THE OPENING OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL
The Council of the Vatican was opened on the Feast of the Immaculate
Conception (8th December 1869).[329] There was significance in the
selection of the day. That very day, fifteen years before, Pius IX. had
proclaimed a new dogma on the Virgin; and, as a fervid prelate assured
him, he who had declared the Virgin immaculate was now to be proclaimed
by her infallible. The Council was held in the South Transept of St
Peter’s, and at the opening service seven hundred and two members were
present.[330] So large an Assembly had never been held before. The
proportions of the two opinions were roughly between four and five
hundred Infallibilists and between one and two hundred opponents of the
doctrine.
[329] _Acta._
[330] _Ibid._
Meetings of the Council were of two kinds: the ordinary Congregations,
at which none but members and officials were permitted to be present,
while the proceedings were secret; the Public Sessions, at which the
public were admitted, and the Decrees proclaimed. Of the former kind
there were in all eighty-nine, of the latter four. Only two, however,
of the Public Sessions declared matters decreed: for the first was
entirely occupied with ceremonial, and at the second (6th January)
no Decrees were ready; it was accordingly devoted to recitals of the
Creed of the Council of Trent. The Pope was never present except at the
four Public Sessions. He exerted his influence without compromising his
dignity.
The secrecy of the proceedings was thoroughly in accordance with the
Italian disposition. Every official and member of the Council was
sworn to observe it. But the regulation proved ineffective, partly
because the Pope himself released certain members of the majority from
the necessity of its observance, and partly because the incessant
discussions in unofficial assemblies of the Bishops could not easily
escape publicity. Much information leaked out in various directions and
appeared in print.
The influence of Pius IX. upon the Council was exercised partly
through official documents. Three important papers[331] were issued
by him to the Council during its early period: The Constitution on
Procedure (18th December 1869); on Election to the Papacy in case of a
Vacancy (1st January 1870); on Absolving from Ecclesiastical Censures
(15th January 1870). The significance of the last may be measured
by the following description. Its effect was “to cancel episcopal
encroachments on the Papal authority.”[332] The second was intended to
prevent any assertion of power by the Council in case the Pope might
die.
[331] _Acta._
[332] Ollivier, i. p. 460.
But far the most important of these three Constitutions was that
which regulated the Council’s procedure (_multiplices inter_). This
remarkable document asserted that the right of proposing subjects for
discussion belonged to the Papal See, but that the Pope nevertheless
desired and exhorted the Bishops to give in their proposals to a
Congregation appointed for that purpose. The value of the concession
was qualified by the fact that the Congregation in question was
selected entirely by the Pope, and was composed of Ultramontanes.
All the officers of the Council, including the five Presidents, were
appointed by the Pope on his own authority; and their names were given
in this Decree. The details of procedure were also therein defined. No
Bishop was to leave without the Pope’s permission.
This certainly was a striking document. The French statesman, Ollivier,
says that “its novelty, its boldness, its audacity is only realised
when compared with the proceedings at Trent.”[333] At Trent the
Regulations were determined by the Bishops themselves.
[333] Ollivier, i. p. 466.
When the Vatican Council began its work, several Bishops, including
the Archbishop of Paris, attempted to protest against the restrictions
imposed upon them; but the presiding Cardinal suppressed all objections
with a declaration that the Pope had so ordained, and that his
decisions could not be called in question. To this declaration the
minority submitted. Thereby in effect they acknowledged the Pope’s
power to determine the Regulations. This has been called “the first of
the feeblenesses, or to speak more indulgently, the resignations of the
minority.”[334]
[334] _Ibid._ ii. pp. 21–23.
The actual product of the Vatican Council consists of two Dogmatic
Constitutions known respectively by their opening words as the
Constitution Dei Filius and the Constitution Pastor Æternus. Of these
the former was proclaimed in the third Public Session, the latter in
the fourth Public Session. The contents of the former are the doctrine
of God, of Revelation, of Faith, and of the relation between Faith and
Reason. The latter contains the Ultramontane theory of the Papacy, and
especially the dogma of the Pope’s Infallibility. It is with this last
subject exclusively that we are concerned.
This subject of Papal Infallibility was not mentioned among the causes
for which the Council was assembled, nor was it introduced into the
discussion for the first three months. During that period the Bishops’
attention was devoted to discussions on faith; the discipline of
the clergy; the project of the compilation of a new Catechism, for
universal use, in place of all local Catechisms in the Roman body.
