The prayer of the petitioners for a sight of the whole scheme, as

prepared, before they should be called upon to erect part of it into

irreformable Decrees, was doubtless caused in part by the obvious

relation between the Drafts already brought to light and the Syllabus.

That compendium was not mentioned any more than it had been in many

other public instruments, but the first Draft fitted to its first

sections, just as the Encyclical which accompanied its issue had done

to the whole document. Notwithstanding its authority, its form made it

of doubtful interpretation, and these Decrees aimed at giving statutory

form to its sentences. An _Index Schematum_, or List of Drafts, had

come to light,[258] which let the bishops see that what had hitherto

been produced was but the first instalment of projected legislation

covering all the ground occupied by the Syllabus. The first Draft

treated only the philosophical and theological portion of the subjects;

but how were the principles enunciated to be applied, when the sections

on Church and State should be arrived at? The somewhat obscure teaching

in the Draft on the elevation of man into the supernatural order,

would, to mere politicians, look like theological nebulae, and, to mere

theologians, like ill-digested divinity. To men versed in the esoteric

dialect, it was clearly intended to prepare the way for the doctrine of

the elevation of man by baptism above the control of civil law, in all

that affects his loyalty to the supernatural order of the Church, whose

Decrees had, by that regeneration, become his supreme statutes, her

courts his supreme tribunals, and her priests his supreme magistrates.

It was the dogmatizing of the principle which has already passed under

our eye, that in baptism the subjects of the civil power are changed.

Another principle now habitually underlies that one, namely, that man

by redemption through Christ is raised above the government of the

natural order, and placed under that of Christ, through His Vicar.

The studious among the Liberal Catholics knew that under the name of

Naturalism their principles were condemned.

On the Monday following the day of the petitions, when the Congregation

opened, after the prayers had been read, Cardinal De Luca rang the

bell, and solemnly addressed the Fathers. Here, for once, we are able

to give the very words that sounded in that hall of concealment, and

this time not from an unofficial publication of official documents. It

is the _Acta Sanctae Sedis_ that now actually give us a speech. But

it is a speech about the dead. The Cardinal is not so confident as

to their happiness as were the writers of the Crusaders of St. Peter

respecting that of those who fell in the Crusade. But he presents the

two forms of the Papal worship of and for the dead, which differs from

both the Chinese and the Brahminical. We see the two sides of it--the

patronage of the living by the dead, and the patronage of the dead by

the living. The Cardinal said--

MOST REVEREND FATHERS,--It is known to you that since the opening

of the OEcumenical Vatican Council four Fathers have passed away

by a death precious in the sight of the Lord, namely, the Most

Eminent Charles Augustus de Reisach, Bishop of the Sabina and First

President of the General Congregations; the Most Eminent Francis

Pentini, Deacon of St. Mary _in Portico;_ the Most Reverend Anthony

Manastyrski, Bishop of Przémysl of the Latin rite; and the Most

Reverend Bernardin Frascolla, Bishop of Foggia. The Christian

virtues and the shining merits towards the holy Church of God and

this Apostolic See, wherewith they were most largely adorned,

inspire us with a sure and pleasant hope that their souls already

enjoy rest eternal in the embrace of the Lord, and that in the

presence of God they patronize our labours by their intercession.

Since, however, human frailty is such that they may even now stand

in need of our suffrages, let us not neglect earnestly to commend

them to the divine mercy.

After this De Luca announced that in place of Reisach had been

appointed Cardinal De Angelis. Thus one who, just before the Council

opened, knew, or professed to know, so little that he told Cardinal

Hohenlohe that nothing was to be done beyond condemning the principles

of 1789, but who had served the Curia by the device of an election

ticket, took the first seat, in which elevation the Opposition saw the

reward of service in the elections. Next was announced the appointment

by the Pope of Cardinal Bilio as President of the Committee on

Faith, and that of Cardinal Caterini as President of the Committee

on Discipline. The committees were not allowed to choose their own

chairmen, nor yet was the Council allowed to name the chairmen of

its committees.[259] The next day, after Mass had been celebrated by

Archbishop Manning, again had Cardinal De Luca to announce a death.

It was that of the Bishop of Panama, a Dominican. The statement as to

his sufferings here is plain. But as to his happiness hereafter, the

full confidence felt in the case of the Crusaders, and the qualified

confidence felt in the case of the two Cardinals, and of the two

bishops whose deaths were reported with that of Cardinals, are both

wanting. We have not here the "in peace" which in Rome, before priests

learned to make a commerce of the dead, the poorest Christian wrote,

it might be in the roughest scrawl, over the head of his wife or

child; nor have we here the life and immortality whereof the light

makes the happy believer "rejoice for a brother deceased." Eduardo

Vasques was not a Crusader, and was not a Cardinal, and had not even

the happiness of being reported dead in company with a Cardinal. He

was but a bishop, and, without doubt, in the pains of purgatory; so

De Luca just said that he had died last night, after great suffering,

borne with exemplary patience. "Proper mortuary services will, as soon

as possible, be performed. In the meantime, let us commend him to the

mercy of God, both by the sacrifice of the Mass, and by other works of

Christian charity."[260]

The day before the second session, a procession moved to the Vatican,

of seventeen carriages, carrying seventeen deputations, each bearing an

address, with signatures, in a richly bound volume, for presentation

to the Holy Father. These addresses conveyed that homage of science

to the Pontiff the appeal for which has been already mentioned. _The

cultivators of science at the feet of Pius IX_, and, _The cultivators

of science at the throne of the Holy Father_, were the titles of

articles in Catholic journals. The way was led by the deputation from

the pontifical academy of the Immaculate, which had initiated this

movement.

They were received in the Throne Room. A long address to the Pontiff

was read. He sat, unmoved, to hear it. Then, "he lifted his eyes to

heaven with an ineffable expression," and uttered a prayer that the

sentiments conveyed in the address might spread among the multitudes

of scientific men whose false science was ruining society. The Pope

would quote Scripture, as he often tries to do; and his text was

_Captivantes intellectum vestrum in obsequium fidei_--Taking your

intellect captive to the obedience of the faith. Probably he was

thinking of 2 Corinthians x. 5, "Bringing every thought into captivity

to the obedience of Christ," where the Vulgate translates, "Every

thought (νὁημα), every intellect." He then assured them that

pride was the sin of the day, and that it was all a repetition of the

original "_I will not serve_"--alluding to Satan's "Better reign in

hell than serve in heaven." Cold men of science hearing this language

from him who was striving to put all human honours, titles, and powers

below his own, might think that some scientific test of his humility

would not be amiss. The Pope rose, the _savans_ knelt down, and he gave

them the benediction.

Having then resumed his seat on the Throne, "Here I am," he said,

familiarly; "here I am, to receive your gifts." There was a scientific

test of their professions! The President of the Academy of the

Immaculate advanced, presented his volume containing the address and

signatures, and with it an elegant purse full of gold. The head of

the next deputation followed, presented his volume and his purse of

gold, and so on, until the seventeen had completed their offering.

The Pope had a pleasant word for each. Then saying, "God grant that

your example may be followed by many," he closed the audience.[261]

How different was it now from what it was when "science was the echo

of the Pontiff," or even from what it was when Galileo had to face the

Inquisition, and to argue with Bellarmine![262] At the latter moment,

the two revolted tongues, German and English, with their smaller

kinsmen, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish, were unknown in the schools. Their

libraries were yet to be. They had but lately received into them the

source of their literary life--the Bible. But into them had the Bible

come, not lapped in the languor of the cloister, but instinct with the

life of a great revival.

Except a few northern schools, which had made themselves a name in

the strife of the Reformation, all seats of learning on the Continent

were on the side of the Pope. Now, how changed! Out of his own Model

State, where were the universities canonically instituted? They had

ceased to be. Meantime, the nations which at the Reformation were but

emerging out of barbarism, had become learned in all the learning

of the ancients and moderns. The two revolted tongues, German and

English, had filled the world with a literature such as the Latin,

even when Augurs and Pontiffs were called Cicero and Aurelius, had

never known. The Portuguese, which had at one time promised to be the

_lingua franca_ of all the ports from Morocco to Japan, had given

place, first, largely to the Dutch, then universally to the English.

The Spanish and French, which had promised to divide between them

North and South America, were sundered, and were both overshadowed by

a dominating growth of English. That north-western tongue, cradled

amid stern winds, was found by the Reformation as the rude but hardy

dialect of some six or seven unlettered millions. Now it had become

the wealthy and flexible, the noble and all-expressing speech of at

least eighty millions. Thirty millions in Europe, with between forty

and fifty millions in America, called it, with a common family pride

and a common family joy, their mother-tongue. In Australasia, a future

Europe promised to call it her mother-tongue. In India it was teaching

the pundit, in China the mandarin, in Japan the daimio, in Africa the

Kaffir chief, the Negro freedman, and the merchant of the Nile. That

single language had now more schools and colleges, more laboratories

and institutes of research, more books and journals, more patronage

and discussion of Art, than all the Papal languages put together. And

as to the German, if the lack of equal liberty had reined the people

in, while the effects of the Thirty Years' War, joined to those of the

chronic splitting up into small States, had prevented their growth and

expansion in a similar measure, they had, nevertheless, with huge and

patient power, piled up a Titanic literature, and in many a movement

in the higher march of intellect their banner led the van. Men of

the Catholic schools of Germany so felt their own superiority to the

science and literature of actual Rome, that the strokes of their

contempt not unfrequently fell even on the reputed sages of the Curia,

sometimes laid on in a fashion more scholastic than scholarly.

In the General Congregation of January 4, the Curia had the

satisfaction of hearing, not only a diocesan bishop, but a German one,

defend the Draft.[263] It was Bishop Martin, of Paderborn, to whose

eminent qualities official writers bear loud testimony, though in the

eyes of the Liberal Catholics he does not seem to be a prodigy. He

blamed the manner in which the bishops had treated a document proposed

by the Pontiff, which ought to have been handled with reverence, and

rebuked such language as "to be erased." He desired the adoption of the

Syllabus just as it stood. As the way to bring back the stray sheep

to the Holy Father, he enjoined the recognition of his infallibility,

which would reclaim Protestants. Both the expectation of Martin

and Manning that the new dogma would facilitate the conversion of

Protestants, and that of all the Ultramontane leaders that it would

hasten the submission of governments to the Lord Paramount of the

world, lose part of their marvellousness when we find bishops like

Bonjean proclaiming it as of great importance for the conversion of

Hindus. Bishop David, of St. Brieuc, alluding to Martin's warning, said

if he must not say that the Draft was to be erased, he would say that

if it was dead let it rise again; but some bishop must breathe new life

into it. Friedrich says that Cardinal Bilio was particularly hurt by

this speech.

Bernardou, Archbishop of Sens, read a speech for Audu, the Patriarch

of Babylon. The Chaldean solemnly pleaded against the levelling

proceedings of Rome, maintained the ancient immunities of his Church,

and ventured to throw out a warning against innovations, lest the

Orientals should be altogether alienated. He afterwards received a

message to repair to the Vatican, and to come unattended. About seven

o'clock on that January night, the man of seventy-eight passed the

Swiss guards, in their stripes and slashes of yellow, black, and red,

with their halberds and their helmets, and while lonelily pacing the

corridors, had time to remember how the house of the Inquisition stood

over the way, and how utterly he was in the power of the King of the

Vatican. It will be some time before what befell him comes to light.

