Part 16

There are three powers who wish to gain by the Council, and who decide on its proceedings and destiny—the Pope, the Jesuits, and the _Curia_. Among the members of the _Curia_ there are indeed very few who have not long since made their calculations, with that appreciation of the realities of life which is peculiar to the Italian nation, and who do not know as well what a dogma is worth for Rome as people know what a man is “worth” in England. Every assailant of the dogma is their personal enemy; he is simply emptying their gold-mine. Nor is the doctrine less valuable and indispensable to the Jesuits, at this day more than before, since they no longer have to fear the rivalry of any other Order in making capital out of the prerogative of Infallibility.

As regards the Pope, he has constantly changed in his official life and vacillated from one side to the other, and those about him say that in many, nay in most, things he follows capricious and momentary impulses. But Pius is inflexible and immutable where he fancies he is a divine instrument and has received a divine mission, and that is the case here. He is persuaded that he is ordained by the special favour of God to be the most glorious of all Popes. Among his predecessors there are three to whom he seems to me to have a great likeness. I should say that he had chosen them as models, if I could assume that he knew their history. But Pius has never occupied himself with the past; he is purely the child of his age, and lives only in the present. The three are Innocent X., Clement XI., and above all Paul IV. He has in common with the first his strong experimental belief in his own personal inspiration without any theological culture. He resembles the second in giving himself up to the theological guidance of the Jesuits, and in his highhanded treatment of such Bishops as dare to have an opinion of their own. And just as Paul IV. used to boast that hereafter men would be obliged to tell of the lofty plans conceived by an aged Italian who, as being near his death, might have rested and bewailed his sins,(56) so does Pius too desire in his old age to make great though peaceful conquests, and to establish the Papal sovereignty as a “rocher du bronze,” to borrow the phrase of another autocrat. With the help of the Council he hopes to render the universal dominion of the Papacy an impregnable fortress, by means of new walls, bastions and batteries, and to hand it down to his successors as an omnipresent and omnipotent power. He believes that the thoughts and desires of his soul are in reality the counsels of God made known to him by inspiration, and that if by following these counsels he accomplishes the deliverance of the Church and of mankind, it is the Hand of God which uses him as an instrument. And why should not Pius see a sign of his election to high and extraordinary destinies in the circumstance of his having already sat longer than any of his 256 predecessors, even Pius VI., on the apostolic throne? A history of his Pontificate has already been written in this sense by one of the Jesuits of the _Civiltà,_ and Pius has the chapters read to him one after the other. I am told that a chapter on the Council is already written. The French Court historiographer, Vertot, who had to describe a Belgian campaign including the siege of a fortress, wrote the history of the siege before it was finished, and said quietly, “Mon siège est fait.” And thus the Jesuit historian of the Pope can already say, “Mon Concile est fait.” And in one sense the Council is indeed finished since the 23d inst.—finished by the new order of business.

If the merit of this clever invention is primarily due to the Cardinals on the Commission for revising motions, and the Jesuits who were probably taken into partnership with them, its introduction must be counted among the most eventful acts of Pius, past or future. If it is carried out and adhered to without opposition, it is unquestionably the most conspicuous of all the victories of the Pope. Margotti, the editor of the _Unita Cattolica_, will hardly be able to find words to do justice to the great day, February 23, 1870, with its boundless wealth of happy results, in the next edition of his work, _Le Vittorie della Santa Chiesa sotto Pio IX_. A _Te Deum_ will have to be sung in every Jesuit College of the old and new world.

Great anxiety was felt beforehand about the new order of business. It was said that the Sessions were to be something more than mere votings, that there would still be speeches made, that the written memorials would not be so directly thrown into the waste-paper basket, but would be considered and—if they approved of them—made use of by the Commission. But everything will be settled by the Commission and by a simple majority of votes; the minority may talk, but only so long as the Commission and the majority choose to listen to them. _Væ victis!_ The Council belongs to the Italians and the Spaniards, who are in close alliance with them: from henceforth to wish to reject any _Schema_ or decree brought before it, is like wanting to stop water from flowing downwards. All the proposals of the minority for a change in the order of business have been left unnoticed. It had already been resolved that a debate could only be cut short by the votes of a majority of two-thirds, but this has been reversed. What will the French and Germans do now? This is naturally the question which trembles on every lip and is written on every countenance. Will they simply acquiesce in the _fait accompli_ with a good grace, and obediently assume the rôle of the Greek Chorus in the drama of the Council—simply to reflect and moralize, but take no active part in the proceedings? The next few days will show. So much every one perceives; the order of business is the noose which, once fixed on the minority, cannot be got out of, and will only be drawn tighter and tighter till it strangles them at last. It is clear that the majority has the hide of a rhinoceros, from which every arrow shot by the Opposition, however skilfully aimed, glances off harmless. Where are now the wise and foolish virgins? “Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out,” must the Germans, French, and Spanish say henceforth to the Italians, and the answer will be more friendly than in the Gospel: “You need not buy any more oil; come over to our side and be content to use our store.”

