Part 24

Bishop Hefele’s work is worthy of the man who is beyond question the most profound historical scholar among the members of the Council. One can only regret that a writer so pre-eminently qualified to pronounce a clear and weighty opinion on the whole controversy in all its bearings should have confined himself to the single question of the condemnation of Pope Honorius. Those who wish to know the history of Honorius and the Sixth Council in 681, and to see a flagrant example of the utterly crude and unscientific poverty of that modern scholasticism which is treated as theology in the Jesuit lecture-rooms, may be recommended a brief study of this question, which has already produced so many writings and hypotheses, simple and easily understood as it is in itself. A General Council, acknowledged by the whole Church in East and West, condemned a Pope for heresy after his death, and anathematized him on account of a dogmatic letter he issued. The sentence was without contradiction accepted throughout the whole Church, the Roman Church included, and even introduced into the profession of faith to which every new Pope had to swear at his election. It was repeatedly confirmed by subsequent Councils, and in short remained in full force for centuries, till the Popes were seized with a desire to become infallible. It is only since the fifteenth and sixteenth century, and especially since the Jesuits—beginning with Bellarmine—undertook to revise history according to the requirements of their new dogmatic system, that this extremely contradictory fact had to be submitted to a process of manipulation, and the rock on which all schemes of papal infallibility seemed to be wrecked had to be got out of the way. “Si plus minusve secuerit sine fraude esto,” was said in the old Roman law which allowed a creditor to cut a pound of flesh from the body of his debtor, and so do the knives of the Jesuits and curialists cut right into the flesh of history. The Acts of the Sixth Council were said to have been corrupted through the perfidy of the Greeks, and the whole history and even the letters of Honorius to be forgeries. The Popes themselves, Rome, and the whole West had let themselves be fooled by the cunning Greeks into condemning an innocent and orthodox Pope as a heretic, and the letters of Pope Leo II. must also be forgeries. In short these reasoners were caught in the meshes of their own net, and when in 1660 Lucas Holstein got the Roman _Liber Diurnus_ printed—an excellent edition of which Rozière lately brought out in Paris—the whole impression was suppressed, for it contained the old form of oath which expressly attested the condemnation of Honorius. But twenty years later the book appeared to the great chagrin of Rome, and the infallibilist school had to change their front. They now turned to the letters of Honorius and tried to show that they were perfectly orthodox. But that did not touch the fact that a General Council had solemnly condemned a Pope for heresy, and that the whole Church—the Popes and the Roman Church included—had accepted the sentence without demur. Hefele has shortly and pointedly exposed the shifts and dishonesties of this long controversy carried on in more than a hundred polemical works; and he has taken care, at the same time, to establish conclusively the wide-reaching facts and general results of the inquiry. He shows (page 11), how up to the eleventh century every Pope swore to the truth that an Œcumenical Council had condemned a Pope for heresy.(87)

Cardinal Schwarzenberg’s work is chiefly directed against Archbishop Manning.(88) Hitherto the infallibilists, to avoid pushing their theory into sheer absurdity, had appended the condition of _ex cathedrâ_, which everybody could interpret more or less stringently according to his own view, and theologians had actually given twenty-five different explanations of what was required for an _ex cathedrâ_ decision. In order to get out of this labyrinth, Manning has propounded a simpler theory. Everything according to him depends on the Pope’s intention; whenever he “intends to require the assent of the whole Church,” he is infallible.(89) Schwarzenberg points out with pungent irony to what monstrous consequences this would lead. He recalls the saying of Boniface VIII. that the Pope holds all rights locked up in his breast. And thus it must be assumed on Manning’s theory that the Pope holds in his own mind all doctrines present and future, and draws from this internal treasure-house under divine inspiration what he wishes to reveal to the world, so that infallibility becomes inspiration. Has it occurred to the Cardinal that this is precisely the personal opinion of the very man who has now, for the sake of his own infallibility, resolved to plunge the Church into an internal conflict, of which no one can see the end?

It is then further pointed out that, if the new dogma with its consequences prevails, all Governments will put themselves in an attitude of self-defence against the Church. Bishops as well as Councils cease to be any necessary part of the _magisterium_ of the Church, and there is no longer any need for the distinct assent of the Episcopate; the only office left them is to praise and accept with thanks every decision of the Pope’s. Perhaps they may still be allowed to give their advice before he decides, but they have nothing to say to the decision itself or after it, but only to obey and promulgate the papal revelations.

THIRTY-NINTH LETTER.