Theiner, the celebrated Prefect of the Vatican Archives, had been long

engaged, as was universally known, in preparing for publication the

_Acta_ of the Council of Trent. He had been arrested in this project.

This was attributed to the instigation of the Jesuits. On January 4

Friedrich went to Theiner to beg permission to consult the _Acta_

of Trent. "Theiner told me that he was now forbidden to let any one

even see the _Acta_. All I could obtain from him was this--he showed

me the piles of the copied documents in the distance" (p. 65). There

is a picture for the days of an OEcumenical Council![264] The day

following, another German on the banks of the Spree, was busy with

the Council. To Bismarck the state of things so far was chaotic. "I

should not think it wise," he says to Arnim, "for us to intermeddle in

this misty chaos, where we do not yet see clearly enough to choose the

right basis of operations." He sees that Rome may make aggressions,

but rests in proud repose in the power of the nation to throw her

back within her proper bounds. The continuance of peaceful relations

is greatly to be desired, but it is not for the government to attempt

to give a direction to the events of the Council. It can only cherish

sympathy with the efforts of the German bishops, and, _if they desire

it_, give them its support. Bismarck expressly declines to support

by any diplomatic step the proposal for vote by nations. Such a step

would involve a serious recognition of the pretensions of the Curia. We

must, he says, hold ourselves aloof from the Council, and free to bring

its conclusions to the bar of our laws. He, therefore, does not deem

it wise to attempt a permanent united meeting of diplomatists, with a

view to influence the Council. All that can be done is to encourage the

German bishops, and to assure them that their rights will be maintained

in their own country. But they must be made fully to understand that

serious changes in the organization of the Church would compel the

government to alter its relation to her, both in legislation and in

administration.[265] Had Bismarck known all the plans of the five

preceding years, and all the events that were to follow, it is doubtful

if he could have taken a better course. And had his main object been

to live at peace with Rome, and not merely to do the wisest thing for

Germany, he could hardly have guarded more jealously against undue or

premature interference.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 248: _Tagebuch_, p. 44.]

[Footnote 249: _Tagebuch_, p. 45.]

[Footnote 250: _Acton_, p. 73.]

[Footnote 251: _Tagebuch_, p. 44.]

[Footnote 252: _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_, v. 316. i.]

[Footnote 253: Vol. v. p. 316.]

[Footnote 254: _Acton_, pp. 74, 75, both in German and Latin.]

[Footnote 255: _Documenta_, i. 247.]

[Footnote 256: "Consultationem sicut decet haberi non posse."]

[Footnote 257: _Documenta_, ii. 383; also _Friedberg_, 410-14.]

[Footnote 258: _Friedberg_, xlv.; _Cecconi_, 483-89; and _Frond_, vii.

p. 263.]

[Footnote 259: _Acta Sanctae Sedis_. v. 317-18.]

[Footnote 260: _Ibid._ 319.]

[Footnote 261: _Civiltá_, VII. ix. 358-9.]

[Footnote 262: Valuable light has lately been thrown on the two trials

of Galileo by Dr. Reusch, of Bonn; and Signor Berti, ex-Minister of

Instruction in Italy, has published the original record of the trial.

The last I have not seen.]

[Footnote 263: _Tagebuch_, p. 63.]

[Footnote 264: This tale of Friedrich may form a pendant to one of

Theiner's own. He relates how, in seeking for Tridentine documents

which ought to have been in the Vatican, but were not, and some of

which were in the library of Lord Guildford, he proposed to make a

journey all the way to England. His brother oratorian, Dr. Newman,

applied to Lord Guildford requesting that Theiner might have access to

them. This was refused. That nobleman could not see why the Prefect

of the Vatican Archives should come so far to examine documents of

which there must be abundance there! Poor Theiner had found poverty,

not abundance. There had been removal, as well as concealment. His ill

success in England did not prevent him from saying that the honour of

first publishing the minutes of Paleotti was due to the Rev. Joseph

Mendham, an Anglican presbyter,--"which, certainly, is not to our

honour or glory" (vol. i. pp. vi. vii.).]

[Footnote 265: _Cologne Gazette_, April 1, 1874.]

CHAPTER V

The Second Public Session--Swearing a Creed never before known in a

General Council--Really an Oath including Feudal Obedience.

The same tone of disappointment in which the _Civiltá_ had said that

as the discussion of the Draft was not concluded, no Decree would

be promulged in the second session, pervaded the additional remark

that the world would describe as a vain ceremony the recital of the

creed with which it had been resolved to fill up the day. Writers of

different shades, as if by concert, did describe it as a religious

ceremony,--a mere ceremony, an empty ceremony, a vain ceremony, and a

tedious ceremony.

So far from taking this session as a vain show, we take it for one

of the most distinctive footmarks left in the deposits of history

by the mammoth which we call the Papacy. Without contrivance of

man--in contravention, indeed, of arrangements made with patient

forethought--the Vatican Council was compelled, under guise of reciting

a creed, to exhibit its bishops as if barons swearing allegiance to a

prince in peril of losing his estates. The creed recited was one never

before seen or heard of in any General Council. An apparent accident

set the faith of the early Church, and the modern composite oath and

creed, before the eye of history in a contrast sharper than any artist

could have devised.

A cause similar to that which led to this day being employed in setting

face to face the old creed and the new, had at Trent led to the act

that formed the reverse of the medal. At Trent, on the day fixed for

the third session, no Decree was ready for promulgation, just as none

was ready at the Vatican on that fixed for the second.

Consequently, at Trent, after much reluctance, the Fathers, rather

than let the day appointed pass without a session, consented to fill

up the time in doing what many of them felt would expose them to

ridicule--in reciting the creed. Thus did they create an example which

the Curia now followed. Two unforeseen accidents, linked together only

by the association of precedent, led to the placing of the Catholic

creed as it existed up to the Council of Trent, and the Romish creed

as framed after Trent, side by side in a framework so impressive as to

ensure the exhibition of the two in contrast to all ages.

At Trent the Fathers said that they would set forth as the firm and

sole foundation, against which the gates of hell should not prevail,

the creed used by the Roman Church, which was the _principium_, wherein

"all who confessed Christ" of necessity concurred,--an expression which

seems as if it was the last breath of catholicity on the lips of the

Papal society. Another slight reminiscence of catholicity appears when

it is said that the creed is given in the exact words in which it is

read "in all churches,"--a terminology proper to apostolic pens, or

to the lips of our glorified Lord, speaking to His servant John, when

the word "churches" was the Christian vernacular, and "church" as a

collective was rarely used, and only in the very largest sense possible.

Led by a way which they knew not, the Fathers at Trent set up a

memorial of the faith of the Christian Churches as they found it in

the creed. Led also by a way which they knew not, the Fathers at the

Vatican set up an everlasting remembrance of what their predecessors at

Trent had done with the faith.

The Cardinals arrived on the morning of the Epiphany, dressed in red;

but they changed to the white proper to the day. Patriarchs, primates,

archbishops, bishops, abbots and generals of orders, were all in white,

except the Orientals, who had never surrendered to the primacy of Rome

on the sacred subject of vestments. The Pope entered the hall, as he

had done at the first session, between Antonelli and Mertel.

After Mass, Dominicis-Tosti and Philip Ralli, the two Promoters of

the Council; reverently drew nigh to the throne, and addressing the

Pontiff, said:--

Inasmuch as, by ancient appointment of the Fathers, the sacred

Councils of the Church have been wont to set the Confession of the

Faith in the forefront of all their doings, as a buckler against

every heresy, we, therefore, the Promoters of this Vatican Council,

do humbly pray that profession of the Catholic faith in the form

prescribed by thy predecessor of sacred memory, Pius IV, be made

this day, in public session by all the Fathers of this Vatican

Council.

The Pontiff replied, "We enjoin and command accordingly."

Then arose the sovereign from his throne, took off the sacred mitre,

and, with loud and clear voice, recited for the first time in the

history of man, as the belief of a General Council, the creed of Pius

IV. Near the end of it, he came to the clause which swears obedience to

the Roman Pontiff. This he omitted. The conclusion swears to maintain

the faith just recited, and, as much as in the confessor lies, to

enforce it "on all those committed to him." The Pope simply said to

enforce it "upon all," and then he closed according to the regular

form,--"I, Pius, promise, vow, and swear, so help me God, and these

God's Holy Gospels."

Bishop Fessler, Secretary of the Council, and Bishop Valenziani, now

came to the throne. The Pontiff handed to them the creed of Pius IV,

just as he had handed his own Decrees at the first session. Valenziani,

ascending the pulpit, recited it, in his own name and in that of all

the Fathers. When he came to the portentous obedience clause, omitted

by him who owes no account to man, tribunal, or nation, the bishop,

read, "To the Roman Pontiff, successor of the blessed Peter, prince

of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ, I promise and swear true

obedience,"--as if it was an installation in a feudal order. No wonder

that Canon Pelletier, writing in Frond (vol. vii. p. 170), should say

that this act of homage, "in the circumstances of which all are aware,

had an immense importance." Valenziani then concluded the form as the

Pope had done, only, instead of enforcing obedience "upon all," it was

"on all committed to him."

Patrizi, the Senior Cardinal present,[266] now rose, came to the

throne, knelt, laid his hand on the volume of the Gospels, and lifting

up his voice, said, "I, Constantine, Bishop of Porto and Rufina,

promise, vow, and swear according to the form now read, so help me God,

and these God's Holy Gospels"; and he kissed the book.

Then Cardinals and Patriarchs, one by one, after them Primates,

Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, and Generals of Orders, in regular

gradation of rank, first two and two, and, later, four and four,[267]

came successively to the throne, and during the space of two hours,

knelt down, laid the hand on the book, repeated the above words, each

inserting his own name, kissed the book, and so swore allegiance to the

King of the Vatican, under the form of a profession of the simple and

loving faith of Christ. The two creeds, recited at Trent and in St.

Peter's, are below, in parallel columns--the one representing what the

Council of Trent found, and the other representing what it left. Future

epochs will have to mark subsequent innovations. We put _the clause

forming the basis of the new dogmas in_ italics. The other italics are

those given in Dr. Challoner's recension[268]:--

THE CATHOLIC CREED BEFORE THE ROMISH CREED AFTER THE

THE REFORMATION REFORMATION

"I, N., with a firm faith, "I, N., with a firm faith,

believe and profess all and believe and profess all and

every one of the things which every one of the things which

are contained in that creed are contained in that creed

which the holy Roman Church which the holy Roman Church

maketh use of; namely-- maketh use of; namely--

"I believe in one God, the "I believe in one God, the

Father Almighty, Maker of Father Almighty, Maker of

heaven and earth, and of all heaven and earth, and of all

things visible and invisible: things visible and invisible:

and in one Lord Jesus Christ, and in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the only-begotten Son of God, the only-begotten Son of God,

_born of the Father before all ages_: _born of the Father before all

God of God; Light of light; ages_: God of God; Light of light;

true God of true God; begotten, true God of true God; begotten,

not made; consubstantial not made; consubstantial to

to the Father, by whom the Father, by whom all things

all things were made; who, were made; who, for us men,

for us men, and for our salvation, and for our salvation, came down

came down from heaven, from heaven, and was incarnate

and was incarnate by the Holy by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin

Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and Mary, and was made man.

was made man. Was crucified Was crucified also for us under

also for us under Pontius Pilate; Pontius Pilate; He suffered

He suffered and was buried, and was buried, and the third

and the third day He rose again, day He rose again, according

according to the Scriptures; to the Scriptures; He ascended

He ascended into heaven, sits into heaven, sits at the right

at the right hand of the Father, hand of the Father, and is to

and is to come again with glory come again with glory to judge

to judge the living and the dead; the living and the dead; of

of whose kingdom there shall whose kingdom there shall be

be no end. And in the Holy no end. And in the Holy

Ghost, the Lord and Life-giver, Ghost, the Lord and Life-giver,

who proceeds from the Father who proceeds from the Father

and the Son, who together with and the Son, who together with

the Father and the Son is the Father and the Son is

adored and glorified, who spoke adored and glorified, who spoke

by the Prophets; and (I believe) by the Prophets; and (I believe)

one holy catholic and one holy catholic and apostolic

apostolic Church, I confess one Church, I confess one baptism

baptism for the remission of for the remission of sins, and

sins, and I look for the resurrection I look for the resurrection of

of the dead, and the life of the dead, and the life of the

the world to come. Amen." world to come. Amen.

