which the genuine Romans would certainly expect to turn

episcopal heads in whatever direction they might happen to be held.

Darboy said, "I have not a cold in the head: I do not want a hat."

Quirinus points out the bearing of such multiplication of anathemas

as was aimed at in the Draft on the ascendancy of the Jesuits. These

anathemas would supply abundant matter for accusation, and so enable

the Jesuits to keep men belonging to other orders in constant fear of

being charged with heresy. This would tend to make other theologians

dependent upon their order. He adds, moreover, that if the Draft

Decrees should be passed, scarcely any professors of Old Testament

exegesis would escape the charge of heresy.

Two days later the debate was resumed. The archbishops were still in

possession; but after one more of them had spoken came the turn of

the bishops. Rank carried it against the rule that in council all are

equal. Athanasius the deacon, and Constantine the layman, were both

outside the door. And outside the door were also the "presbyters"

who alone at Nicæa represented Rome. Unity had come to mean a sharp

separation of the Church into the _Teaching Church_ and the _Learning

Church_. The _Teaching Church_ consisted of the Pope and bishops; the

_Learning Church_ consisted of priests and people.

Those who desired to speak entered their names at least one day

beforehand; and of those so entered Cardinals spoke first, Patriarchs

next, then Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, and Generals, according to

their grade.

The first bishop who rose was Strossmayer. As he had before attempted

to speak upon the Rules, so did he now attack the heading of the

Decree, namely, the formula "Pius IX., with the approbation of the

Council," instead of the Tridentine formula, "This Sacred Council

decrees." He was called to order by Cardinal De Luca. That point, he

ruled, was not to be discussed, for it had been settled in the Rules

of Procedure, and also in the form used in the opening session. No

one supported Strossmayer in his objection, and, in point of form,

the President was doubtless right. The bishops had allowed their

birthright to be taken away, and it was now too late to reclaim it.

True, if they had been united, they might have alleged that the taking

of it away had been done both violently and stealthily; but still, it

had been done before their eyes.

Strossmayer's speech gave to modern Rome a sensation strange to her,

though familiar to ancient Rome--the feeling caused by the echoes

of impassioned reasoning in favour of freedom. And this time it was

freedom commended by the voice of a bishop! The degree of freedom

advocated was, indeed, only such as anywhere else would have been

a minimum. The reports given of the eloquence of the speaker were

exciting, and it would appear that even those of opponents were often

laudatory. Lord Acton gives the following passage--

What do we gain by condemning what has been already condemned?

What end is promoted by proscribing errors which we know to have

been already proscribed? The false doctrines of sophists have

vanished like ashes before the wind. They have corrupted many, I

confess, and infected the spirit of the age. But can we believe

that the contagion of corruption would not have taken effect had

errors of this sort been smitten down with anathema, by Decree?

We have no means given to us beyond cries and prayers to God,

whereby to defend and conserve the Catholic religion, but those

of Catholic science in complete agreement with the faith. The

heretics assiduously cultivate science unfriendly to the faith, and

therefore true science friendly to it should be cultivated among

Catholics, and advanced by every effort. Let us stop the mouth of

opponents, who cease not falsely to impute to us that the Catholic

Church represses science, and restrains all free thought, so that

within her bounds neither science nor any liberty of intellect

can flourish or exist. Further, it has to be shown, and that both

by words and deeds, that in the Catholic Church there exist true

liberty for the nations, true progress, true light, and true

prosperity.[254]

This proposal to fight thought only with thought, and to allow

institutions to be tested by their fruits, was well fitted for any soil

where the Bible was the statute-book, but was untenable ground in Rome.

The excitement was great.

Ketteler embraced Strossmayer as he came down. Senestrey, on the other

hand, stated that he had said things for which he must have been called

to order in any assembly. Dinkle said he had spoken on his own account,

and showed no inclination to share risks with him.

