made it hopeless to mediate between them; and it is strange that men who
must have regarded each other as insincere Christians or as insincere
Catholics, should not have perceived that their meeting in Council was
an imposture. It may be that a portion, though only a small portion, of
those who failed to attend, stayed away from that motive. But the view
proscribed at Rome was not largely represented in the episcopate; and it
was doubtful whether it would be manifested at all. The opposition did
not spring from it, but maintained itself by reducing to the utmost the
distance that separated it from the strictly Roman opinions, and
striving to prevent the open conflict of principles. It was composed of
ultramontanes in the mask of liberals, and of liberals in the mask of
ultramontanes. Therefore the victory or defeat of the minority was not
the supreme issue of the Council. Besides and above the definition of
infallibility arose the question how far the experience of the actual
encounter would open the eyes and search the hearts of the reluctant
bishops, and how far their language and their attitude would contribute
to the impulse of future reform. There was a point of view from which
the failure of all attempts to avert the result by false issues and
foreign intrusion, and the success of the measures which repelled
conciliation and brought on an open struggle and an overwhelming
triumph, were means to another and a more importunate end.
Two events occurred in the autumn which portended trouble for the
winter. On the 6th of September nineteen German bishops, assembled at
Fulda, published a pastoral letter in which they affirmed that the whole
episcopate was perfectly unanimous, that the Council would neither
introduce new dogmas nor invade the civil province, and that the Pope
intended its deliberations to be free. The patent and direct meaning of
this declaration was that the bishops repudiated the design announced by
the _Civilta_ and the _alleging Zeitung_, and it was received at Rome
with indignation. But it soon appeared that it was worded with studied
ambiguity, to be signed by men of opposite opinions, and to conceal the
truth. The Bishop of Mentz read a paper, written by a professor of
Wuerzburg, against the wisdom of raising the question, but expressed his
own belief in the dogma of papal infallibility; and when another bishop
stated his disbelief in it, the Bishop of Paderborn assured him that
Rome would soon strip him of his heretical skin. The majority wished to
prevent the definition, if possible, without disputing the doctrine; and
they wrote a private letter to the Pope warning him of the danger, and
entreating him to desist. Several bishops who had signed the pastoral
refused their signatures to the private letter. It caused so much dismay
at Rome that its nature was carefully concealed; and a diplomatist was
able to report, on the authority of Cardinal Antonelli, that it did not
exist.
In the middle of November, the Bishop of Orleans took leave of his
diocese in a letter which touched lightly on the learned questions
connected with papal infallibility, but described the objections to the
definition as of such a kind that they could not be removed. Coming from
a prelate who was so conspicuous as a champion of the papacy, who had
saved the temporal power and justified the Syllabus, this declaration
unexpectedly altered the situation at Rome. It was clear that the
definition would be opposed, and that the opposition would have the
support of illustrious names.
The bishops who began to arrive early in November were received with the
assurance that the alarm which had been raised was founded on phantoms.
It appeared that nobody had dreamed of defining infallibility, or that,
if the idea had been entertained at all, it had been abandoned.
Cardinals Antonelli, Berardi, and De Luca, and the Secretary Fessler
disavowed the _Civilta_. The ardent indiscretion that was displayed
beyond the Alps contrasted strangely with the moderation, the friendly
candour, the majestic and impartial wisdom, which were found to reign in
the higher sphere of the hierarchy. A bishop, afterwards noted among the
opponents of the dogma, wrote home that the idea that infallibility was
to be defined was entirely unfounded. It was represented as a mere
fancy, got up in Bavarian newspapers, with evil intent; and the Bishop
of Sura had been its dupe. The insidious report would have deserved
contempt if it had caused a revival of obsolete opinions. It was a
challenge to the Council to herald it with such demonstrations, and it
unfortunately became difficult to leave it unnoticed. The decision must
be left to the bishops. The Holy See could not restrain their legitimate
ardour, if they chose to express it; but it would take no initiative.