_Rome, April 23, 1870._—The four chapters of the _Constitutio Dogmatica de Fide_ bear in their ultimate shape such evident marks of the influence of the minority, and so many concessions were made in them, that there is a danger of overlooking the greatness of their defeat and their change of mind, should they finally accept the supplemental paragraph mentioned in my last letter but one. Although it was determined that the minority should make no general opposition to this paragraph, there were not a few Bishops who saw clearly enough its importance and danger. They consoled themselves at first with the promise that the suspicious passage, which clothed the Roman Congregations and the mischief they work in the Church with conciliar sanction, would not be voted upon till the still incomplete portion of the _Schema de Fide_ came on for final settlement. And when, in spite of this promise, it was announced to be the general wish of the Commission that the voting should take place at once, the opponents were quieted by a written assurance that no new power was thereby to be given to the Roman Congregations, and nothing to be altered about them, but all to remain as of old. Gasser, Bishop of Brixen, had the courage to say, in the name of the Deputation, that the passage did not refer to heresy, though it expressly binds the Bishops to the observance of the constitutions and decrees of the Holy See, not only in regard to heresy (_hæretica pravitas_), but also theological errors and controversies. It is incredible that any one could be deceived by such a ruse as this, and yet it is a fact that not even forty Bishops made the omission of this paragraph a condition of their _Placet_. As the Opposition seemed thereby to be shrunk to less than five per cent. of the Council, the _Curia_ was persuaded that it could get rid of them altogether by acting with spirit.

On April 18 appeared an admonition with the following passage: “It must be remembered that according to the Apostolic Brief, _Multiplices inter_ (of Nov. 27, 1869), prescribing the method of procedure in public Sessions, no other vote can be given in them than a simple _Placet_ or _Non placet_.”(90) The Fathers who had given conditional votes in Congregation had to choose now whether they would accept the chapter unconditionally or reject it “sans phrase.” It was foreseen that this alternative would disclose the weakness of the Opposition, and that those of its number who shrank from a decisive rejection would be won for the majority, for the real test of an Opposition is not in words but acts. Protests which are not answered, and speeches which are not heard, may be patiently borne with, as long as all goes well in the public voting. The _Curia_ reckons that the minority will not now dare to show itself, and thus the unanimity will not be disturbed: and its consequent resolve might decide the whole course and upshot of the Council. If the minority gives in here, it will have suffered a first defeat, and must reconstitute itself on a new basis, by taking part in decrees carried under anathema, which are against its own convictions, it breaks with its past, accepts the responsibility and solidarity of the Council and complicity with the majority. This is to admit that all the petitions and protests it was thought necessary to present in the interests of the freedom of the Council were superfluous and aimless, and all the warnings offered of the threatened danger of its œcumenicity being questioned, etc., unmeaning. For the Council to publish anathemas implies the conviction that it is free, legitimate, and œcumenical, and that the order of business is acceptable. The minority thereby would themselves testify to everything they have hitherto assailed, and the only thing left for them would be to insist on their rights as guarded by the _consensus unanimis_. All other grounds for calling the Council in question would be abandoned, and it might fairly be doubted whether the Opposition would adhere to that after giving up so much; at the same time it is morally certain that the Court and the majority do not acknowledge that right.

During the General Congregation of the 19th, four Bishops, Latour d’Auvergne, Dreux-Brézé, La Bouillerie, and Mermillod, went to the Pope and requested him to have the decree on infallibility brought forward directly after the Solemn Session of the 24th. They thought rightly enough the favourable moment had come and all was now ready. Pius received the Bishops, who came as deputies of the 400, with great distinction, and replied that he would discuss the matter with the Presidents.

As it is impossible to see how the Bishops or the Governments could get rid of the _regolamento_ when once it is fairly established, the Opposition Bishops know that they will have to approach the great question in the position they take for themselves to-morrow in the first solemn voting, and with such power, unanimity, and influence as they thereby establish their claim to. It is still open to them up to to-night to use the present moment for a complete victory. They only need declare that their protests and warnings were not idle words but seriously meant, that the incongruities which endanger the freedom of the Council and suggest doubts of its legitimacy must be got rid of before any decrees are published under threat of everlasting damnation, and that until they are listened to on this point they refuse to take part in any solemn voting.

But, as far as I know of the Opposition, the majority of them have no ear or heart for such counsel; their grand object is to avoid any decisive conflict, and so to-morrow they will simply yield,—to consider quietly afterwards their future plan of campaign! Some have thought they might save their honour and conscience by a written explanation of their vote. In the public international meeting of the Opposition these plans were rejected, but two rough drafts of the kind were proposed the day before yesterday, one by the Germans, one by the French. Both are too strong and dignified to find many supporters, and too weak to justify the Opposition in the eyes of the Christian world.