It is hardly necessary to observe to your readers that everything which takes place here turns on the question of Infallibility. The new order of business is merely the outer covering for this kernel. “With Infallibility we have all we desire or need,” say the Italians, if that is gained we may “let the nigger go,” and can dispense with his services for the future. But for German theologians, whose hair stands on end at the new order of business and all it involves, I can find no other consolation than what they may derive from the following Persian tale. An English ambassador sent to Persia—I think it was Morier—paid the usual visits at Teheran, and was introduced to the younger son of the Shah. He found him groping about blindfold in the room, and feeling for the furniture in it. The Prince explained this strange business by telling him that it was the rule for the younger sons to be blinded at the death of the Shah, in order to make them incapable of succeeding, and that he wished to prepare and practise himself beforehand for the fate impending over him. “Go ye, and do likewise.”

If the German theologians should still have courage to present an address to their Bishops, the subscription might be, “Morituri vos salutant.” Why have these theologians come to such utter discomfiture?

Here one already hears shouts of triumph; the day of retribution will soon come for those proud Transalpines, when they must bend their necks under the Caudine yoke of the new dogma, or await suspension, degradation, etc.

If German theology had long been decried and hated by the _Curia_ and the Italian Jesuits, and if the _Civiltà_ gladly took occasion to pour out its wrath on the scholars of “foggy” Germany, you may conceive the extent this fury has reached in Italian clerical papers and curialist circles, since it has become known that the most influential theologians have pronounced against Infallibility, and that not one—with the exception of a couple of pupils of the Jesuits—has said a word to defend it. It is well that one of the most distinguished Italians, a man whose devotion to the Church is unimpeached even in Rome, and whom the Pope has commissioned to write a history of the Council—I mean Cantù—has some years ago confessed and censured this characteristic of his countrymen. “To call laziness superiority, and evade the trouble of examining questions by depreciating them, this is only too much the habit of Italians, and then they mock at the ponderous, long-winded, hair-splitting Germans. But we must endure the reproach of negligence and thoughtlessness from the Germans, while we blindly accept falsified documents.”(57)

Cantù has hit on the sore place there; for it is precisely their having pointed out the long line of numerous and systematic forgeries, on which the Roman claims of Infallibility are based, and which are used to further other aims of the Italians, that is the main ground of the hatred of the Germans. And now Frenchmen too, like Gratry, come forward and publish these facts over land and sea in their cosmopolitan tongue and clear incisive style.

To return to what preceded the publication of the new order of business; in the last sittings of the Council coming events threw their shadows before. The Bishops of Carcassonne and Belley declared roundly that Infallibility must be proclaimed, and in order, said the latter, to restore the menaced or broken unity of the Church. The impatience and vexation of the authorities are constantly on the increase. Manning said there was only one way of stopping the definition, and that was to cut the throats of half the 500 Bishops of the majority. Of course the Prelates who heard him cried out, like the Emperor Charles V. at the Diet of Augsburg, when Count George of Brandenburg wanted to cut off heads for another doctrine, “No heads off! no heads off!” At the last sitting on the _Schema de Catechismo_, on the 22d, a scene occurred which presages what is to become the regular practice. The Bishop of Namur had said, in reference to some previous attacks on the Breviary, that no one who spoke against it could be a good Christian. For the information of your readers I must premise a few words here. The Breviary is a collection of prayers and lections for the clergy, introduced by Rome, consisting chiefly of psalms and passages from the Bible and the Lives of the Saints.(58) The _Curia_ has used this, like so many other things, as an _instrumentum dominationis_, and a number of fables and forgeries devised in the interest of the Papal system have been interpolated into it. The French Church had long since adopted the precaution of employing a Breviary of her own, much better and purer than the Roman. It was against observations made about this in the Council that the harsh comment of the Bishop of Namur was directed.

TWENTY-SIXTH LETTER.

_Rome, Feb. 28, 1870._—Our last letter closed with an account of a scene in the Session of February 22, occasioned by some attacks on the Roman Breviary. The Bishop of Namur had maintained that no one who attacked it could be a good Christian.