Whatever was done would require to be done with so much moderation as to
satisfy everybody, and to avoid the offence of a party triumph. Some
suggested that there should be no anathema for those who questioned the
doctrine; and one prelate imagined that a formula could be contrived
which even Janus could not dispute, and which yet would be found in
reality to signify that the Pope is infallible. There was a general
assumption that no materials existed for contention among the bishops,
and that they stood united against the world.
Cardinal Antonelli openly refrained from connecting himself with the
preparation of the Council, and surrounded himself with divines who were
not of the ruling party. He had never learned to doubt the dogma itself;
but he was keenly alive to the troubles it would bring upon him, and
thought that the Pope was preparing a repetition of the difficulties
which followed the beginning of his pontificate. He was not trusted as a
divine, or consulted on questions of theology; but he was expected to
ward off political complications, and he kept the ground with
unflinching skill.
The Pope exhorted the diplomatic corps to aid him in allaying the alarm
of the infatuated Germans. He assured one diplomatist that the _Civilta_
did not speak in his name. He told another that he would sanction no
proposition that could sow dissension among the bishops. He said to a
third, "You come to be present at a scene of pacification." He described
his object in summoning the Council to be to obtain a remedy for old
abuses and for recent errors. More than once, addressing a group of
bishops, he said that he would do nothing to raise disputes among them,
and would be content with a declaration in favour of intolerance. He
wished of course that Catholicism should have the benefit of toleration
in England and Russia, but the principle must be repudiated by a Church
holding the doctrine of exclusive salvation. The meaning of this
intimation, that persecution would do as a substitute for infallibility,
was that the most glaring obstacle to the definition would be removed if
the Inquisition was recognised as consistent with Catholicism. Indeed it
seemed that infallibility was a means to an end which could be obtained
in other ways, and that he would have been satisfied with a decree
confirming the twenty-third article of the Syllabus, and declaring that
no Pope has ever exceeded the just bounds of his authority in faith, in
politics, or in morals.[383]
Most of the bishops had allowed themselves to be reassured, when the
Bull _Multiplices inter_, regulating the procedure at the Council, was
put into circulation in the first days of December. The Pope assumed to
himself the sole initiative in proposing topics, and the exclusive
nomination of the officers of the Council. He invited the bishops to
bring forward their own proposals, but required that they should submit
them first of all to a Commission which was appointed by himself, and
consisted half of Italians. If any proposal was allowed to pass by this
Commission, it had still to obtain the sanction of the Pope, who could
therefore exclude at will any topic, even if the whole Council wished to
discuss it. Four elective Commissions were to mediate between the
Council and the Pope. When a decree had been discussed and opposed, it
was to be referred, together with the amendments, to one of these
Commissions, where it was to be reconsidered, with the aid of divines.
When it came back from the Commission with corrections and remarks, it
was to be put to the vote without further debate. What the Council
discussed was to be the work of unknown divines: what it voted was to be
the work of a majority in a Commission of twenty-four. It was in the
election of these Commissions that the episcopate obtained the chance of
influencing the formation of its decrees. But the papal theologians
retained their predominance, for they might be summoned to defend or
alter their work in the Commission, from which the bishops who had
spoken or proposed amendments were excluded. Practically, the right of
initiative was the deciding point. Even if the first regulation had
remained in force, the bishops could never have recovered the surprises,
and the difficulty of preparing for unforeseen debates. The regulation
ultimately broke down under the mistake of allowing the decree to be
debated only once, and that in its crude state, as it came from the
hands of the divines. The authors of the measure had not contemplated
any real discussion. It was so unlike the way in which business was
conducted at Trent, where the right of the episcopate was formally
asserted, where the envoys were consulted, and the bishops discussed the
questions in several groups before the general congregations, that the
printed text of the Tridentine Regulation was rigidly suppressed. It was
further provided that the reports of the speeches should not be
communicated to the bishops; and the strictest secrecy was enjoined on
all concerning the business of the Council. The bishops, being under no
obligation to observe this rule, were afterwards informed that it bound
them under grievous sin.