"_I most steadfastly admit and

embrace apostolical and

ecclesiastical traditions, and all

other observances and

constitutions of the same Church._

"I also admit the holy

_Scriptures_, according to that

sense which our holy Mother, the

Church, has held, and does hold,

to whom it belongs to _judge_ of

the true sense and interpretation

of the Scriptures; neither

will I ever take and interpret

them otherwise than according

to the unanimous consent of the

Fathers.

"I also profess that there are

truly and properly _seven

sacraments_ of the new law,

instituted by Jesus Christ our

Lord, and necessary for the

salvation of mankind, though not

all for every one; to wit,

_baptism_, _confirmation,

eucharist, penance_, _extreme

unction, orders_, and

_matrimony_; and that they confer

grace; and that of these,

_baptism confirmation_, and

_orders_ cannot be reiterated

without sacrilege.

"I also receive and admit the

received and approved _ceremonies_

of the _Catholic Church_,

used in the solemn administration

of all the aforesaid sacraments.

"I embrace and receive all

and every one of the things

which have been defined and

declared in the holy Council of

_Trent_, concerning _original sin_

and _justification_.

"I profess, likewise, that in

the Mass there is offered to God

a true, proper, and propitiatory

sacrifice for the living and the

dead. And that in the most

holy sacrament of the _eucharist_

there is truly, really, and

substantially, the _body_ and

_blood_, together with the _soul_

and _divinity_, of our Lord Jesus

Christ; and that there is made

a conversion of the whole

substance of the bread into the

body, and of the whole substance

of the wine into the

blood; which conversion the

Catholic Church calls

transubstantiation.

"I confess, also, that under

_either kind_ alone, Christ is

received whole and entire, and a

true sacrament.

"I constantly hold that there

is a _purgatory_, and that the

souls detained therein are helped

by the suffrages of the faithful.

"Likewise, that the _saints_

reigning together with Christ

are to be honoured and invocated,

and that they offer

prayers to God for us; and that

their _relics_ are to be held in

veneration.

"I most firmly assert that

the _images_ of Christ, and of the

Mother of God, ever Virgin,

and also of the other saints,

are to be had and retained, and

that due honour and veneration

are to be given to them.

"I also affirm that the power

of _indulgences_ was left by

Christ in the Church, and that

the use of them is most wholesome

to _Christian_ people.

"I acknowledge the holy

catholic and apostolical Roman

Church, _The Mother and Mistress

of all Churches; And I Promise

[and Swear] True Obedience to

the Bishop of Rome_, successor

to St. Peter, Prince of the

Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus

Christ.

"I likewise undoubtedly receive

and profess all other things

delivered, defined, and declared

by the sacred Canons and

General Councils, and particularly

by the holy Council of

Trent. And I condemn, reject,

and anathematise all things

contrary thereto, and all heresies

which the Church has condemned,

_rejected_, and anathematised.

"This true Catholic faith, _Out

of Which None Can Be Saved_,

which I now freely profess, and

truly hold, I, N., promise, vow,

and swear most constantly to

hold and profess the same whole

and entire, with God's assistance,

to the end of my life; _and

to procure, as far as lies in my

power, that the same shall be

held, taught, and preached by all

who are under me, or are entrusted

to my care by virtue of my

office. So help me God and these

Holy Gospels of God_."

Among the seven hundred men who repeated this set of propositions,

unknown to Holy Scripture, we may feel assured that there were not

wanting some who as they approached the end of the old, thought, That

was the faith as it was professed before Luther; and as they entered

upon the new, thought Where was this religion before Luther?

What a contrast between the old and the new! If ever it was true, it is

here true, that the old is better. Under the old creed, the conscience

is not hampered by any question about the authority of traditions,

either apostolic so-called, or such as were confessedly ecclesiastical.

The conscience is not perplexed with a fear of interpreting Holy

Scripture differently from the unanimous opinion of the Fathers. It

is not weighted with seven sacraments, not contracted with scruples

about mere rites and modes of administration, not burdened by having

to take for gospel every word which some past Council has said on

some specified doctrine; not bewildered by a professed repetition

ofttimes of the sacrifice once offered up forever, full, perfect, and

sufficient; not materialized by transubstantiation of the substance

of the bread and wine, not mystified by taking half a sacrament for a

whole one, and by asserting that the deliberate evasion of Christ's

sacramental command was a true performance of it; not secularized

by the mercantile reckonings of purgatory; not let down from filial

Christianity towards servile polytheism by the worship of saints,

relics, and images; not demoralized by the traffic in indulgences; not

narrowed by the domination of one municipal Church over all others;

not cramped and degraded by identification with the sins and follies

of one human head, much less by an allegiance to that head, as a lord

of the faith and a sovereign of the conscience; not envenomed by

anathematizing all who do not accept every article that we ourselves

accept.

Trent diminished the comprehensiveness of the Papal Society by many

new and some grotesque conditions. The present Pontiff has added

others, and so far has the shrinking process been now carried that

a _reductio ad absurdum_ cannot be logically far off. Believing too

much, which comes to believing too little, ends in believing nothing.

All these successive submissions of conscience to "authority," of

spiritual inquiry and private judgment to priestly dictation, end in

the paralysis of the believing faculty. They render a man capable of

nothing but submitting.

The ordinary oath of the Papal bishops has often been shown to be in

substance the oath of a feudal vassal to his liege lord. It has but a

flavour of any evangelical office or work of the soul-winning ministry

of Christ. The Emperor Joseph II clearly saw that any man bound to the

Pope by that oath could not be reckoned as the subject of any other

prince, except by one of those generous fictions which on behalf of

the Pope, by way of exception, governments have admitted. But even that

oath was not enough; the confession of faith in God must, for all the

clergy, be turned into an oath of loyalty to the Bishop of Rome--an

oath to a human head in a creed!

The process of taking the oath lasted, as we have said, two hours.

The crowd was not great. The session did not raise enthusiasm in any

one. Friedrich, who viewed the act of homage from the gallery for

theologians, said that nothing could be more tedious. He did not feel

flattered with his company in that gallery. Formerly, only doctors were

known at Councils as theologians, and, as we have seen, they had real

work to do. Now, he says, the chaplains and secretaries of bishops,

and even the men who carry the red caps of the Cardinals, figure as

theologians--"an edifying company." Even the _Stimmen_ had only a few

sentences for this session; and the _Civiltá_, though read principally

by persons who may be supposed to have already seen the creed of

Pius IV, filled up room by printing it at full. Quirinus wondered

whether this "profusion of superfluous oaths was reconcilable with the

scriptural prohibition of needless oaths." They had seven hundred and

forty-seven oaths taken.

Only the genius of M. Veuillot sufficed, so far as we remember, to

cheer the gloom of the day. It was the Epiphany, and in the portions of

Scripture included in the offices of the day, he saw the interpretation

of the ceremony. The royally robed potentates who bowed before the

enthroned priest-king were _the kings of the Gentiles_ prostrating

themselves and worshipping the Church, presenting their gold, and

frankincense and, myrrh. The words of Isaiah, "The nations shall come

to Thy light, and the kings to the brightness of Thy rising," had the

same grand meaning. So he cries (i. 79):--

Behold St. Peter's! The throne of the Pontiff and the Cardinal at

the altar, and between throne and altar eight hundred bishops!

Behold the prophecy and behold the fact!

M. Veuillot remarks that in the galleries were present diplomatists

and princes who had fallen; but the Church abides! In the crowd, he

says, was an Italian "revolutionist, Signor Minghetti, once a subject

and minister of the Pope. He bowed with propriety under the benediction

of his Father and his master, who was betrayed by him; but he abides!"

The fallen princes represented those who, having supported the Papacy,

both temporal and spiritual, had been brought to ruin by its bad

teaching and worse example. Signor Minghetti and his bow represented

those who, rejecting the temporal Papacy, wished to conserve at least

the show of the spiritual Papacy. It is for future time to tell whether

they to whom he will bequeath the tangled undertaking, will take their

place with ex-kings, ex-dukes, ex-princes, and so forth, in the gallery

of failures, or whether they will take their place among the wise men

who, rejecting the spiritual as worse than the temporal Papacy, and

risking all to found States on the principles of the Word of God, have

built up great and happy realms. Italy not does think a principle worth

running any risk for. She thinks it practical to say to the Papacy, We

have found thee unfaithful in the unrighteous mammon, and therefore do

we take it from thee, but we commit to thy trust the true riches.

The _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_ say that no date was fixed for the next

session. The confidence in the readiness of the Fathers to swallow

a large pamphlet of creed in a few days was shaken. "No one,"

is it pensively added, "could foresee when Decrees would be in

readiness, because many Fathers might probably be lengthy in their

discourses."[269] The learned editor seems as if he would fain emulate

the flight of M. Veuillot, but he soars with weighted wing. In a long

apostrophe to Rome, he styles Pius IX "the captain who gloriously

fills the place of thine ancient Caesars."[270] In one of his speeches

made to Roman professors, Pius IX calls himself "the Cæsar who now

addresses you,[271] and to whom alone are obedience and fidelity due."

It is evident that the Curia left this session under the damping

effects of a disappointment. It is also evident that some of the

bishops felt that they had now performed two sessions, with a month

between them, and that the only distinct impression left upon the mind

was that they had been twice exhibited, before the whole world, at the

feet of a man more richly robed than themselves, seated on a throne

in the house of God, and calling himself Father of kings and princes,

and Governor of the world. Canon Pelletier points out the great

advantage which the Church had obtained by having the Creed of Pius IV

"consecrated" in a General Council.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 266: The Dean of the Sacred College, Cardinal Mattei, was

unable to attend the sittings.]

[Footnote 267: _Acta Sanctæ Sedis._]

[Footnote 268: _The Grounds of the Catholic Faith_, p. 3. The obedience

clause in Challoner, not being meant for the clergy, does not contain

the word _swear_. For the same reason is the final clause, which

implies authority, omitted. The translation of that clause given here

is from Mr. Butler's version.]

[Footnote 269: _Acta S.S._, v. 327.]

[Footnote 270: "Sub co duce qui locum veturum tuorum Cæsarum gloriose

occupat."--_Ibid._ 324.]

[Footnote 271: _Discorsi_, i. p. 255.]

CHAPTER VI

Speech of the Pope against the Opposition--Future Policy set

before France--Count Arnim's Views--Resumed Debate--Haynald--A New

Mortal Sin--Count Daru and French Policy--Address calling for the

New Dogma--Counter Petitions against the Principle as well as the

Opportuneness.