The first French prelate who came to the desk was Ginoulhiac, of

Grenoble, who also spoke against the Draft. What he then said we know

not. What he had just previously published under his own hand we do

know. Resisting the idea of an acclamation, he said--

To insist upon dispensing with previous examination, because of the

immense importance of the question, or because the subject of the

question was that which in the Church is greatest, would be not

merely to depart from the practice of all ages, but it would also

be to commit a most serious error, and to awaken in all grave minds

just suspicions of the decision which might be arrived at. In past

times nothing was so feared as the appearance of not devoting to

important decisions sufficient time, and of not giving sufficient

satisfaction even to the minds of the prejudiced (p. 43).

Speaking of the liberty essential to a real Council, he had said (p.

46)--

Little does it matter whether the liberty of deliberation and of

vote be violated in one way or another, whether by fear or by

guile, whether the violence exerted is physical or moral; so soon

as liberty is gravely hampered, the Church no longer recognizes

herself as truly represented.

Friedrich tells how Strossmayer, the day before, had said that he

would write out his speech and send it in; for the reporters were so

unskilful that their manuscripts were of little use. But we do not see

how he could do more than guess what their reports were. At the same

time (it was in the house of Cardinal Hohenlohe), he said that now,

since he had been in Rome, he could understand how both the Reformation

and the Greek Schism had originated. It was in his view a real crime

for the Pope to claim to be the successor of Christ instead of the

successor of Peter; the way in which bishops were driven was, he

added, inconceivable, when one remembered that it was they that kept

up the dignity of the Pope, and prepared the minds of the people to

acknowledge it.

A prelate of different views was he to whom Friedrich had said that,

in order to understand the events of the Council, one must read

the _Civiltá_, further adding that had he been Prince Hohenlohe

in Bavaria, he would have answered the _Civiltá_ by expelling the

Jesuits from Regensburg. "They are innocent people," said the Bishop.

"Individually," replied the Professor, "they may be innocent people,

but they represent an order which propagates doctrine dangerous

to the State." He tells also how it was found that the French,

German, Austro-Hungarian, and American bishops had an International

Committee of three; but that the Pope, regarding this as savouring of

Nationalism, and of a revolutionary spirit, forbade it. Lord Acton (p.

52) mentions another prohibition scarcely less significant, namely,

that the printed Rules of Procedure of the Council of Trent were,

with the utmost strictness, withheld from the members of the Vatican

Council. These rules, and the real minutes of that Council, had at

that time never been published, and only saw the light in 1874, by

the private efforts of Theiner. Of course, the Decrees and Canons had

long been before the world. Among the many denials we do not remember

any attempt to deny this specific allegation. An argument could be

easily constructed, on the principle now accepted, to prove that it was

no interference with liberty to deprive the bishops of the physical

possibility of informing themselves of the extent of rights which they

had inherited from their predecessors at the latest General Council.

Lord Acton says that one effect of the determination to keep the

discussions secret was that it led the bishops to express themselves

more strongly than they would have done had they expected their

words to be read at home and conned over by Protestants. At the same

time, much leaked out. All agree that the inhabitants of Rome took

little interest in the discussions, while, in the religious aspect

of the question, the Italians generally took scarcely any; and this

indifference reacted on the interest they might have taken in its

political aspects. They committed the error of despising their enemy.

Knowing the men and their communications, they allowed their own

estimate of the worth of priests to affect their calculation as to

their influence.

There is a well accredited story of Lord Acton going to Florence, full

of the burning questions which were to affect the future of every Roman

Catholic. Dining with a relation in the very centre of the political

circle, and meeting several members of the Cabinet, he naturally

expected to find them taking some interest in the cosmopolitan politics

then under treatment by the Senate of Humanity, the Supreme Legislature

of the Human Species. But the Italians were buried in some passing

question of grist, or the like, and had no ear for the principles

which were to shape the future of nations. They saw little in the

proceedings more than that the Pundits of an expiring caste were

passing resolutions to adjourn the nineteenth century and to conserve

the eleventh.