This important precept did not succeed in excluding the action of public
opinion. It could be applied only to the debates; and many bishops spoke
with greater energy and freedom before an assembly of their own order
than they would have done if their words had been taken down by
Protestants, to be quoted against them at home. But printed documents,
distributed in seven hundred copies, could not be kept secret. The rule
was subject to exceptions which destroyed its efficacy; and the Roman
cause was discredited by systematic concealment, and advocacy that
abounded in explanation and colour, but abstained from the substance of
fact. Documents couched in the usual official language, being dragged
into the forbidden light of day, were supposed to reveal dark mysteries.
The secrecy of the debates had a bad effect in exaggerating reports and
giving wide scope to fancy. Rome was not vividly interested in the
discussions; but its cosmopolitan society was thronged with the several
adherents of leading bishops, whose partiality compromised their dignity
and envenomed their disputes. Everything that was said was repeated,
inflated, and distorted. Whoever had a sharp word for an adversary,
which could not be spoken in Council, knew of an audience that would
enjoy and carry the matter. The battles of the Aula were fought over
again, with anecdote, epigram, and fiction. A distinguished courtesy and
nobleness of tone prevailed at the beginning. When the Archbishop of
Halifax went down to his place on the 28th of December, after delivering
the speech which taught the reality of the opposition, the Presidents
bowed to him as he passed them. The denunciations of the Roman system by
Strossmayer and Darboy were listened to in January without a murmur.
Adversaries paid exorbitant compliments to each other, like men whose
disagreements were insignificant, and who were one at heart. As the plot
thickened, fatigue, excitement, friends who fetched and carried, made
the tone more bitter. In February the Bishop of Laval described
Dupanloup publicly as the centre of a conspiracy too shameful to be
expressed in words, and professed that he would rather die than be
associated with such iniquity. One of the minority described his
opponents as having disported themselves on a certain occasion like a
herd of cattle. By that time the whole temper of the Council had been
changed; the Pope himself had gone into the arena; and violence of
language and gesture had become an artifice adopted to hasten the end.
When the Council opened, many bishops were bewildered and dispirited by
the Bull _Multiplices_. They feared that a struggle could not be
averted, as, even if no dogmatic question was raised, their rights were
cancelled in a way that would make the Pope absolute in dogma. One of
the Cardinals caused him to be informed that the Regulation would be
resisted. But Pius IX. knew that in all that procession of 750 bishops
one idea prevailed. Men whose word is powerful in the centres of
civilisation, men who three months before were confronting martyrdom
among barbarians, preachers at Notre Dame, professors from Germany,
Republicans from Western America, men with every sort of training and
every sort of experience, had come together as confident and as eager as
the prelates of Rome itself, to hail the Pope infallible. Resistance was
improbable, for it was hopeless. It was improbable that bishops who had
refused no token of submission for twenty years would now combine to
inflict dishonour on the Pope. In their address of 1867 they had
confessed that he is the father and teacher of all Christians; that all
the things he has spoken were spoken by St. Peter through him; that they
would believe and teach all that he believed and taught. In 1854 they
had allowed him to proclaim a dogma, which some of them dreaded and some
opposed, but to which all submitted when he had decreed without the
intervention of a Council. The recent display of opposition did not
justify serious alarm. The Fulda bishops feared the consequences in
Germany; but they affirmed that all were united, and that there would be
no new dogma. They were perfectly informed of all that was being got
ready in Rome. The words of their pastoral meant nothing if they did not
mean that infallibility was no new dogma, and that all the bishops
believed in it. Even the Bishop of Orleans avoided a direct attack on
the doctrine, proclaimed his own devotion to the Pope, and promised that
the Council would be a scene of concord.[384] It was certain that any
real attempt that might be made to prevent the definition could be
overwhelmed by the preponderance of those bishops whom the modern
constitution of the Church places in dependence on Rome.