On the Sunday following this disappointing session, the Pope received

fifteen hundred persons in a public audience. Even the language of

M. Veuillot does not exaggerate the effect of his speech upon that

occasion. "What he said on the Council will loudly resound through the

Catholic universe." What he said cut the bishops of the Opposition, and

Liberal Catholics generally, to the heart. We quote from the version of

M. Veuillot:--

Would-be wise men would have us treat certain questions charily,

and not march against the ideas of the age, but I say that we must

speak the truth, in order to establish liberty. We must never fear

to proclaim the truth or to condemn error. I want to be free, and

want the truth to be free. Pray then, weep, force the Holy Spirit,

by your supplications, to support and enlighten the Fathers of the

Council, that the truth may triumph and error may be condemned.

After his first version of the speech, M. Veuillot said that a word had

been "unfortunately omitted." The Pope had said that those who opposed

certain measures were

blind leaders of the blind. Well, if the leaders want not to

lead any but the blind, and cannot see their game, the Church,

preserving her own liberty, will know how to win without them or

against them, the game which they obstinately set themselves to

lose (i. pp. 86 and 100).

This was treated, not as a mere gust of temper, but as a calculated

appeal through the press to the clergy, and to the devout generally,

against the bishops of the Opposition. Yet the longing of the Pope

for his liberty was natural. He had always believed himself to be

infallible. The Jesuits told him that the full recognition of that

attribute, and the free use of it, were the only remedies for the

misfortunes of the Papacy, and for the troubles of mankind. He read in

the _Civiltá_ how all nations were at this moment looking to him as

the one saviour, capable of lifting them out of the Slough of Despond

into which the Reformation first and the Revolution next had plunged

them. He heard of faithful bishops, learned authors, able journalists,

one after another, intimating in prophetic strains an era of glory to

follow the recognition of his rights. All asked, how could the world

do otherwise than stumble and fall so long as the divinely appointed

guide was not recognized? All asserted that nothing could prevent the

world from rising up, healed and created anew, when the Vicar of God,

acknowledged by the Church, in the plentitude of this authority, should

speak the word, Let there be light, at which chaos would flee away,

and when he should follow it up with the supreme word to kings and

nations alike, which all must learn to obey. Heretics would resist, but

the faithful, under the banner of the Vicar of God, would certainly

prevail. Nothing stood in the way of all this blessing and glory but a

few bishops.

These bishops were represented as being partly calculating men,

unwilling to get into trouble with their governments; partly cowards,

who actually feared that the standard of his Holiness might fall in the

struggle. Some were represented as jealous priests, paltering about

the little prerogatives of their Sees, instead of merging all in the

glories of the Holy See. If, in a matter so great, the Pope chafed at

delay caused by such inconsiderable men, it was not more than might

be expected from human nature so incensed, and so persuaded, even in

the case of one less vehemently suspected of vanity and self-will than

is Pius IX. He said that some thought that the Council was to set

everything to rights, and some that it would accomplish nothing. "I

am but a poor man, a poor feeble man, but I am Pope, Vicar of Jesus

Christ, and head of the Catholic Church, and I have assembled the

Council, which will do its work."[272]

M. Veuillot also was becoming a little impatient. He apparently wanted

to see the beginning of the "clearing away" of which he had spoken in

1867. The following passage, tracing out the policy that might save the

Second Empire, is a specimen of skilled writing, clear to his clerical

readers, dim to heedless Parisians. The new minister (Ollivier) must

accept this program:--

To break with the Gallican, revolutionary, and Cæsarian prejudice

(which are all one) by frankly recognizing the liberty of the

Church; to assure all liberty by and through the assertion of

this liberty, as mother and mistress; to prepare the accessions

necessary to the honour and the conservation of peace; to permit

men to be made against this perpetual plague of revolution which

exudes only courtiers of the mob, or courtiers of Cæsar; this is

the grand game he has to play. In the interest of the Emperor and

the dynasty, I wish he may win it. Alas! during the last twenty

years the game has been lost, more than once, by the fault of the

chief player! But Providence is pleased to be obstinate, and to

leave the game open, with favourable cards in the same hands (vol.

i. p. 98).

In the gloaming of these January evenings, two men, might be seen

walking somewhere between the Ripetta and the Via Condotti, and the

tall figure of one of them was that of Count Harry von Arnim. A letter

which he on one such occasion handed to the other was published,

in 1874, by the _Presse_, of Vienna,[273] and bore the date of the

day before the impatient speech of the Pope. To whom the letter was

addressed is not stated. Alluding to the petition of the bishops,

Count Arnim says: "You see they are modest, and organization is as

defective as courage." He feels the want of practical tact in the

bishops. If they had meant to succeed in their opposition, they ought

to have impugned the composition of the Council, and the Rules imposed

upon it. Had they first of all rent the net which the Vatican and the

Gesu [the Jesuit establishment] had cast over the wise but timid heads

of the bishops, infallibility would have fallen through the meshes.

The Count is not sure that the Curia will persevere with the dogma of

infallibility; and does not see of what advantage it would be to them,

when they can at any time call a Council and prescribe to it how and

what it is to speak. Some of the Fathers feel as if they were in some

sort the Pope's prisoners since they have entered on the course into

which they had been drawn. They had allowed themselves to be led so

far in a certain direction during the last twenty years, that it was

only when they saw that it was to be turned to earnest, that they began

to ask how they could make black white at home, and how the Catholic

people would take it. That was the feeling that produced "Fulda."

People belonging to the Curia say that the bishops need a couple of

months in the air of Rome to inspire them with the grand conceptions of

the place; and after that all will be of one mind. He cannot understand

how the German Catholics are going to let five hundred Italians, and

among them three hundred boarders of the Pope, dictate laws to them

in spite of their own bishops. Under the pretence of Catholicity,

exclusive Romish-Italian formulæ are imposed on the Catholic mind of

all nations.

If Rome resented the obstinacy of the provincials, some of the

provincials began to open their eyes at what they found in Rome.

Friedrich quotes one well acquainted with the Curia, whose words may

be matched out of Liverani. "The Cardinals," said this authority,

"are red-stockinged ... not fit, with the exception of four or five,

to be curates in a village church." Friedrich himself had begun to

think that their principal function was "parading." But at that Court

did not everything depend upon parading? Many of the Cardinals might

be no better men than the tongue of Rome (not a scrupulous one) made

them, and no greater theologians than Liverani and Friedrich said that

they were, but some of them assuredly had great abilities, and all

had shown themselves to be blessed with the faculty of getting on,

which is generally some qualification for ruling. Disgusted by the low

appearance of the monks and their mendicity, Friedrich yet confessed

that, in present circumstances, such swarms of them had an advantage,

as keeping a certain sort of population out of mischief. How different

the view of M. Veuillot! To him the monks were the ideal of Christ's

benefit to mankind. Free from the world, from the care even of a name

or a tomb, the world "must allow their crushing sandals to pass over

the poisons which its pride has sown" (i. p. 223). It remains to be

seen whether the plants springing from seeds that quickly fall from

a free Bible, a free soul, a free pulpit, and a free press, will die

crushed as poison plants under the sandals of the monk, or whether they

will yet flourish like grass of the earth, and the fruit of them shall

shake like Lebanon, when _fakir_ and monk shall together be remembered

among the things that fatally decay in the shade of a growth which,

though at first the least of herbs, becomes afterwards the greatest of

all trees.

In the street Friedrich met Graf A., doubtless one who then proudly

filled a proud post, but who now unhappily lies under a heavy cloud.

The Count told him that a petition in favour of bringing forward the

question of infallibility, drawn up in Manning's sense was already

signed by five hundred bishops. Another of Friedrich's touches is, that

_Janus_ always lay on Darboy's table, and Hergenröther's _Anti-Janus_

on that of Ketteler. After calling the latter work very dishonest, he

says "The upshot of this book is, that the Pope alone is invested with

divine authority, and before this Baal of the Jesuits, the majority of

the Council means to bow the knee. Will not that amount to decreeing

the death of the Church? She may lay herself down crying, 'Jesuits,

you have conquered me.'" As a specimen of what bishops even in Council

assembled had come to, he quotes the memorable words of Hergenröther,

"_The bishops have nothing to do but to set the conciliar seal to a

work which the Jesuit Schrader has prepared._"

"Happy bishops," cries the poor theologian, himself tormented by

opinions, and unable to let others believe for him. "Happy bishops!

you may give dinners, see works of art, take your siestas, parade in

pluvial and mitre, for the Jesuit Father has taken care of all the

rest; and, then, setting to the conciliar seal is not hard work! There

is nothing to do but to say _Placet_, and all is over." Much depended

on the interpretation men gave to their oath. Canon Pelletier (_Frond_,

vii. p. 170) says, not unnaturally, that at the moment when the Fathers

prostrated themselves at the feet of the Pope, the majority was formed.

All who understood "obey" in the sense of the Court, would vote what

the Pope told them to vote. But Ginoulhiac, of Grenoble, soon to be

Primate of France, had taken care, beforehand, to protest against such

an interpretation. Though expressing some fear in citing it, he did

cite the language of Bellarmine, to the effect that so free must a

Council be that the bishops, their oath notwithstanding, must not only

say what they think, but must even proceed against the Pope should he

be convicted of heresy.[274] Such language, in the mouth of Bellarmine,

as contrasted with that of Deschamps, Manning, and the other zealots of

infallibility, marks the progress made by the Papal claims in our day.

The General Congregations were resumed on January 8, when two new

Drafts on discipline were distributed. The Congregation of the 10th

was remarkable for striking speeches, and for an unforeseen turn of

the debate. Haynald, Archbishop of Colocza, replied to the few who

had defended the Draft, especially to Martin, and Räss of Strasburg.

He charged them with having attempted to deprive the Fathers even of

the liberty left to them by the Rules, for they had reproached them

for discussing what was laid before them. Did not even the formula at

the head of the Decree, for speaking on which Strossmayer had been

called to order, say, "the Council approving"? which surely implied

that it was open to it to disapprove. Martin had said, We shall say

"It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us;" But, rejoined Haynald,

though Martin may know that we are to say so, _we_ do not know it.

This speech was described as one of remarkable power, second in that

respect only to the speech of Strossmayer. Cardinal Capalti, one of

the Presidents, listened with outstretched neck, and both hands behind

his ears; but so skilfully was the discourse constructed, that Haynald

escaped being called to order. He was often applauded, especially at

the conclusion. It is said that Cardinal Bilio, who was responsible for

the Draft, being, for a Cardinal, strong in German, knew three words of

it,--_Deutsche_ (German), and _freie Wissenschaft_ (free science). He

leaned back, often repeating, with an inward shudder, _Deutsche, freie

Wissenschaft_.