Matters such as these occupied the first twenty-eight Congregations.
But progress was excessively slow: partly owing to the reluctance of
the minority to proceed, under fear of what the future would produce,
and under dislike of various extreme measures proposed to them. It
seems clear that the Roman authorities had not anticipated so much
persistent opposition. At the end of three months, minority-Bishops
said with relief, “We have done nothing, and that is a great deal.” The
Dogmatic Constitution on faith was expected to be ready for the second
Public Session on 6th January. But when the date arrived the doctrine
was not ready. Consequently the entire Session was occupied by formal
recitation of the Tridentine Creed.
In January 1870 the crisis became acute when Manning and other members
of the Vatican Council presented the Pope with an Address, urging him
to declare his own Infallibility.
Upon this Döllinger wrote his “Few Words” to the _Augsburg Gazette_.
He pointed out with all possible emphasis the magnitude of the
suggested revolution. He declared that Papal Infallibility had never
been believed hitherto--believed, that is, with the faith due to a
divine revelation. Between the faith due to a truth divinely revealed
through the Church, and the acceptance of a theological theory, the
difference is immense. Hitherto there had been conjectures, opinions,
probabilities, even human certainty in individual minds as to Papal
Infallibility; but never that divine faith which is the response of
the Catholic to the doctrine of the Church. Döllinger added that while
the Infallibilists’ Address spoke of the Pope being infallible when
instructing the entire Church, it was historically clear that all papal
utterances on doctrine during the first twelve hundred years were
directed to individuals or local communities.
The effect of this urgent appeal to historic certainties was very
considerable. Archbishop Scherr, Döllinger’s diocesan, had a very
uneasy time in consequence at the hands of the Jesuits and the majority
in Rome. Although his personal conviction and sympathy were with the
learned historian, he could not help a certain human self-pity, and he
is said to have sighed, “What a comfort it would be if only Döllinger
would expire!” But the vigorous old Professor seemed in no way likely
to comply with the archiepiscopal wishes.
A further stage in Vatican procedure was reached when Pius IX. imposed
upon the Council, on 22nd February 1870, a new series of Regulations
which were designed to accelerate progress, and to drive things forward
to their intended conclusion.
These _New Regulations_ as to procedure were introduced into the
Council without its consultation or consent. They were simply imposed
upon the Council, from without; by the same authority which directed
everything without personally appearing. The main features of the
New Regulations are two. The first rule authorised the Presidents to
control any individual speaker who in their opinion wandered from
the point. Another rule gave the Presidents power, at the request
of ten Fathers and with the approval of the majority, to closure the
discussion. This second Regulation involved tremendous possibilities.
It placed the minority entirely at the mercy of the majority. It
thereby determined a principle more momentous still--namely, that
Decrees of Faith could be imposed on the Church by mere majority of
votes. Hitherto the minority had taken refuge in the principle that no
opinion could be elevated into a dogma of faith without the Council’s
moral unanimity. The existence of an opposition so extensive as between
one hundred and two hundred Bishops rendered the Church secure on
that theory from the imposition of the Ultramontane conception of
papal prerogatives. But the New Regulations swept that plea of moral
unanimity entirely away. Whatever was the intention of its propounders,
its effect is clear; and that effect was disastrous to the men who
clung to what they regarded as the ancient truth. Naturally the
depression of the minority was profound.
Döllinger wrote a very powerful criticism upon these New
Regulations.[335] He characterised the existing Roman Synod as the
first in history in which instructions as to procedure had been
imposed upon the Bishops without their co-operation or approval.
The New Regulations concentrated all real power in the hands of the
presiding Cardinals and the Commission of Suggestions, so that the
Council itself, as opposed to these, had neither power nor will.