The only bishops whose position made them capable of resisting were the
Germans and the French; and all that Rome would have to contend with was
the modern liberalism and decrepit Gallicanism of France, and the
science of Germany. The Gallican school was nearly extinct; it had no
footing in other countries, and it was essentially odious to the
liberals. The most serious minds of the liberal party were conscious
that Rome was as dangerous to ecclesiastical liberty as Paris. But,
since the Syllabus made it impossible to pursue the liberal doctrines
consistently without collision with Rome, they had ceased to be
professed with a robust and earnest confidence, and the party was
disorganised. They set up the pretence that the real adversary of their
opinions was not the Pope, but a French newspaper; and they fought the
King's troops in the King's name. When the Bishop of Orleans made his
declaration, they fell back, and left him to mount the breach alone.
Montalembert, the most vigorous spirit among them, became isolated from
his former friends, and accused them, with increasing vehemence, of
being traitors to their principles. During the last disheartening year
of his life he turned away from the clergy of his country, which was
sunk in Romanism, and felt that the real abode of his opinions was on
the Rhine.[385] It was only lately that the ideas of the Coblentz
address, which had so deeply touched the sympathies of Montalembert, had
spread widely in Germany. They had their seat in the universities; and
their transit from the interior of lecture-rooms to the outer world was
laborious and slow. The invasion of Roman doctrines had given vigour and
popularity to those which opposed them, but the growing influence of the
universities brought them into direct antagonism with the episcopate.
The Austrian bishops were generally beyond its reach, and the German
bishops were generally at war with it. In December, one of the most
illustrious of them said: "We bishops are absorbed in our work, and are
not scholars. We sadly need the help of those that are. It is to be
hoped that the Council will raise only such questions as can be dealt
with competently by practical experience and common sense." The force
that Germany wields in theology was only partially represented in its
episcopate.
At the opening of the Council the known opposition consisted of four
men. Cardinal Schwarzenberg had not published his opinion, but he made
it known as soon as he came to Rome. He brought with him a printed
paper, entitled _Desideria patribus Concilii oecumenici proponenda_, in
which he adopted the ideas of the divines and canonists who are the
teachers of his Bohemian clergy. He entreated the Council not to
multiply unnecessary articles of faith, and in particular to abstain
from defining papal infallibility, which was beset with difficulties,
and would make the foundations of faith to tremble even in the devoutest
souls. He pointed out that the Index could not continue on its present
footing, and urged that the Church should seek her strength in the
cultivation of liberty and learning, not in privilege and coercion; that
she should rely on popular institutions, and obtain popular support. He
warmly advocated the system of autonomy that was springing up in
Hungary.[386] Unlike Schwarzenberg, Dupanloup, and Maret, the Archbishop
of Paris had taken no hostile step in reference to the Council, but he
was feared the most of all the men expected at Rome. The Pope had
refused to make him a cardinal, and had written to him a letter of
reproof such as has seldom been received by a bishop. It was felt that
he was hostile, not episodically, to a single measure, but to the
peculiar spirit of this pontificate. He had none of the conventional
prejudices and assumed antipathies which are congenial to the
hierarchical mind. He was without passion or pathos or affectation; and
he had good sense, a perfect temper, and an intolerable wit. It was
characteristic of him that he made the Syllabus an occasion to impress
moderation on the Pope: "Your blame has power, O Vicar of Jesus Christ;
but your blessing is more potent still. God has raised you to the
apostolic See between the two halves of this century, that you may
absolve the one and inaugurate the other. Be it yours to reconcile
reason with faith, liberty with authority, politics with the Church.
From the height of that triple majesty with which religion, age, and
misfortune adorn you, all that you do and all that you say reaches far,
to disconcert or to encourage the nations. Give them from your large
priestly heart one word to amnesty the past, to reassure the present,
and to open the horizons of the future."
