Part 25

“Nous voulons seulement élever aussi notre voix pour dégager notre responsabilité et signaler les conséquences presqu’inévitables d’actes qui devraient être regardés comme une atteinte portée aux lois qui nous régissent. Comme le Gouvernement français, c’est à un devoir de conscience que nous pensons obéier, en avertissant la cour de Rome des périls de la voie dans laquelle des influences prepondérates semblent vouloir pousser le Concile. Ce qui nous émeut, ce n’est pas le danger dont nos institutions sont menacées, mais bien celui que courent la paix des esprits et le maintien de la bonne harmonie dans les relations de l’état avec l’Église. Le sentiment qui nous fait agir doit paraître d’autant moins suspect au St. Siége qu’il correspond à l’attitude d’une fraction importante des Pères du Concile, dont le dévouement aux intérêts du Catholicisme ne saurait être l’objet d’un doute. Placés sur un tout autre terrain que cette fraction, puisque nous n’obéissons qu’à des considérations politiques, nous nous rencontrons toutefois aujourd’hui dans le désir commun d’écarter certaines éventualités. Cette coïncidence de nos efforts nous permet de croire qu’en prenant la parole au nom des seuls intérêts de l’État nous ne méconnaissons pas ceux de l’Église. Si la démarche du Gouvernement français, que nous désirons seconder de tout notre pouvoir, vient en ce moment donner un appui à la minorité du Concile et l’aider à faire prévaloir des idées de modération ou de prudence, nous ne pourrons que nous féliciter d’un tel résultat, bien que, je le répète, notre action soit parfaitement indépendante et doive rester en tout cas indépendante de celle des membres du Concile.”

Finally the observations of the French Government are urgently commended to the attention of the _Curia_.

FORTY-FIRST LETTER.

_Rome, April 27, 1870._—We find ourselves in a remarkably critical position here. The great event so long expected of the first promulgation of dogmas is over, and the desired unanimity has been successfully attained for these four chapters of the _Schema de Fide_, notwithstanding the supplemental paragraph. Two Bishops who could not overcome their dislike to that paragraph preferred to stay away or leave Rome for the day. All the curialists are in high feather, and are congratulating each other on their victory, boasting that they have gained three most important points without any public opposition. First, the Pope, for the first time for 350 years,(92) and in contradiction to the practice of the first 1000 years of Church history, has defined and published the decrees in his own name as supreme legislator, just like those masters of the world, Innocent III., Innocent IV. and Leo X., merely with the addition that the Council also sanctions them. Secondly, the new order of business has now been virtually accepted by all, and the protest abandoned. Thirdly, the conclusion, which is meant to invest with conciliar authority the former dogmatic decrees of the Popes, has been accepted.

The excitement visible on the countenances of the majority, when Schwarzenberg, Darboy, Rauscher and Hefele were called up to vote, showed what had been expected. The mass of the majority say the same thing will happen when the _Schema_ on the Church has to be voted on; the minority answer that it will not, and that they only want to avoid wasting their powder before the time; “la minorité se recueille,” like Russia after the last war, and on the division day will be found fully equipped for the fight. We shall soon see, for that day is not far distant. But now what next? The infallibilist party are afraid of this dogma being lost after all, like a ship wrecked in port. They reckon that the time is approaching when the Council must inevitably be prorogued, and therefore urge the Pope to break through the regular order of the _Schemata_, and bring forward at once either the whole _Schema de __ Ecclesiâ_ or the article on papal infallibility which has been interpolated into it. The four French Bishops assured him that they spoke in the name of the 400. Pius would not of course feel any very constraining influence in their wishes _per se_, for he knows well enough that the 400 are composed mainly of his foster-sons and of the Bishops of the States of the Church and the Neapolitans, who all speak or hold their peace and sit or stand as they are bidden. But it would be an unspeakably bitter sacrifice for him to refuse to his trusty adherents what he so earnestly desires himself, and to let these 400 or at least many of them say, “Your own organ, the _Civiltà_, the Jesuits, Veuillot, Margotti—have forced this question upon us; we have agitated for it and staked our name and theological credit on it, and now it is all to be labour lost!”

But now the writings of the German Bishops have appeared and the notes of the Governments have been delivered. To the French note is added a more urgent one from Austria, as well as a Prussian, a Portuguese and now also a Bavarian note, and all breathe the same spirit. All give warning that they shall regard the threatened decrees on the power and infallibility of the Pope as a declaration of war against the order and authority of the State. Even the English Government leaves no room for doubt about its mind, and if the Pope—as I know—fears above all things any manifestation of feeling there, he might learn from Manning that the strongest antipathy is felt among all classes, high and low, to the proposed dogmas, and that English statesmen see in them nothing less than a suicidal infatuation. Manning has thoroughly authentic proofs of that in his hands, but of course he won’t produce them.

Pius is in a chronic state of extreme irritation. He sees with pleasure his two favourite journals—the _Univers_ and _Unita_—abuse the Opposition Bishops in the most contemptuous language, and he indulges himself in outbreaks of bitterness against those who question his infallibility, which pass from mouth to mouth here but which one dares not write down. Even Cardinal Bilio is alarmed at such ebullitions, and affirms that he is constantly urging moderation and forbearance on the Pope, and has already warded off a great deal of mischief.