German and English Catholics were not capable of thus treating

principles as husks. Whether Fallibilists or Infallibilists, they

knew that the destiny of that Society, which both agreed to call "The

Church," was now at stake, and that, at least, the repose of nations,

if not their destiny, was also implicated. The Liberal Catholics,

holding that the attempt to restore a theocracy would only lead to

wars, and that humanity would avenge itself on the Papacy for again

fomenting bloodshed, hoped that somehow God would save the Church from

the blindness of the Curia. The Catholics, on the other hand, equally

aiming at _ultimate_ peace, and even regaling their imaginations

with a vision of millennial repose, so soon as all nations should

have accepted the Vicegerent of God as the representative of Christ

Himself, were in the meantime profoundly convinced that the only way

to obtain that repose was through the very conflict from which their

faint-hearted brethren shrank.

The Infallibilists could not harbour the idea of the Church failing in

the struggle. That was to them like supposing that the gates of hell

should prevail. To the Liberal Catholics the Jesuits were conspiring

against humanity and all its franchises. To the Jesuits, on the other

hand, the Liberal Catholics seemed to be risking the loss of such an

opportunity as might never recur, of putting the Church in a position

to constrain governments to accept the principles by which alone

nations could be saved. Therefore did they look upon any shrinking from

the struggle as indicating worldly fear rather than foreseeing care for

the Church. If Liberal Catholics looked upon the Jesuits as conspiring

against humanity, the Jesuits looked upon the Liberal Catholics as

agitators against divine authority. No wonder that in such a state of

feeling, what Lord Acton describes took place, "The word-war of the

hall was always fought over and over again outside, with the addition

of anecdotes, epigrams, and inventions."

It was on Sunday, January 2, that two petitions were sent in to the

Pope. The first was signed by forty-three prelates, headed by Cardinals

Schwarzenberg and Rauscher, and the Primate of Hungary.[255] This was

no Bill of Rights, not containing even a challenge of that exercise

of prerogative which it sought partially to relax. The privileges for

which two princes and forty-one magnates petitioned, "prostrate at thy

feet," were--

(1) That the Fathers might be distributed into, say, six groups,

in which Draft Decrees could be considered in the principal living

languages before being brought on for discussion in Latin, in the

General Congregation. (2) That speeches delivered in the General

Congregation might be printed for the exclusive use of the members

of the Council, and under the same bond of secrecy as that under

which the Draft Decrees were communicated to them. (3) That the

Draft Decrees on faith and discipline might all as soon as possible

be laid in a connected form before the Fathers, and should not

any longer be presented, as hitherto, piecemeal. (4) That the

Fathers, after having in the vernacular meetings considered the

Draft Decrees, might be allowed to send a couple of delegates from

each group to the committee to represent their views. (5) That

the Fathers might be allowed to print, in addition to speeches

delivered in the General Congregation, writings in which questions

could be treated more thoroughly; these however to be printed

subject to the same bond of secrecy as the Draft Decrees. (6)

"Prostrate at thy feet, we crave the apostolic benediction for

ourselves and the faithful committed to us."

We do not know that even the last of the six things here prayed

for was granted, for the petition never received an answer. These

dignitaries clearly state to their royal master the grounds on which

they petitioned for some of the elementary rights of human creatures.

They say that Decrees cannot be really sifted by speaking a dead

language in an assembly of seven hundred persons from all parts of

the world, unless, first, in companies speaking living languages, the

Fathers have had the opportunity of examining their contents. And

further, that however well acquainted with Latin all might be, there

were many prelates who did not speak it. Moreover, the petitioners,

admitting that the Council Hall was admirable as being so near the tomb

of St. Peter, state that in the first General Congregation, though

some of the speakers had excellent voices, not one of them could

make himself heard by all. Even since changes had been effected, the

greater part of the members could not hear all the speakers. Another

of their points is this: Although men well worthy of confidence--_viri

fide dignissimi_--had assured them that the reports of the speeches

should be distributed to the Fathers in print, so that they might

read what they had not been able to hear, "in this hope we have been

disappointed."