Haynald was one of those who had censured the present condition of the Breviary, and he now replied to Bishop Gravez that in criticising it he had the Fathers of Trent and the Popes themselves for accomplices (_complices_). A tempest broke out at these words. But Haynald went further and said, with reference to Bishop Langalerie of Belley, that the majority, with their proposals for new dogmas, were the cause of the disunion which had broken out in the Church, and that it would be much better for the heads of the Church to confine themselves to preserving the ancient doctrines in their purity, instead of adding new ones. The Church had succeeded very well with the old doctrines. At this first open attack in Council on the Infallibilist project the storm grew fiercer, and Capalti seized the bell of the President, De Angelis, rung it violently and forbade the speaker to proceed. “Taceas et ab ambone descendas,” he exclaimed. When Haynald went on all the same, a wild cry broke from the majority. The Archbishop of Calocsa at last came down, and so great was the excitement that the sitting was closed and the next postponed to March 2.

Meanwhile more attention and care than before has been devoted in Paris to what is going on at Rome. The Emperor and his present ministers understand the gravity of the situation; they know what would be meant by such journals as the _Monde_ and the _Univers_ daily appealing to infallible Papal decisions, and under their authority calling in question every institution and law of France, and proving beforehand to their readers that there is no obligation in conscience to submit to them, because the Pope has directly or indirectly signified his disapproval. Archbishop Lavigerie of Algiers brought back word to Cardinal Antonelli, on returning to Rome from his mission, that France was in no condition to tolerate the definition of Infallibility, which might lead to a schism, since not only the whole body of State-officers, but the writers, and even the Faubourg St. Germain, were opposed to the new dogma. Antonelli is not apt to be much influenced by such representations, which he views as mere idle threats; he is spoilt by the courtly flatteries of the ever obsequious M. de Banneville, whom he has managed completely to disarm. He has three devices of domestic diplomacy by which he knows how to make excellent use of both Banneville and Trautmansdorff. At one time he says, “It is not we—Pius, the _Curia_ and I—who want the dogma, but the foreign Bishops, and we should be encroaching on the freedom of the Council by impeding them. And we ought not to subject ourselves to that reproach.” Then, for a variety, he adopts another line. “The Pope,” he says, “has all he wants already, and the dogma of Infallibility would not give him anything more. As it is, and with a Council assembled, all the decrees emanate from him and receive from him their validity, and he can summon or dissolve the Council at his pleasure, so that it only exists by his will and would crumble into dust without him. It is therefore the interest of the Bishops, not ours, that is in question here, and they will know well why the dogma is so valuable to them.” His third formula is, “Every good Christian believes the doctrine already, and therefore little or nothing will be changed in the Church by defining it, and we have not the least desire to use the new decree for calling in question the existing compacts and Concordats. We shall gladly leave alone the concessions we have already granted.” These resources of the Cardinal have hitherto sufficed. But new powers and demands seem to be coming to the front, which his diplomatic counters will no longer satisfy. I have copies of two letters of Count Daru, of January 18 and February 5. These official expressions of opinion from Paris have made the _Civiltà_ Jesuits bitterly angry, and their famous article on the _Policastri_, in its original form, contained a violent attack on the French statesmen, who were classed with the other ministers and diplomats in such ill repute at Rome. But this roused the alarm of the supreme authority, and so the Jesuits had to eat their own words, and to substitute for their attack a high commendation of Count Daru and the loyalty of France to the Concordat. There is some good in having the articles of the _Civiltà_ regularly revised in the Vatican. I understand that it is intended at Paris to send a special ambassador to Rome to the Council.

Meanwhile the Bishops of the minority are consulting how they shall deal with the new order of business. It was announced to the Fathers at the Session of February 22 that, in accordance with these new regulations, they must hand in all their observations on the first ten chapters of the _Schema de Ecclesiâ_ in writing within ten days.

Archbishop Spalding of Baltimore has not receded from his ludicrous notion that his Infallibilist formula is milder and more tolerable than that of the 400. He has laid it before the thirty-five French Bishops (of the minority), who have unanimously rejected it. Its essence consists, as was mentioned before, in asserting that everybody must receive with unconditional inward assent every Papal decision on every question of faith or morals or Church life. On all theological principles such faith can only be accorded in cases where all possibility of error is excluded, or, in other words, where a revealed truth is concerned; and therefore to accept this formula would be to set aside the limitation of Papal Infallibility, hitherto recognised even in Rome, to decisions pronounced _ex cathedrâ_. And thus, in the crush and confusion of the innumerable and often contradictory decisions of Popes, theology would degenerate into a lamentable caricature of a system—“science” it could no longer be termed—involved in hopeless contradictions. If the good Spalding had the slightest acquaintance with Church history, he would know that he was bound, in virtue of his inward assent paid to all Papal decrees, first of all to reject his own orders as invalid.(59)

And now I must notice more particularly what Bishop Ketteler has published against me in some German newspapers. He says that in the telegram of February 13, published in the _Allg. Zeitung_ of February 15, he has found the opportunity he had long desired for convicting the writer of the _Letters from Rome_ of building up “a whole system of lying and deceit.”(60) It is “an indescribable dishonesty,” a “detestable untruth,” etc. His short letter bristles with such accusations. The untruths he complains of are the following:—

(1.) The telegram called the statement made by Bishop Ketteler and his ally, Bishop Melchers, a “proposal.” He replies that it was only a “communication.”