It is the sacred duty of the Bishops in Council to bear witness to the ancient doctrine of the Church, and to reform it when it has been obscured by abuses in practice and in the rule of the hierarchy. The more abuses there are, so much the more difficult, and so much the more indispensable also is this reform. What the Catholic world expects of the Council is not a fresh sanction, still less an increase, of these abuses, but the deliverance and purification of the Church from them. But to accept the paragraph which recommends obedience to the constitutions and decrees of Roman Congregations is to make the fulfilment of this serious duty, on which the fate of the Church hinges, impossible. For that paragraph will confirm and clothe with new authority decrees which are a disgrace to the Church and an injury to civilisation, wherein the confused morality of dark centuries is taught and Christian morality denied; and that too without any examination or discussion, any limitation or exception. The Bishops will thereby degrade themselves to servants of the Roman _prelatura_, and sink into accomplices of the Inquisition. We are told indeed that the paragraph will not touch dogma, but for ethics and practice it is almost more important than infallibility itself. It gives full play beforehand for arbitrary caprice and paves the way for the infallibilist dogma.

If we look into the future, the questions come before us of unanimity in matters of faith, and of the confirmation and acceptance of the Council throughout the Church. As to the latter, the Bishops will make it far harder for the Governments to stand by them if to-morrow they virtually repudiate their own protests. The question of unanimity remains as weighty as before, and the gross errors of the _Civiltà_ in its attack on Strossmayer’s vindication of the principle of moral unanimity in decisions on faith has greatly lightened the task of two learned Bishops, who undertook to put in a clear light the true doctrine of the Church on the subject.

If the voting of to-morrow goes altogether in the sense of the _Curia_, the inference will be that all the positions of the minority can be turned, and that as they are resolved to avoid any collision, they may be brought by skilful manipulation not to trouble the moral unanimity any further. Many of them console themselves with the thought that they are only sacrificing everything to peace and harmony, and are not responsible for the undertaking they have been deluded into.

The propositions of the _Schema de Ecclesiâ_ give abundant room for manœuvring. There are many opportunities for apparent concessions and for dividing and perplexing the Opposition, and finally driving them into a corner, so that in mutual distrust of one another they may abandon all hope of making any successful resistance, and satisfy themselves that as nearly everything has been given up already it is not worth while to risk a catastrophe by taking any further step.

FORTIETH LETTER.

_Rome, April 24, 1870._—The final votes of _Placet_ or _Non placet_ on the four chapters of the _Schema de Fide_ are to be taken in to-day’s public Session. And thus after four months and a half a theological decree, or rather a batch of decrees and doctrinal decisions, will be brought to a successful issue, and the first ripe fruit plucked from the hitherto barren tree of the Council, so that there will be something in black and white to carry home. As these four chapters have been subjected to the pruning and toning down of the Opposition, they bear little resemblance to the original draft of the Jesuits, and the minority may lay claim to a victory which four months ago could scarcely have been hoped for. What has been gained for the future by these theological commonplaces and self-evident propositions is of course another question. The general view of the Bishops appears to be that there is no real gain for the Church in these propositions, which can only excite the wonder of believing Christians that it should be thought necessary to prohibit at this time of day such fundamental errors. The value of their labours they take to lie, not in what they have said, but in what they have with so much trouble expunged from the _Schema_.

Several Bishops attach great weight to the consent of the Deputation to substitute for “Romana Ecclesia” the words “Ecclesia Catholica et Apostolica Romana.” Others think it a matter of indifference. Hefele’s pamphlet on Honorius has created such a sensation that the Pope has commissioned the Jesuit Liberatore and Delegati, Professor at the Sapienza, to white-wash Honorius, and make away with everything in his history incompatible with the new dogma. Pius is persuaded, and his infallible “feeling” tells him, that everything must have happened quite differently from what is represented; how, he knows not, but he thinks that the Jesuit and the Roman professor have only to make the proper investigations and they will soon discover the requisite materials for refuting the German Bishop.

On Wednesday, April 20, Rome was illuminated to celebrate the Pope’s return from Gaëta. The Roman officials greatly dislike these illuminations on financial grounds, for they have to contribute to the cost out of their own pockets. A triumphal arch was erected for the Pope at the end of the narrow street leading to St. Peter’s piazza, and the following inscription in letters of fire was conspicuous far and wide:—

Popoli chinatevi innanzi al Vaticano, Ecco il Pontefice ch’io vi conservai nei giorni di pericolo, Esso è la pietra angolare della mia chiesa, Il refugio degli oppressi, Il sostegno del povero, Lo scudo della civiltà e della fede.