Bishop Maignan, of Chalons, who followed Haynald, did not mount the

pulpit, but stood before the Presidents. His speech was also spoken of

as having been very striking. He attacked the Draft, especially its

phraseology. What, he asked, was meant by _anima est forma corporis_

(the soul is the _form_ of the body)? The Greek Bishop of Grosswardein

defended the Draft, saying that at first he had doubts, but that the

more he studied it the more he was satisfied. As he had previously

said, in the meeting of German and Hungarian prelates, "I do not like

many dogmas,"[275] when he next appeared among them some one said,

"Greek faith is no faith," and he appeared among them no more. A

Chaldean prelate, Kajat, speaking with a fine, clear voice, said,

"It was scarcely becoming for a General Council to be occupied with

matters so local as the opinions of this or that German professor";

and repeated the unwelcome words, "Free science," as Haynald and

Maignan had done. The debate now seemed as if it might prove very

searching. The minority had strong, if ill-grounded, hopes, but a

new proof of the way in which the Rules played with deliberation was

now sprung upon them. If a free assembly can close a discussion when

it deems it already ample, it can also continue it so long as the

conscience of its members cries out for a hearing. After the speech of

the Bishop of Grosswardein, up rose the President, and said that, in

pursuance of power given in the Rules, of Withdrawing a Draft Decree

when disputed, the Draft should now be withdrawn from the Council,

and should be remitted to the Committee, to be moulded by it. What!

could not the Council go on with its investigation? Had it not control

over a proposition once laid before it? No; the Twenty-four, with the

theologians of the Court, were now in sole possession of the proposed

measure!

Had the Council been free to form itself into a committee, or to

select one from among its own members after this discussion, doubtless

some of the men who had shown that they were capable of sifting the

clauses would have been put upon the committee, beside the few who had

defended the Draft. But that was the very danger which the Nine had

foreseen, and against which they had provided by a permanent committee,

elected before the question was argued. This provision was effective

for its end, reducing the part left to the bishops to that of making

Latin speeches in rows, according to rank and seniority. One other

liberty they had--the momentous one of saying Ay or No. Had not the

Council been weighted with creatures of the Court, that single liberty

might have sufficed to stay the great organic change necessary to the

scheme of reconstruction. We do not know whether the sitting we have

just described[276] is the one of which Quirinus stated that Cardinal

Antonelli withdrew from it much disgusted, saying to a diplomatist that

if the Council went on so it would never have done.

While, therefore, the Curia, disgusted with the bishops, had seen their

perfect work torn to pieces day by day, now the bishops, astounded at

the Curia, saw the future creed shut up in secret even from them!

In its absence, they began on the fourteenth to discuss discipline.

That was a notable day. It witnessed the creation of a new mortal sin.

The _Acta_ do not contain the document by which this was done.[277]

In Councils that were really general, a Christian bishop would have

considered it a duty to tell his clergy and people what he said, and

what he heard others say, about the faith of Christ. But on this day,

Pope Pius IX turned this sacred duty of the bishop into a mortal sin.

Secrecy, the genius of the Papacy, and publicity, the child of light,

now closed for a life and death grapple. Any man of that assembly who

should hereafter tell out of it what passed within it was to be guilty

of mortal sin. The oath imposed before the opening upon the officers,

and the injunctions of secrecy upon the bishops, had not availed.

The step taken by the Pope was a loud acknowledgment that truth had

leaked out. In a surly way this is admitted by the _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_.

Shameless journals--_effrontes ephemerides_--had reported, as having

been spoken and done in the Council, things partly true and partly

false. "This had probably arisen from some one or another, who lightly

held the _pontifical secret_, having given information, so taking

upon himself to ignore the dignity of the Apostolic See in treating

ecclesiastical questions."[278] Vitelleschi, Roman as he is, asks,--If

the Council is a supreme assembly, who is entitled to impose this

penalty of mortal sin? Men of the Curia, accustomed to the making of

innocent acts into sins, and of sins into licensed actions, would

not scruple to read such a document in the face of such an assembly.

Such is their state of conscience, that, far from feeling any shame,

probably they would enjoy the idea of the shame and confusion of

conscience which they were inflicting on the bishops. But men brought

up in England and America could sit there, while this new yoke was

fastened upon them, and say not a word! The bishops were really to be

pitied. They were entangled in the creed. Their oath had shut them

in. There is no hint of a protest having been raised by any one. To

speak of these gentlemen in one aspect as citizens of free nations,

and in another aspect as prefects of the Pope, is scarcely any longer

accurate. It is but by a fiction of the frailest sort that men so

tied and bound by the chain of the foreign potentate can be called

citizens. We have seen that the _Civiltá_ holds it as-beneath their

dignity as ambassadors to the citizens elsewhere than in Rome. Still,

professing to be citizens, they were to be pitied. And if they were to

be pitied, still more was human society to be pitied that had to bear

the influence of seven hundred masters of a multitude whose consciences

had come to such a pass. "A bishop," says Quirinus, "who should show a

theologian, whose advice he wanted, a passage from the _schema_ under

discussion, or who should repeat an expression used in one of the

speeches, incurs everlasting damnation.... A Papal theologian whom I

questioned on the subject appealed simply to the statement of Boniface

VIII, that the Pope holds all rights in the shrine of his breast" (p.

164).

Count Daru, who now appears on the political stage in Paris, afforded

some entertainment to Don Margotti, who is to Italy what M. Veuillot

is to France, the leading Papal journalist, having, according to a

saying of the _Français_, more power than all the bishops. According to

Quirinus the redoubtable pair are "the two modern Fathers." Count Daru

said, on January 11, that "our national maxims in matters of religion,

the independence of the civil power, and liberty of conscience, cannot

be menaced." This was child's play to Don Margotti. In his view,

France needed the new Pope-Suzerain almost as much as Italy needed

the restoration of the old Pope-King. Don Margotti[279] contends

that the doctrine of modern parliaments is that they are themselves

infallible. This he proves by a text from Emile Ollivier. That oracle

on one occasion had said "We are justice!" but Don Margotti prefers an

infallible Pope to an infallible people. Menabrea, Sella Minghetti, and

such as they in Italy, according to him, represented God, the State.

Margotti, therefore, looks on the _mot_ of Ollivier as

providential, for it proves the necessity of an infallible Pope The

world absolutely needs a permanent and infallible authority; if the

authority is not the Pope, up starts Ollivier, and ascribes it to

himself. It is time that infallibility should be defined, that we

may have no more such absurdities as Ollivier proclaiming "We are

justice!" Oh, let the dogmatic definition of infallibility speedily

sound from the heights of the Vatican, and free us from modern

justice, which calls itself now Baroche, now Ollivier!

Freeing us from modern justice and from M. Emile Ollivier are two

different matters, though it is natural for Don Margotti to hail as

providential an opportunity of treating them as one. The assumption

of infallibility by parliaments is rather a favourite notion of

Jesuit writers. They seem to mean that any authority which will not

acknowledge its subordination to the Vicar of God must claim to be

itself infallible. Yet, we might deem our own Parliament wiser than

the Pope and his Curia, and morally superior, and still not think them

anything more than erring mortals, with infallibility some way off. An

English member of Parliament, repeating the Jesuit oracles, says that

our Parliament claims to be infallible.[280] It would seem that no

assertion of the Jesuits is too ridiculous to be seriously repeated by

their Oxford converts, though many are kept back, but for other reasons

than their absurdity. The decree in which the Parliament does declare

its acts irreformable would be a great curiosity. So would even such an

expression as the following, quoted by Don Margotti (January 18) from

the archbishops and bishops of the province of Vercelli:--

Most Blessed Father, now and always shall we be found, in obedience

and reverence to your Holiness, approving, and disapproving,

whatever you, from your apostolic chair, do approve and disapprove;

from which chair Jesus Christ Himself speaks in the Holy Spirit to

the bishops and people of the whole world.

The meeting of the Italian Parliament having been postponed, to give

time to a new ministry to prepare measures, Don Margotti, viewing the

paralysis of the Parliament as a moral effect of the presence of the

Council, said (January 22):--

The word of Rome imposes silence at Florence, and the Council of

the Vatican does just as our Lord once did when He closed the mouth

of the Sadducees. Gentlemen, you have talked enough. Now stand

still, and hear the great word of God. Your day is past, the day of

the powers of darkness; and now the days of the Lord will dawn, the

days of truth and light.

The Address in favour of a definition of the dogma of infallibility

had now become the talk of all. Vitelleschi (p. 85) states that it

was carried round by the Archbishop of Westminster, and the Fathers

of the _Civiltá Cattolica_, as the Jesuits are called who form the

editorial college of the great magazine. A letter, inviting adhesions,

and signed by several bishops, chiefly belonging to the class who had

not any national ties, was circulated with the address. The signatures

to that document itself were headed by the names of Manning, Spalding

of Baltimore, and Senestry. What had been felt from the first was now

openly declared on all hands, although the utterance of it had often

been charged as a great sin upon the Liberal Catholics. We mean, that

the object of the Council was the definition of Papal infallibility,

and that all the rest was manoeuvring. Brief as are the historical

notes in the _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_ they state that we may almost say that

the whole Council was convened for the sake of the fourth session.[281]

Vitelleschi notes the fact that the citations given in the Address to

prove that earlier Councils had propounded Papal infallibility, were

not apposite. Quirinus says that the Address "bristles with falsehood."

Veuillot, on the other hand, finds its arguments cogent,--indeed,

unanswerable. Vitelleschi remarks that the writers speak with

indifference or contempt of schisms which might arise from the

measures they demanded. Friedrich calls it a compound of untruth and

slander. Veuillot urges that the contradictions to the doctrine had now

reached such a head as rendered its definition absolutely necessary.

Yet all this contradiction had arisen since the personal organ of the

Pope gave the signal for an acclamation.

That liberty of the Church which existed nowhere else upon this sinful

earth, except in Ecuador, did exist in Rome; and, therefore, all other

liberties were secured; that is, the liberty of doing everything not

forbidden by divine authority. But printing in Rome, except by licence,

was forbidden by the authority that never can be in contradiction

to evangelical law. The Address for making that authority into an

infallible one was, however, circulated in print, without _imprimatur_

of any sort. This sign was understood on all hands. It was not to be

mistaken. The divine authority asked for signatures. The canvass for

them was keen.

Vitelleschi relates that the promotors of the Address were charged with

dragging a question forward prematurely, which in the natural course

of things, would have come on for discussion when the prerogatives of

the See of Rome should be considered. To defend themselves, they said

that the step they had taken was sanctioned by the Cardinal Presidents.

This "indiscretion," he proceeds to say, "exposed the Roman Curia

to the reproach of itself begging for its own apotheosis, devoid of

feelings of the simplest propriety." Even the clergy, he thinks, were

disconcerted at this proceeding, except the Jesuits. These were urged

on by a fatality to proclaim "the infallibility of Clement XIV, who

abolished them, and that of Pius IX, who had almost done so too, while

they must find a formula to interpret the judgment of the next Pope who

shall abolish them once more."

This Roman noble accounts for the strange vehemence of Manning on the

ground that he had been a Protestant:--

He had seen his own religion from within, and not from without;

and had seen the Catholic religion from without, and not from

within. In Protestantism he had seen only the infinite internal

divisions and subdivisions; and in Catholicism he had admired only

the magnificent effect of its unity. He had not appreciated the

good results produced by the former, through moderate liberty and

the constant exercise of private reason and conscience; and he had

not felt the dangers which, in the latter, flow from excessive

authority. He is enamoured of authority, as much as the slave is of

liberty. This want of equilibrium, and of a just Catholic feeling

in his dealings respecting the Council, was charged against him,

even by the most faithful and devoted of the clergy in Rome (p. 89;

Eng. ver., 60).

A counter Address was sent in from German and Hungarian prelates;

one from French, one from Italians, one from Americans, and one from

Orientals. But these, not being in the interest of the Court could not

be printed without a licence, and could not hope to obtain one. Even

Cardinal Rauscher had failed to attain leave to print a short treatise

on the Papal infallibility in Latin, and had to send it to Vienna.[282]

So the Opposition had to dispense with type. Then, what were they to do

with their Address, when complete? The course of their opponents was

clear--they had only to send in theirs to the Commission on Proposals;

and some, in their bitterness, said that that Commission had been

formed for no other purpose than that of receiving and forwarding it.