(2.) It treats the occurrence as a “negotiation,” whereas it was only a “short conference.”

(3.) There was no debate with “a serious opposition.” The Bishops indeed had expressed different views, and some had disapproved Döllinger’s pronouncement, while the others thought only certain individual Bishops might have occasion to come forward against it. (They accordingly understood Ketteler’s “communication” just as my informant did, and therefore spoke out against accepting it.)

(4.) Ketteler did not hear any Bishop say, as stated in the telegram, that Döllinger really had the majority of (German) Bishops with him.

And now let us compare Ketteler’s account, deducting the abusive comments subjoined to every sentence, with the—of course extremely compressed—account in the telegram, and we shall find the two in substantial agreement. The Bishop is obliged to interpolate something into the telegram, in order to find fuel for the fire of holy indignation his delirious fancy has betrayed him into. He quarrels with me fiercely for saying there was a debate and a negotiation, whereas there was only a conference; but I never made use of those words. He says he made no motion, but he himself recounts statements of the Bishops which show clearly that they understood his “communication” as an invitation to do as he did. Only one somewhat important point of difference remains, viz., whether the Bishops named in the telegram said what they are there reported to have said or not. Bishop Ketteler can only say that he did not hear them say it. But considering that in an informal meeting of forty or forty-five persons, broken up into groups, a great deal is said which every one in the room does not hear, and that I received my information the same day from one who was present, I still adhere to my assertion that they did say it. For the rest, I am much indebted to Bishop Ketteler; he assures us that he has long desired an opportunity for saying all the evil he can of me and my Letters. He has now made a grand onset. If he had found anything in the eighteen long Letters before him better suited to his purpose, he would certainly not have taken refuge in such petty trivialities and, like a boy with snowballs, have flung what has turned into water in his hand. He has thus unwillingly given testimony to the truthfulness of my Letters. And for this I pardon him his exaggerated rhetoric, but will not suppress the remark made by an Englishman who knows mankind well: “There are certain women, says Fielding, always ready to raise a cry of ‘Murder, fire, rape’ and the like, but that means no more in their mouths than any one else means in going over the scale, Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol,” etc.

TWENTY-SEVENTH LETTER.

_Rome, March 8, 1870._—“Habemus Papam falli nescium!” The Bishops of the Manning and Deschamps party are in raptures; all Rome, say the Infallibilist devotees, is in the highest spirits. The great doctrine, on which, as all the Jesuits and their disciples assure us, hinges the salvation of humanity and the regeneration of science and literature, was published on March 6 in the form of a supplement to the _Schema de Ecclesiâ_. The Pope bears witness of himself that he is infallible as teacher of the Church, and the great majority of the Council will readily assent. Already they are exulting in that moment of triumph when the Pope from his throne in the Hall, “sacro Concilio approbante,” and amid the pealing of all the bells in Rome, will proclaim to the world that it is now fortunate enough to possess an infallible teacher and judge in all questions of faith and morals, guaranteed by God Himself. Day and hour for the proclamation will be chosen with the greatest deliberation and foresight, and here another ground for clinging so pertinaciously to the present Council Hall comes out. It was thought quite incomprehensible why “the master” insulted 750 aged men by compelling them, in spite of all wishes and representations and the evidence of his own senses, to hold their sittings in a Chamber so utterly unfit for the purpose. In a city so abounding in churches and halls as Rome this seemed an act rather of ill-tempered caprice than of hospitable care. It was known of course that the previous expectations of the Vatican had been disappointed, that it had been hoped the _Schemata_ would be received by acclamation or by storm, as it were, without discussion, and that the Hall had been chosen on the very ground of its acoustic defects being adapted to that end. Now however a new recommendation of the Hall betrays itself. At a certain hour on a clear and cloudless day the rays of the sun fall exactly on the place where the Pope’s throne stands, so that Pius may hope, by help of careful arrangements about the time, to stand in a glory of sunlight at the moment when he announces to the world the divine revelation of his own infallibility. It is on this wise, as we said before, that he has had himself represented in the memorial picture of the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception. At the Coronation of Charles X. of France doves were let fly into the church. And so in Rome also a dove might be trained, so as to make it hover above the Pope at the moment of his apotheosis being proclaimed by his own mouth, which would make the effect quite irresistible.