They appeal thus to their master, "Most Blessed Father, by thine

excelling wisdom, wilt thou perceive that, as the Fathers can

neither hear what is spoken, nor read it, proper consultation is not

possible."[256] They go on to urge that even if the discussions were

held in a place where men with the weakest voices could be heard, it

would still be desirable that the members should be in a position to

look over what had been advanced in successive sittings. "Matters of

weightiest moment," they add, "are being treated, and frequently the

addition, omission, or change of a single word may adulterate the

sense." If, say they, the Fathers had the opportunity of explaining

their views in writing, they could lay many things before their fellow

members which could not be brought into speeches. As to obtaining an

understanding of the proposals, they urged that, in questions of

doctrine, one thing so connects itself with another, and discipline

is so much affected by doctrine, that they are not in any position

to give a judgment on Draft Decrees, obviously forming but part of a

scheme, while as yet other parts of it are kept from their knowledge.

The relation between the unknown parts and the parts before them is an

element in any judgment to be formed.

The second petition, dated on the same Sunday,[257] was signed by

twenty-six prelates, including several of those who had signed the

other, and a few additional ones, such as Kenrick of St. Louis.

Cardinal Rauscher did not sign it, but Cardinal Schwarzenberg did.

It set out by indirectly asserting more in principle than the other;

but it ended by asking less in practice. It seemed both to assume the

right of proposition on the part of the prelates, and to imply that

the taking of it away would deserve blame; but it had not the courage

to say that it had been taken away. Those are not wanting, say the

petitioners, who interpret the Rules as not recognizing the right of

the Fathers to propose in the Council what they may think conducive to

the public good, but as conceding it only exceptionally and as a matter

of grace. This may be a diplomatic way of indicating what the Rules

said without confessing the fact that they did say it. But what they

did say was too plain for any such finesse. The prayer of the petition

is confined to two points: that some members of the Commission on

Proposals should be elected by the Committee, and that the authors of

proposals should have access to the committees, and thus have some part

in the treatment of the particular matter in which they were interested.

These petitions say more than all the assertions of the much

contradicted Liberal Catholics about the want of freedom in the

Council, and the want of the old spirit of bishops in the men who

composed it. According to Friedberg, the first of the two was drawn

up by Cardinal Rauscher (xli.). No name of an English, Irish, or

Colonial prelate is attached to either petition. Nearly all the names

are those of Germans and Hungarians, the only American one being

that of Kenrick. His signature proves that the English-speaking group

knew of the petitions, and the absence of all other names belonging

to that group would seem to indicate that members of the hierarchy

from America, the British Isles, and our Colonies did not approve of

bishops of their Church being entrusted with such extensive liberties

as those for which their brethren petitioned. It is pretty certain that

the American archbishop who signed this petition was not one of the

prelates who told the Archbishop of Westminster that their Congress

was not freer than the Council. Do senators and members of the House

prostrate themselves at the feet of the President, petitioning for

leave to meet in a place where they can hear and be heard, for leave

to read reports of one another's speeches, and for leave to print

memoranda--for leave even to elect a few members of a committee which

decides what may and what may not be recommended to the President,

to be proposed should he approve of it? If they do not, we must only

believe that America sends some citizens to Europe whose information

as to the institutions of their country is not to be relied upon. Did

Ginoulhiac, whose observations on the necessity of perfect freedom

in a Council we have lately seen, consider legislators free who had

to petition for such things? Outside of the number of Cardinals

resident in Rome, could even a Cardinal have been found beforehand to

assert that liberty would not be gravely hampered, in any legislative

assembly, whenever those who were called legislators were compelled to

indite petitions such as we have described? We doubt if even a resident

Cardinal would beforehand have dared in terms to deny that when, in a

professed Council, liberty is gravely hampered, the Church does not

recognize herself as represented. Now, it is easy to turn the point of

all such arguments. Peter the Infallible has only to say what rights

James and John, Thomas and Paul shall enjoy, and in exercising them

they possess all the freedom that God has been pleased to grant to them.

The allusion in the petition to the ease with which the sense of a

speech may be altered seems like a remark of Strossmayer, quoted by

Friedrich, that reports which were under no check but that of the

Curia, and which even the speakers themselves were not allowed to

inspect, could not be of any use. To this Friedrich adds, How much

would the weight of the remark have been increased after an incident

on July 9, "when the majority of the Council, and a committee of the

Council, did not scruple formally to deceive the minority."