But these Opposition addresses did not propose anything to be done, but

simply requested the Pope not to have a certain thing proposed. The

bishops had no power to move in the House that the subject should not

be considered, or to move that it should be deferred till the meeting

of the next General Council. Care had been taken that they should not

have "the negative right of proposition" any more than the positive.

Then, what could they do? Nothing whatever, but what they had done

already, namely, petition the Pope. Their former petition, indeed,

had received no answer. Still, that was a request for the recalling

of a _fait accompli_, or, at least, for its modification. This, on

the other hand, was only a request that a thing suggested should not

be done. "Can any more singular relative position be imagined," says

Vitelleschi,[283] "than that of a man who receives a number of people

into his house, with a design of proclaiming his apotheosis, and at the

same time receives from them a pressing supplication to renounce that

honour?"

None of these various Addresses stated that the signers opposed the new

dogma only on the ground of opportuneness. This ought to be carefully

noted. The opposite is now almost always either asserted or assumed;

but the documents have not perished.[284] Such a position was skilfully

avoided. It is quite true that the only grounds, formally stated in all

the Addresses _but one_, are grounds which might be concurred in by men

who objected to making the opinion of Papal infallibility into a dogma,

though they did not object to it as an opinion. But the German Address

was clearly distinguished from the others. It plainly and forcibly

demurred to the principle, though couching its objections in terms

of great courtesy. After alluding to questions of opportuneness, the

German and Hungarian bishops proceed:--

We cannot pass in silence over the fact that other grave

difficulties exist, arising out of the _dicta_ and the acts of the

Fathers of the Church, out of genuine historical documents, and out

of Catholic doctrine itself, which, unless they can be entirely

removed, it would be impossible that the doctrine commended in the

above named address should be propounded to the Christian people as

being revealed of God. Our spirit recoils from the discussion of

these difficulties; and, confiding in Thy benevolence, we implore

that the necessity of such deliberations may not be imposed upon us.

This is signed by men who speak of themselves as "prostrate at thy

feet." This passage, however, stood in the German Address alone. The

others wished to get as many signatures as they could, and perhaps

fancied that they gained ground with the Curia by omitting plain

objections to the principle. The American Address indicated the

existence of differences on the point of principle, by alleging as its

first reason against raising a discussion on infallibility, that such

a discussion would "clearly show a want of union, and especially of

unanimity among the bishops." The German, French, and Italian Addresses

put forward another point, namely, that the dignitaries belonging as

they did to _the most important Catholic nations_, and knowing the

probable effects of the proposed measures, felt that those effects,

even with the best men, would be damaging to the cause of the Church,

and would supply unfriendly ones with occasion for new invasions of

her rights.[285] The German address, as printed in the _Documenta_,

has forty-six signatures, including two Cardinals and the Primate of

Hungary; one American prelate Mrak, of Sault Sainte Marie, in Michigan,

closed the list. The French Address has thirty-eight names, and among

these are three Portuguese prelates and four Orientals. The Italian

Address has seven names, the American twenty-seven--among which two

Irish Sees, Kerry and Dromore, are represented, and a single English

one, Clifton. The Oriental Address has seventeen.[286]

M. Veuillot, speaking of the Opposition Addresses as one whole, said

that of all who had signed it, not two, perhaps not one, was opposed

to infallibility in principle (i. p. 149). Later he had the candour

to attack the bishops for having impugned not only the opportuneness

of the definition, but the doctrine itself (i. p. 180). Archbishop

Manning, however, even after the close of the Council, said, "I have

never been able to hear of five bishops who denied the doctrine of

Papal infallibility."[287] This particular statement is advanced as

evidence of a general one, that the question raised among the bishops

"was a question of prudence, policy, expediency; not of doctrine or

truth." A question not of doctrine or of truth! Forty-six prelates in

a petition expressly directed against Dr. Manning's own Address had

put the question as one not only of prudence, but of revealed truth,

alleging against any attempt to define the dogma three classes of

obstacles--those arising out of Catholic doctrine, out of the _dicta_

and acts of the Fathers, and out of historical documents. Perhaps

we ought, with the forty-six prelates, to say _genuine_ historical

documents. But Englishmen must be forgiven if in their limited

intercourse with the Papacy they have not yet found it necessary to put

labels on such words. The Donations of Constantine, and the Decretals

of the Pseudo-Isidore, are historical documents, and also genuine as

specimens of forgeries.

The fate of the Opposition petition is wrapped in mystery. Who

presented it? how was it received? what became of it? are questions

to which the satisfactory answer must be left to time. Some asserted

that the Pope refused to receive it. Quirinus says that he returned it

(p. 174). M. Veuillot told how it was delivered at the Vatican by an

ordinary messenger, and that a monsignore received it with ordinary

papers. This public affront to two Cardinals and nearly a hundred

and forty bishops was aggravated a few days later by the remark that

it was not yet known whether the monsignore had ever thought well

to deliver the Address. Still later it was said that the Pope being

consulted as to what was to be done with it, said that it might go to

the Commission on Proposals, he intending, personally, to ignore it

(i. p. 202). At a yet later date, January 28, Friedrich learned that

every one being afraid to present it. Cardinal Schwarzenberg sent it

by his chamberlain, who delivered it to Monsignor Ricci, the Pope's

chamberlain. The Pope was excessively angry, and ordered it to be sent

to the Commission.

When M. Veuillot trumpeted forth this example of how to deal with

cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, did he mean to suggest that other

Courts might treat them with like neglect,--Courts to which these

officials hold themselves related as citizens only in an inferior

order, an order which "obliges" them only when the higher order does

not contravene? The documents in question bore the signatures of the

Sees of Prague, Vienna, Munich, Cologne, Mainz; those of Milan and

Turin; those of Paris, Rheims, Orleans, and the principal Sees of

Portugal; those of New York, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Halifax, and St.

John; those of Kerry and Dromore, and of Clifton; and from ancient

countries the signatures of Antioch, Babylon, Tyre, Sidon, and

Seleucia. Not often in the history of manners have titles representing

so many ancient claims and such considerable modern station been

treated with equal discourtesy.

The _Univers_ of January 30[288] said that when the minority thought

that the majority were about to come to a decisive vote, they sent

Bishop Freppel, or some one else, to propose conciliation; but when

reassured, they began their opposition afresh. It further said that

Cardinal Hohenlohe acted in Rome in the interests of his brother, the

Minister, and that his theologian, Friedrich, who had been chosen by

Döllinger, was the writer of the letters in the _Augsburg Gazette_;

that Cardinal Hohenlohe, with Schwarzenberg and Haynald, had succeeded

in making an impression at certain embassies; and that the Austrian

ambassador put the petition against infallibility before bishops, and

asked if they had signed it.

Not content with the far-reaching policy which aimed ultimately at a

cosmopolitan counter-revolution, the party of movement desired to begin

forthwith by a local counter-revolution. Italy was to be reconstituted

as a confederation of four States--the Papal States, Naples, Tuscany,

and Piedmont. This, cries Friedrich, is a new task for a Council,--a

Council called to make a revolution![289] But the bishops knew more of

the world than the Curia.

Party spirit now ran high. Those who had adopted the tactics of

opposing infallibility only on the ground of opportuneness, while

they really objected on principle, found that they had gained nothing

in point of conciliation, and had lost almost everything in point

of moral power. How could ordinary consciences understand a man

who admitted, or seemed to admit, that a doctrine, affecting the

representative of God on earth, was true, and yet denied that it

ought to be proclaimed? Compared with this position, that of the Pope

was bold sensible and Christian. "We must never fear to proclaim the

truth or to condemn error." Many, as well as Dupanloup, who first

departed from the false line that he had seemed to mark out, found that

they must object to the principle. Even if they had not previously

studied the question at all, the glaring attempts now made to palm off

admissions of primacy for assertions of infallibility opened their

eyes. An ex-Anglican like Manning might easily accept that or grosser

fallacies, but others had been taught to distinguish. The party of

movement, on the other hand, raised a cry for action, which swelled

higher at every sign of opposition. Their allegations are briefly

expressed by Sambin (p. 105):--

Pontifical infallibility is the sign to be spoken against. If it

is defined, the question is near to its settlement. The Catholic

social Liberalism of France, and the scientific Liberalism of

Germany, are indeed menaced. It is, therefore, a question of life

or death for Liberalism, as for Gallicanism and Febronianism.

The opposition to "the divine prerogatives of the Pontiff," says this

author,[290] "had now become so pronounced that it was necessary to

act."[291] Saviours of society always come to that point on the eve of

the _coup d'état_.

M. Veuillot, who had long endeavoured to smother the opposition by

asserting that no opposition existed, now declared that the opposition

was so grave that it made the proposed definition a necessity. Quirinus

says that the Address in favour of infallibility owes its preponderance

of signatures principally to the three hundred _boarders_ and the South

Americans, while the counter-address represents "the overwhelming

predominance in numbers of souls, in intelligence, and in national

importance" (p. 173). One topic of constant complaint on the part of

the Opposition was the disproportionate number of bishops to people in

Italy as compared with other nations. For the seven hundred thousand

people then in the Papal States there were sixty-two bishops, while

for the twelve million Catholics of Germany there were fourteen. One

million seven hundred thousand in the diocese of Breslau had but a

single prelate, and he was not placed on any committee whatever. The

nine millions of ignorant and superstitious people in Naples and

Sicily had no less than sixty-eight bishops. On the other side of this

question, M. Veuillot played off the name of London. If Paris and

Vienna, Munich and Lyons, Milan and Turin, were on the wrong side, the

Archbishop of London was on the right one.

Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore, issued a project for a decree which,

without formally defining the dogma of infallibility, should bind all

to an interior assent to the infallibility of Papal decrees in faith

or morals. He pointed out the evils attendant on a formal definition,

and that in a manner which afterwards enlivened the controversy between

Dupanloup, Deschamps, and himself. The work wherewith Deschamps

regaled his Christmas Day was that of proposing no less than ten

_anathemas_;[292] for if the Fathers could not propose things in

Council, they could send a suggestion to the committee. Ten new

anathemas dated expressly on the Nativity of our Lord by a Christian

bishop! That day Reisach died.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 272: "A French prelate, commenting upon the text of this

discourse, sneered at the simpletons who allowed themselves to be led

by a one-eyed man (_un borgne_). It is well known that the Bishop of

Orleans has lost an eye by study."--_Ce Qui se Passe au Concile_,

quoting the _Moniteur_ of March 24.]

[Footnote 273: We quote from the _Cologne Gazette_, April 4, 1874,

which, quoting the _Presse_, says, "The Count will remember the walks

in the gloaming, and another by the baths of Diocletian, and so will be

able to tell where the letters come from."]

[Footnote 274: _Le Concile, etc._, par Mgr. L'Evêque de Grenoble.

Paris, 1869.]

[Footnote 275: How strong this language was considered in Rome may

be judged from what the _Civiltá_ said of the Minister of Public

Instruction, Signor Bonghi: "In the sitting of May 14, 1873, Bonghi,

then a private member, dared to say, blaspheming like a true son of

Lucifer, 'The Catholic Church has multiplied her dogmas too much'" (IX

ix. 242).]

[Footnote 276: We have taken the outline of this sitting from the _Acta

Sanctæ Sedis_, and in the filling up we have principally followed

Friedrich.]