Equally momentous was the fact that doctrine was to be determined by
majorities. This was an intrusion of parliamentary forms into synodical
procedure--with this tremendous difference: that whereas laws passed
by majorities are subject to subsequent revision and recall, dogmatic
resolutions are, if the Council be really ecumenical, irrevocable
and valid for all future time. The Infallibilist majority would
naturally accept the dogmatic proposals introduced by the Commission
of Suggestions; for that Commission, which alone possessed the
privilege of introducing doctrine into the Council, and of determining
what amendments should be admitted, and the form which those
amendments should take, consisted of the most pronounced advocates of
Infallibility. And this decision by majorities was utterly alien to
the traditional methods of Christendom. “For eighteen hundred years,”
said Döllinger, “it has been held as a principle of the Church that
decrees concerning faith and doctrine should be adopted by at least
moral unanimity.” And this because Bishops at a Council are primarily
witnesses to the faith which they and their Churches have received;
secondly, judges to examine whether the conditions of universality,
perpetuity, and consent are fulfilled by a given doctrine; whether it
is really a universal doctrine of the whole Church, and a constituent
portion of the original Deposit divinely intrusted to the Church’s
keeping, and therefore a doctrine which every Christian must affirm.
Consequently the judicial function of the episcopate cannot exclude the
past. It extends across all history.
[335] Reusch, _Declarations and Decrees._
“A Council only makes dogmatic decrees on things already universally
believed in the Church, as being testified by the Scriptures and by
Tradition, or which are contained, as evident and clear deductions,
in the principles which have been already believed and taught.
Should, for example, the Infallibility of a single individual be
put in the place of the freedom from error of the whole Church,
as formerly believed and taught, this would be no development nor
explanation of what was hitherto implicitly believed, nor is it a
deduction that follows with logical necessity, but simply the very
opposite of the earlier doctrine, which thereby would be subverted.”
Döllinger contended further that all theologians agree that the
ecumenical character of a Council depends, among other essential
conditions, upon the possession of real freedom. Real freedom does not
consist in mere immunity from physical force. Fear, ambition, avarice,
as effectually destroy true freedom as bodily constraint. Moreover,
urged Döllinger, even if a Council be ecumenical in its vocation, it
does not follow that it is also ecumenical in its procedures or in its
conclusions. “It is still necessary that the authority which stands
ever above every Council--the testimony of the whole Church--should
come forward and decide.”
This was Döllinger’s final protest before the decision.[336] A Bishop
of the majority replied by prohibiting theological students in his
diocese from attending Döllinger’s lectures. Pius congratulated the
Bishop on this action, and wished that others would follow his example;
which however they declined to do. A war of pamphlets followed.
Döllinger was attacked in a party newspaper as having by his recent
writings placed himself outside the Catholic Church. Hötzl,[337]
a Franciscan lecturer on theology, afterwards Bishop of Augsberg,
published a pamphlet entitled, “Is Döllinger a Heretic?” This was too
much for the King of Bavaria. He expressed in a birthday letter the
earnest hope that Döllinger might long be spared in undiminished mental
and bodily powers to the service of religion and of learning. Hötzl’s
imprudent act awakened so many demonstrations of sympathy and approval
towards Döllinger that it was thought wise to transfer Hötzl to Rome.
[336] Friedrich, iii. p. 541.
[337] _Ibid._ p. 543.
It was impossible, of course, that these New Regulations, involving for
the minority such tremendous possibilities, should be tamely acquiesced
in without a protest. The protest came, partly in the form of written
appeals to the Pope, and partly in speeches in the Congregation. One
of the ablest orators in the Council, the brilliant Strossmayer,
being called to order by the President, uttered against the Rules the
following impassioned criticism:--
“I am persuaded that the perpetual and unmistakable rule of faith
and tradition always was and always must remain that nothing could
be passed without morally unanimous consent. A Council which ignored
this rule, and attempted to define dogmas of faith and morals by a
numerical majority, binding thereby the conscience of the Catholic
world under penalties of eternal life and death, would, according
to my most profound conviction, have transgressed its lawful
bounds.”[338]
[338] Lord Acton, _Vatican Council_, p. 92.
As Strossmayer uttered the closing words the Council Chamber was filled
with the wildest tumult, says Lord Acton, and the Session was broken
up.[339]
[339] _Ibid._ p. 92.
Written protests were sent to the Pope against the New Regulations
by the minority, but no relief was given. What were they now to do?
They had complained, on ground of conscience, that the freedom of the
Council was impaired. This complaint affected the Council’s validity.
Could they reasonably continue their work within it? On the other
hand, no actual Decree was threatened as yet. Was it wise to withdraw
before the repulsive doctrine was introduced? The instincts of caution
prevailed over bolder and more resolute lines. The minority protested,
but submitted.[340]
[340] Friedrich, iv. p. 764.