That is the witness Pius bears to himself. To theologians it may be a new idea that he personally is the corner-stone of the Church, but that is only one of the many predicates and prerogatives which may be deduced from infallibility. Two isolated voices cried “Evviva il Papa infallibile.” It was clear the multitude was to be stimulated to swell the cry, but, as before, all remained quiet. The attempt has been sometimes made before, whether by amateurs or under official inspiration I know not, and then Veuillot asserts in the _Univers_ that he has heard this shout of vast multitudes breaking forth spontaneously from the exuberance of their hearts. It is like the music of the spheres which only Pythagoras heard.

Ketteler’s pamphlet was finally published on April 18, and the Bishop has begun to distribute it. It is really directed against the dogma itself, which for a long time people could not believe, and not merely against the opportuneness of defining it. How much better would it have been for the interests of the Church, if the necessity had been recognised long ago for looking this Medusa’s head straight in the face, and defying its petrifying gaze, and if our Bishops had plainly and decisively announced their resolution last December to have no dealings with it. Now at least Cardinal Rauscher does not spare warnings; he perceives the gravity of the danger and has had a new fly-leaf distributed, showing that the promulgation of papal infallibility will elevate the two Bulls _Unam Sanctam_ (of Boniface VIII.) and _Cum ex Apostolatûs officio_ (of Paul IV.) into rules of faith for the whole Catholic world, and thus it will be taught universally in Europe and America, henceforth, that the Pope is absolute master in temporal affairs also, that he can order war or peace, and that every monarch or bishop who does not submit to him or helps any one separated from him ought to be deprived of his throne if not of his life, besides the other wonderful doctrines in the second of these Bulls, which must reduce every theologian to despair.(91) All that is nothing to the majority, for whom the law of logical contradiction has no existence. It is their watchword that the dogma conquers logic as well as history. One of their German members gladly re-echoes the idea that the proper aim and office of the Council is to stop the mouth of arrogant professors; if that is accomplished everything is gained, according to this pastor of a flock feeding on red earth. On the other hand I heard very different words fall to-day from the mouth of another German Bishop, who said he was constantly asking himself how long the German Bishops would look on and put up with everything.

The great and all-absorbing question now is what will next be brought before the Council after April 24. In the natural order the second part of the _Schema de Fide_ would come on, which is comparatively innocuous though abundantly capable of improvement. But is it not time to fabricate the talisman of absolute power, the infallibilist dogma? Then would the Council be in the fullest sense and for ever provided for and finished, and the master would praise his servants. Many will answer the question in the affirmative. The two modern Fathers, Veuillot and Margotti, strain every nerve daily for that end, and many of the most zealous French Bishops—as those of Moulins, Bourges, and Carcassonne, and the indefatigable Mermillod—have represented to the willing Pius, as I mentioned yesterday, that now is the nick of time, and that he may gratify the longing of his faithful adherents by placing infallibility in the order of the day. These Frenchmen consider that their Government, now occupied with the plébiscite, will not trouble itself with the acts and decisions of the Council, and moreover needs the help of the clergy. Amid the bustle of the plébiscite, they think the new dogma, and even the reproduction of the Syllabus in the twenty-one canons, will excite little stir or indignation, for the French can only embrace one idea at a time, and the Parisians only discuss one subject in their _salons_.

Banneville has at last actually presented the memorandum of his Government to the Pope, as President of the Council, and with the intimation that it should be communicated to the Fathers. That of course will not be done, for both Pius and Antonelli are irritated at the paper. Pius is annoyed at the innermost kernel of the dogma being so openly exposed to view, when Count Daru says, “You want to hand over all rights and powers to the Church, and then by the infallibilist dogma to concentrate this plenitude of temporal and spiritual power in the one person of the Pope.” That is of course what the _Curia_ does want, but it should be uttered in pious and somewhat obscure phraseology, as the _Civiltà_ usually speaks, and not be called by its right name in this bold and naked fashion. Antonelli again is much displeased, because his favourite distinction between the principles in which the Church must be inexorable, and the practice in which Rome will graciously concede the very opposite, is met here by the inquiry whether the faithful are actually to be taught henceforth that they must believe what they need not carry out in practice, and accept as divinely revealed rules which they may without hesitation transgress? He had reckoned on a better understanding, on the part of the French Government, of the favourite Roman theory of infinite and inexhaustible papal indults and dispensations, and is glad that he need make no reply to the note which throws so glaring a light on the morality of the _Curia_ and its notions of duty and truth. He contents himself with telling the diplomatists that there would be some difficulty in the Pope’s communicating the note to the Council. Clearly, for they must at the same time be directed to attempt a refutation, and that would lead to very awkward consequences. The French Government might indeed have sent their memorandum to each Bishop separately, but then they would have had the prospect of the non-French Bishops of the majority returning it unopened.

Count Trautmansdorff has also presented the memorandum of the Austrian Government to the Cardinal Secretary of State. It runs as follows:—