[Footnote 277: The Freiburg edition does, p. 162; also _Guérin_, p.

113; _Friedberg_, p. 461; and the _Acta Sanctæ Sedis_, v. p. 337.]

[Footnote 278: V. p. 337.]

[Footnote 279: _Unitá Cattolica_, January 16.]

[Footnote 280: _Contemporary Review_, February 1876.]

[Footnote 281: Vol. vi. p. 3: "Cujus causa quasi diceres concilium

ipsum, tanta episcoporum frequentia, fuisse convocatum."]

[Footnote 282: _Tagebuch_, p. 108.]

[Footnote 283: P. 91; Eng. ver. 61.]

[Footnote 284: _Documenta_, i. 250 ff.; _Friedberg_, 473 ff.]

[Footnote 285: _Documenta ad Illustrandum_, i. p. 251.]

[Footnote 286: Bishop Martin's _Collectio Documentorum_ gives nearly

the same numbers, but seems to omit the American Address. It give

Schwarzenberg's note fixing the sum at 136. Dupanloup frequently calls

it 140. See his reply to Deschamps.]

[Footnote 287: _Priv. Pet._, iii. p. 27.]

[Footnote 288: Quoted _Tagebuch_, p. 155.]

[Footnote 289: _Tagebuch_, p. 155.]

[Footnote 290: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 291: P. 112.]

[Footnote 292: _Martin's Collection_, p. 91.]

CHAPTER VII

Matters of Discipline--Remarks of Friedrich on the Morals of the

Clergy--Also on the War against Modern Constitutions--Morality of

recent Jesuit Teaching--Darboy's Speech--Melcher's Speech--A Dinner

Party of Fallibilists--One of Infallibilists--Gratry--Debate on the

Morals of the Clergy.

The Draft Decrees on discipline now in the hands of the bishops

affected their remaining rights. It had taken three hundred years to

develop the practical effects of the legislation of Trent in curtailing

those rights. Paolo Sarpi may say that the prelates entered Trent as

bishops and left it as parsons; but it was long before new regulations

had worn down old procedure so far that an Archbishop of Paris, for

instance, could be treated in the manner in which we have seen Darboy

treated. The bishops, however, now feared, says Vitelleschi, lest their

office should be further mutilated.

According to Friedrich (p. 88), when, at one of the first meetings of

the German and Hungarian prelates, Strossmayer said that the matter

before them was the resignation of their collective rights and the

centring of the whole in the hands of the Pope, he was ridiculed;

but when he repeated that statement, on Saturday, January 8, it was

received with universal assent. On the other hand, Roman ecclesiastics

were alarmed at the pretensions of the bishops. Two Dominicans begged

Cardinal Hohenlohe to use his influence to prevent the Germans from

speaking as extravagantly as the French. "It is really frightful,"

they said; "what is to become of Rome? These bishops want spiritual

decentralization." Friedrich now thinks that he begins to see what is

the religious principle of the Roman clergy--domination, as a means of

existence. The bearing of this remark on spiritual decentralization

rests on the fact that spiritual causes referred to Rome bring money

to the bureaux, and the bureaucracy are the clergy.

The professional observations of Friedrich on the Drafts touching

discipline give insight into certain interior aspects of Romanism,

which affect not only its own condition, but, through it, affect all

society. We therefore let him speak directly (p. 89 ff.)--

The first chapter on the Office of a Bishop closes so abruptly

that only at the end is it said that bishops must be examples for

the flock. It is, however, praiseworthy that they are told to

take the lead of the faithful even in knowledge. Alas for this

pious wish: It will be as it has been! Further on, the words "let

ecclesiastical discipline be maintained" strike the eye, and that

in respect of the _mulieres subintroductæ_, or γυναἱκες σονεἱσακτοι, in

which character the parsonage cooks appear. This

regulation is the most insulting imaginable; the most degrading

for the parish priest, the most lowering and humiliating for the

curates; altogether a dark spot in Church life. No regulation

stands in such glaring contrast with Canons and Councils. It is a

great offence against Christian morality, by which it is forbidden

that any one should be placed in proximate occasion of sin; but

in this manner the independence of a clergyman, and the placing

of him in proximate occasion of sin, are connected together. The

Fathers of the Council must themselves say whether this is or is

not the greatest of cankers in the life of the clergy. They can

tell whether it is necessary to direct the attention of the Council

to this sore spot. One of the Fathers of the Council himself told

me that he once spent a night in a parsonage where the rural dean

(Dechant) and the cook were parents of both curates. It is said

in the Draft, _De vita et honestate clericorum_: "If a clergyman,

unmindful of his own dignity, is given to immodest defilements or

to impure concubinage, or dares either in his house or elsewhere

to have a woman of whom suspicion may be entertained, or to seek

her company, let him be proceeded against, with the penalties

prescribed by the sacred Canons, especially by the Council of

Trent, and that without noise or the forms of a trial, only by

simple inquiry into the truth of the facts." But what will this

avail? Those directions have long existed, yet things go on as of

old, and any such directions must necessarily be insufficient. Why

is not the regulation of the ancient Church once more taken up, and

carried through with a firm hand, according to which every woman,

except nearest relations, was suspected, and was not to be admitted

to the house of a clergyman? If our Church-princes of to-day

will not return to the old regulation, which indeed sufficed not

to hinder all excesses, and if they are incapable of finding new

and better ones, it would be preferable, at all events, and would

involve less responsibility for them, if they allowed their clergy

to marry outright rather than give them up to arrangements which

place their reputation in so ambiguous a light. The fact that this

subject had to be brought forward here in its regular place is sad

enough, and should be taken as proof that we cannot go on in the

present way. Has it not already come to this, in certain dioceses,

that the bishops find themselves obliged to hush up, rather than to

punish?

Further on, in the same chapter, it is said, "While they preach

to the people due reverence and obedience towards the powers of

this world, let them all with one mind and heart, taking counsel

together and uniting their deliberations and strength, earnestly

maintain the rights of the Church and of this Holy See, so that

their common guard and defence may more perfectly assure the

interests of the common cause; but let them admit of nothing

which will lower the honour and dignity of their rank, and let

them keep the admonitions of the Council of Trent on this point

under their eye." These sentences are doubtless well meant; but,

practically, will be without result. Nothing is gained by such

general propositions. This being self-evident, nothing should be

said in Decrees of a Council beyond the laying down of positive

directions. The conclusion of the chapter is vague, but, perhaps,

very dangerous. "We require princes and magistrates to cover and

protect the sacred chief pastors (antistites) and ministers of

the Church, and their most excellent work, with their powerful

patronage and defence, _that due honour, respect, and obedience

may be paid by all to the ecclesiastical authority_. Knowing that

bishops promote not only the cause of the Church, but also that

of their nations, and that above all the boldness and wickedness

of men who perversely seek to mislead minds and corrupt manners

may be restrained and constrained by them in the exercise of their

pastoral office."

First of all, what is meant here by most excellent or highest work

(_optimum operant_)? who are included in _by all_ (_ab omnibus_)?

Not only is honour to be paid to the spiritual authority by all,

but obedience. According to the notes, _by all_ includes princes

and nations; that by the Council princes and nations may be moved

to venerate the sacred pastors, and to render them obedience

and reverence. Are we to understand that the unbelievers and

misbelievers in a State are to pay obedience to the bishops? Does

this wrap up the mediæval notion that heretics after all are under

the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, as Bishop Martin lately

gave himself out as the bishop of the heretics in his diocese?

Also that unbelievers have no moral right of existence, and so on?

And what is meant by the concluding words? Do they imply that the

bishops have a right of interfering with the freedom of the press,

of belief, and of conscience as granted by modern constitutions? A

General Council should speak clearly and definitely.[293]

But who would have believed that in the second chapter on the

Residence of Bishops a condemnation of the constitutional usages

of modern times should be attempted, even indirectly? It provides

that bishops must not be absent from their sees more than two,

or at the utmost three, months in a year, whether continuously

or at intervals. Such absence cannot be allowed even for causes

otherwise admitted as lawful--_alias jure admissis_--except by

express permission of the Pope, or, in the United Greek Churches

without the permission of the Patriarch. One is here compelled

to ask, Could not those cases have been foreseen in which seats

in Upper Houses are permanently connected with many bishoprics.

Why this needless increase of requests for dispensation? But,

according to the _Civiltá Cattolica_, it is only as compelled by

existing circumstances that bishops can properly take part in the

objectionable constitutional life. It is said in the notes that the

necessity of an express apostolic permission is to be remembered

as being even now required by the constitution of Boniface

VIII--_Sancta synodus_--even if there exists one of the four

grounds of absence admitted as legitimate by the Council of Trent

in its twenty-third session. These four grounds were, visiting the

thresholds of the apostles (_i.e._ Rome), attending provincial

synods, attending a General Assembly in which ecclesiastics

are wont to sit, or discharging an office or duty to the State

connected with the Churches themselves. But (says the note) because

the Decrees of Urban VIII contemplate assemblies of a kind which do

not at present exist, mention of this as a just cause of absence

was omitted in the Decree, in which also was omitted, for a similar

reason, mention of discharging an office or duty to the State.

Thus the Chambers which have taken the place of those ancient

assemblies do not exist for the Curia, or it feels bound to ignore

them--quite in harmony with Jesuit fantasies. Should the session of

the Chamber last more than three months, those Bavarian bishops who

are members of the Reichsrath would require an express permission

from the Pope to fulfil their duty to the State. They might receive

from the Pope a prohibition against staying any longer at the

Reichsrath and fulfilling their obligations as citizens. Very

edifying for our governments and States! They, however, would know

how to help themselves, and would simply withdraw such a seat from

the bishop.

Friedrich then dwells on the new contrivance of centralization by

which every metropolitan is ordered, before publishing the acts of a

Provincial Synod, to send them to Rome. The Curia is not to give them

any formal approbation, but to _correct them_, should anything seem

to call for correction. After this they are to be issued as the acts

of the Provincial Synod. To execute this feat of shaping provincial

decrees within the chambers of the Curia, Pius IX had appointed a

new Board or Congregation. Friedrich calls this a new censorship.

That would appear to mean that whereas formerly only private authors

required an _imprimatur_, now even the collective episcopate of a

province requires one. It would, however, seem to involve more than a

censorship, because the new matter inserted in Rome has to go before

the world under the provincial names. Authors were not compelled

to father the corrections of the censor. They could leave the work

unpublished.

That sense of impending danger to the Church which, of late years,

had weighed on many Catholics, arose not a little from the moral

teaching of the Jesuits, whose influence, under the smile of the

Pope, they saw gradually rising. Out of regard for the honour of the

Church, many Roman Catholics suppressed the horror they felt at what

they discovered in the books of the Jesuits. Only those who have read

some books--those which reflect the modern phases of their moral

teaching--can appreciate the weight that must have lain on the hearts

of some good men when striving to uphold before their imagination the

Church as the perfection of beauty. Among the disciples of the Church

of Rome are many who hold close to the Christian side of her theology,

and seem to forget its Pagan side; many who avoid what is material in

her cult, and, by aid of that same theology, cherish spiritual worship;

many who turn to the noble morals of the Gospel, from the lower and

ever deteriorating morals of the schools; and many to whom the secular

spirit of the Papacy and the earthly empire aimed at by the Jesuits are

repugnant.