The security into which many unsuspecting bishops had been lulled
quickly disappeared; and they understood that they were in presence of a
conspiracy which would succeed at once if they did not provide against
acclamation, and must succeed at last if they allowed themselves to be
caught in the toils of the Bull _Multiplices_. It was necessary to make
sure that no decree should be passed without reasonable discussion, and
to make a stand against the regulation. The first congregation, held on
the 10th of December, was a scene of confusion; but it appeared that a
bishop from the Turkish frontier had risen against the order of
proceeding, and that the President had stopped him, saying that this was
a matter decided by the Pope, and not submitted to the Council. The
bishops perceived that they were in a snare. Some began to think of
going home. Others argued that questions of Divine right were affected
by the regulation, and that they were bound to stake the existence of
the Council upon them. Many were more eager on this point of law than on
the point of dogma, and were brought under the influence of the more
clear-sighted men, with whom they would not have come in contact through
any sympathy on the question of infallibility. The desire of protesting
against the violation of privileges was an imperfect bond. The bishops
had not yet learned to know each other; and they had so strongly
impressed upon their flocks at home the idea that Rome ought to be
trusted, that they were going to manifest the unity of the Church and to
confound the insinuations of her enemies, that they were not quick to
admit all the significance of the facts they found. Nothing vigorous was
possible in a body of so loose a texture. The softer materials had to be
eliminated, the stronger welded together by severe and constant
pressure, before an opposition could be made capable of effective
action. They signed protests that were of no effect. They petitioned;
they did not resist.
It was seen how much Rome had gained by excluding the ambassadors; for
this question of forms and regulations would have admitted the action of
diplomacy. The idea of being represented at the Council was revived in
France; and a weary negotiation began, which lasted several months, and
accomplished nothing but delay. It was not till the policy of
intervention had ignominiously failed, and till its failure had left the
Roman court to cope with the bishops alone, that the real question was
brought on for discussion. And as long as the chance remained that
political considerations might keep infallibility out of the Council,
the opposition abstained from declaring its real sentiments. Its union
was precarious and delusive, but it lasted in this state long enough to
enable secondary influences to do much towards supplying the place of
principles.
While the protesting bishops were not committed against infallibility,
it would have been possible to prevent resistance to the bull from
becoming resistance to the dogma. The Bishop of Grenoble, who was
reputed a good divine among his countrymen, was sounded in order to
discover how far he would go; and it was ascertained that he admitted
the doctrine substantially. At the same time, the friends of the Bishop
of Orleans were insisting that he had questioned not the dogma but the
definition; and Maret, in the defence of his book, declared that he
attributed no infallibility to the episcopate apart from the Pope. If
the bishops had been consulted separately, without the terror of a
decree, it is probable that the number of those who absolutely rejected
the doctrine would have been extremely small. There were many who had
never thought seriously about it, or imagined that it was true in a
pious sense, though not capable of proof in controversy. The possibility
of an understanding seemed so near that the archbishop of Westminster,
who held the Pope infallible apart from the episcopate, required that
the words should be translated into French in the sense of independence,
and not of exclusion. An ambiguous formula embodying the view common to
both parties, or founded on mutual concession, would have done more for
the liberty than the unity of opinion, and would not have strengthened
the authority of the Pope. It was resolved to proceed with caution,
putting in motion the strong machinery of Rome, and exhausting the
advantages of organisation and foreknowledge.
The first act of the Council was to elect the Commission on Dogma. A
proposal was made on very high authority that the list should be drawn
up so as to represent the different opinions fairly, and to include some
of the chief opponents. They would have been subjected to other
influences than those which sustain party leaders; they would have been
separated from their friends and brought into frequent contact with
adversaries; they would have felt the strain of official responsibility;
and the opposition would have been decapitated. If these sagacious
counsels had been followed, the harvest of July might have been gathered
in January, and the reaction that was excited in the long struggle that
ensued might have been prevented. Cardinal de Angelis, who ostensibly
managed the elections, and was advised by Archbishop Manning, preferred
the opposite and more prudent course. He caused a lithographed list to
be sent to all the bishops open to influence, from which every name was
excluded that was not on the side of infallibility.