Friedrich learned, in Rome, that those who confess to the Jesuits are

not to be trusted. Any one who will read even one hundred pages out

of the seven hundred of Gury's _Casus Conscientiæ_ would not think of

trusting--would only think of pitying any creature into whose head

the principles of that bad book had been put. Friedrich evidently

does not repeat any light talk when he says that he heard it stated,

upon good authority, that the Jesuits in Rome were in the habit of

employing women as lures to procure the overthrow of men who stood in

their way, which women would then return to the Jesuit confessionals as

penitent Magdalenes; and this, he adds, the Pope knows right well. When

Vitelleschi speaks of the evils arising from severity against errors of

the intellect, and indulgence to errors of the will, he means what we

should describe as strictness as to Papal principles, and laxity as to

moral practices.

According to Vitelleschi, Darboy had only to stretch out his hand to

take a Cardinal's hat. The impression that this was the case, and

the terms on which he was known to stand with the Curia, gave great

interest to his first appearance in the desk, which took place on

January 19. How gladly would the Curia have seen him stretch forth his

hand in the direction where the hat hung; but no, he reached it out in

that direction where he had only reproaches to gather.[294]

We are told that we are not to make long speeches, but I have a

great deal to say. We are told again not to repeat what has been

said by others; but at the same time we are kept shut up in this

Hall, where for the most part we cannot understand one another;

we are not allowed to examine the stenographic reports of our

speeches, and the only answer made to our representations is always

the same, "The Pope wills it." I do not know, therefore, what has

been said by the speakers who have preceded me.

He then went on to speak of the rights of the bishops, of their

degradation by the Roman centralizing system, of "the caves wherein the

Roman doctors have buried themselves from the light of day," etc. Two

sayings are ascribed to him after this speech. The first, "Like Condé,

I have thrown my marshal's baton into the midst of the enemy;" and the

second, "This Hall is deaf, dumb, and blind." Hard as it was for the

Curia to listen to Darboy, with his diocese of two millions of nominal

Catholics, it is said that they were even more pained by the language

of Melchers of Cologne, whose diocese counted one million, and from

whom animadversions were not expected. The fear of the French troops

forsaking Rome saved the Archbishop of Paris from the tinkling of the

mystic bell; but it arrested the metropolitan of the Rhine Province.

Melchers strongly objected to the increase of centralization in

Rome, and advocated decentralization. He declared that, as now

employed, dispensations from Rome were not necessary. Cardinal De Luca

interrupted him, and told him that he was not speaking to the point,

and that he must send his proposals to the Commission. He replied that

he had sent his proposals to Rome long ago, and had received no answer;

and then proceeded with his speech. An attack on centralization and on

dispensations, from such a prelate, was a practical matter in Rome, as

much as in Manchester would be a movement to cut off all the customers

in some great county.

On January 23 and 24, Cardinal Hohenlohe gave two dinner parties--the

first to Fallibilists, and the second to Infallibilists. At the former,

Hefele, who now reappears on the scene, no longer as theologian, but as

Bishop of Rottenburg, complained that he had lost the important sitting

of that morning through an order from Cardinal Antonelli to attend

the baptism of a child of the ex-Duke of Parma, which eleven other

prelates who like him had apartments in the Quirinal were also obliged

to attend, and at which six Cardinals gave their presence.

Archbishop Melchers of Cologne did not flatter Friedrich by telling

him, what he already knew, that his Grace had forbidden his theological

students to go to the faculty at Munich. His Grace, says Friedrich,

did know the name of Döllinger, but not that of Reithmayer; and as to

those of the younger professors, not the name of one. The Archbishop of

Munich was not able to resist the temptation of telling Friedrich, as

a good story, that when the bishops at Fulda, in the previous autumn,

spoke of recommending Friedrich's Church History to the clergy, as a

work which they ought to procure, his Grace of Cologne confessed that

he did not know the name of the book. The pendant which the author

archly hangs to this tale is, that when the copy of that work which he

had presented to his Grace of Munich fell, after some years, again into

his hands, it had never been opened.

Bishop Förster of Breslau mentioned how Ketteler was going to propose,

in the meeting of German and Hungarian prelates, that they should

disavow the letters in the _Augsburg Gazette_; but, said Förster, we

stand too high, and besides, the letters contain too many truths. Some

one at table threw out the idea that the best thing to be done would

be to give the Drafts of Decrees to the bishops, and let them go home

and study them for a year or two, and then return and discuss them.

They had come to Rome without books. Points of the greatest gravity in

doctrine and discipline were laid before them for decision, and, as

every one knew, it was difficult to find help in the libraries of Rome.

Even that of the Vatican was closed, not only upon every holy day, but

also on all those days on which General Congregations were held. The

bishops were not allowed to take either books or manuscripts out of

the libraries; still more, both in the Vatican library and the Vatican

archives, the order had been given that nothing bearing on the Council

should be delivered to them. Their regret at this was lessened by the

discovery that the libraries contained scarcely any modern theological

works, especially German ones. In his day, Addison remarked that

books were not the attractions you went to see in an Italian library.

But, of recent years, a real library of books, in addition to the old

celebrated one of manuscripts, had been added at the Vatican. It was

not catalogued, and was not open to the public. Some one in the company

stated that it was now understood that theologians were to be brought

into the Council in order to defend the Drafts of Decrees. So far as

the _Theologi Minores_, or doctors, were concerned, Friedrich thought

this improbable; and as to the higher theologians, or bishops, he

wondered who they were to be. Can any one fancy, he said, such a man as

Senestrey being treated as a theologian? At Trent, with the ideas then

prevailing of what constituted a theologian, he would not have been

dreamed of; but he passes in Rome as learned because he is a pupil and

a favourite of the Jesuits; and by their standard, indeed, adds his

countryman, he may even pass as holy, understanding so well as he does

the principle that the end sanctifies the means.

As to what Friedrich next relates, we can only say that the ascertained

fact for history, in her present stage, is that the following are

things which a learned professor, with a position and character to take

care of, deliberately publishes, things which the gravest men receive.

Friedrich relates how when Senestrey was seeking the bishopric, King

Maximilian II was in Rome, and often visited Theiner, whose fame all

Germans prized. His rooms in the Vatican, off the _Via dei Giardini

Pontificali_, well known to scholars, are often pointed out to visitors

going up towards the sculpture gallery by the present circuitous

approach. Here the royal visitor would chat with the learned Prefect

of the Archives, and enjoy the landscape. At that time Theiner had no

better friend than Senestrey, who, knowing that Theiner was in bad

odour with the Jesuits, showed himself very hostile to them, so that

even his experienced friend confessed to Friedrich that he had allowed

himself to be deceived. This Roman tale is followed by a Bavarian one.

A person well acquainted with official circles told Friedrich that

Senestrey actually offered his services to the government, saying

that if appointed bishop, in case the other prelates ever entertained

anything disagreeable to the government, he would give information and

do everything to counterwork them. In January, 1872, Friedrich heard

Senestrey named in a company where one was present who had been a

companion of King Maximilian II on his journey to Rome, and who broke

out saying--

Yes, that man talked so much in Rome to King Maximilian II and his

suite against the Jesuits and against the misgovernment of Rome,

that the King said, That is the right man! He must be the bishop!

No sooner was he in the bishopric than it proved that the king had lost

his subject, the government its supporter, Theiner his friend, and that

the whole of Senestrey belonged to the Jesuits.

The company of the second day, January 24, consisted of Infallibilists.

Before dinner Friedrich was introduced to Senestrey, who looking at

him, said roughly, "So you are Professor Friedrich," and turned his

back. At table Ketteler broke out in loud denunciation of the letters

of Quirinus. This Friedrich knew was meant for him, for although the

bishop has since then laid the sin at the door of Lord Acton, he

seems at that time to have suspected Friedrich. He blamed a statement

that a certain piece of distinctive attire, not worn by any other

bishop in the West, had been granted to Bishop Lavigerie of Algiers

to adorn his shoulders, as a means of winning his vote; as if, said

Ketteler, the whole episcopate was to be bought by a bit of dress! We

do not remember that Quirinus said that they were all to be bought

by it. Our impression is that he only said something to the effect

that it was incredible how far that sort of thing did go with them.

Considering their training and habits, with us the thing incredible

would be that things of that sort should not go far with them. And

their constant study is to make things of that sort go far with all

mankind. But the sally of Ketteler was responded to by the Military

Bishop of Prussia, Namszanowski, who might be supposed to be even more

than others susceptible of colour and decoration. He, evidently not

being well read in Quirinus, missed the point of Ketteler's protest,

and said, "Quite right, brother of Mainz. The same offer was made

to me just at the outset, but I repelled such an imputation with

contempt." This luckless reply probably made Friedrich think of his own

visit from the much-vested Count Prelate W----. The eye of Ketteler

flashed. Friedrich, who sat next to Namszanowski, hinted that he had

missed the point of Bishop Ketteler, who ranted on--_tobte weiter_.

When he had finished his tirade he looked Friedrich in the eye, as

if to see whether he was not well abashed. "But I had no occasion

to fear Ketteler, and looked him in the eye quite as sharply." Just

after coffee the voice of Ketteler made the room ring,--"The chief

advantage of the Council so far is, that the bishops learn to know one

another, and to compare experience. For in his own diocese, of course,

a bishop never hears the truth from his clergy, in consequence of his

immeasurably higher jurisdiction." Friedrich, being the only priest

present, said to Namszanowski, "Ketteler must lead a pretty regiment,

when his clergy dare not tell him the truth. Any one who wants to

hear the truth, and can bear to hear it, will hear it." He added that

were it not for the impropriety of provoking a scene in the house of

Cardinal Hohenlohe, he would indignantly repel this insult to the whole

of the lower clergy. None of the bishops intimated any dissent from the

view of Ketteler, while Senestrey, and Leonrod of Eichstädt, simpered

approbation. But here Friedrich inserts a note saying, Time has shown

that Ketteler knew the lower clergy better than I did.

Just at this time came another token that the content or indifference

with which the Roman Catholic world watched the impending change in

its Church and creed was broken in exceptional cases. An accomplished

French oratorian, a member of the Academy, Father Gratry, published a

letter on January 18, which in almost any other country than France,

coming from such a man on such a subject, at such a moment, would have

caused, not a passing talk, but a profound impression. All the abuse

was no longer for Döllinger and Montalembert. Father Gratry had a

share allotted to him, sufficient to prove his importance. "Does God

need your lies?" was a question he repeated with solemnity, as he

dwelt on the false decretals and on the falsifications even of the

breviary. His French clearness and point sent these reproaches home so

as to be extremely cutting. It seemed as if accusing "the Church" of

lying and forgery was a sin not to be forgiven. Few things were more

discouraging for those who hoped that moral ground still remained for

a reformation within the Church of Rome, than the perfect ease with

which the benefits of the lying and the forgery were accepted, and the

fury with which the crime of mentioning those incidents was denounced.

"False decretals as much as you like," said Veuillot, "but the sense of

the false decretals is the faith of the Church";[295] so, if God had

not needed the lies the Church had assimilated them. Father Gratry,

said the _Civiltá_, never tires of calling the school which teaches

pontifical infallibility, a school of error. Does he know where that

school has fixed its abode, and holds its chair? If he does not know,

we shall tell him. "Its home is Rome, its chair is that of the Roman

Pontiff, is that of St. Peter."[296] Father Hyacinth said, at a later

time, "God never has need of lies, but lies often have need of God,

and they are never so powerful as when they present themselves in His

name."[297]