What strikes us foreigners is the evident indifference to the Council and its acts manifested by the inhabitants of the eternal city of every class. It is seldom spoken of in society, and what absorbs the attention of the world north of the Alps seems hardly to have the least interest for the Romans, what is there heard of with astonishment they hardly think worth a passing mention. And if ever the Council is spoken of, it is in hurried, mysterious, abrupt sentences, for every one says the espionage system has never been in such force here as since the opening of the Council, and a large staff lives by the trade. I know persons here whose doors are constantly watched by spies, who do not even conceal themselves, and if the Roman theologians had such rich materials for their investigations as is possessed by the Roman police, they would not have their equals in the world.

The Romans as a rule are fully aware of the financial value of the infallibilist doctrine, and know right well that a large increase of revenue as well as power from all countries is looked for as its product. That in their eyes is already an accomplished fact. They know for certain that the dogma will be at once proclaimed, and there is hardly a Roman here who has not an uncle or brother or nephew in orders and may not hope to share the anticipated profits in his own person or in the person of his relatives. The curialists here say, “We have lost so much by the diminution of the States of the Church, and so many payments, benefices and lucrative posts have passed out of our hands, that we absolutely require to be indemnified in some other way, and this the new dogma is intended to do and must do for us.” If ever the Pope is acknowledged throughout Christendom as an infallible authority, it is inevitable that ecclesiastical centralization should take much larger dimensions than before. Not only doctrine, but everything concerning Church life will be drawn to Rome and there finally settled. Theologians may undertake to distinguish between matters to which the Pope’s infallible authority extends or does not extend, but in practice everything signed with his name will be held to be an utterance of divine truth, and nothing which is not attested with that signature will be held valid. There is a proverb here—

Quei consigli son prezzati Che son chiesti e ben pagati.

And who would not gladly pay a handsome sum to be armed with an infallible decision, which will at once crush all opposition and put down all adversaries? The golden age of papal chanceries and clerks lies not in the past, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when, as a court prelate of the day tells us, the papal officials were daily employed in counting up gold pieces; it will first dawn on the day this truly golden doctrine of infallibility is promulgated. Were Cicero to re-appear in Rome now, he might repeat what he said in the Oration _Pro Sextio_, “Jucunda res plebi Romanæ, victus enim suppeditabatur large sine labore;” only he could no longer add, “Repugnabant boni, quod ab industriâ plebem ad desidiam avocari putabant.” For such “boni” no longer exist at Rome; rather is the account of Tacitus completely verified, “Securi omnes aliena subsidia expectant, sibi ignavi, aliis graves.”(93) Another thing is the large and incurable deficit in the Roman finances, which must increase every year. There is an annual expenditure of thirty million francs to cover, and the Peter’s pence, which came to fourteen millions in 1861, have sunk to about eleven millions, notwithstanding the collections ordered to be made everywhere twice a year. No further help can be obtained from loans. M. de Corcelles, who has exposed this uncomfortable state of things with the best intentions, has no other remedy to propose but a great increase of Peter’s pence. It is hoped in Rome that the different nations will contribute larger sums than before to the Pope, now he is become infallible and thus more closely united to Deity. But they reckon much more on the enormous centralization and all-embracing monopoly of all possible dispensations, indulgences, consultations, canonizations, and decisions on moral, liturgical, political, dogmatic and disciplinary questions. They remember the treasures amassed in the temple of Delphi in ancient days, and expect the new oracle to be erected on the Tiber to attract, like a vast magnet, not iron but gold and silver.

Neither Pius nor the Monsignori and other curialists think it conceivable that the minority will hold out to the last in their opposition. They reckon securely on this fraction of the Council being broken up by fear and discouragement, and that few if any of them will let matters come to a _non placet_ in the next public Session, and thus openly confess themselves unwillingly subdued. To those Roman clerics, who are accustomed to look at religious questions only as the ladder by which to mount to an agreeable life and good income, courage and steadfastness in the confession of ascertained truth is something strange and inconceivable. Fear and hope, calculations of loss and gain, will finally decide the Bishops’ votes—that is the firm persuasion of every Italian member of the _Curia_. So much is certain: if on the very eve of the Solemn Session, when the new dogma is to be promulgated, it was certainly known that eighty Bishops would say _Non placet_ next day, the Session would be countermanded and the Church saved. The first question for us Germans is of course whether we can trust our Bishops? Will they abide steadfast? Or will they at last sacrifice themselves and the truth, their clergy and their flocks? As to what immediately concerns the clergy, this is not strictly a question of doctrine belonging to the sphere of religious faith and mystery, where one might make a willing submission of mind to a decree held to be the voice of divine revelation; it is a pure question of historical facts to be determined by historical evidence, of points on which every educated man capable of judging evidence, whether a Catholic or not, can form an independent judgment. Every one with eyes to see can answer with absolute certainty these three questions, on which the whole matter hinges—

1. Is it true that the admonition to Peter to confirm his brethren has always and in the whole Church been understood of an infallibility promised to all Bishops of Rome?

2. Is it true that this infallibility of all Popes has been taught and witnessed to in the whole Church through all ages down to our own day?

3. Is it true that no Pope has ever taught a doctrine rejected by the Church, and that no Pope has ever been condemned by the Church for his doctrine?

It is absolutely impossible for any one, who feels compelled by his own investigation of history to answer these three questions in the negative, to submit inwardly to the opposite decision of the Council, whatever external homage he may pay to it. Ten Councils will not be able to shake him for a moment in his conviction; he will only say, “pur si muove.” His doubts will be turned, not against what is historically certain but against the Council; he will call in question the real freedom, the intrinsic claims and authority of this Council, and—to go no further—the two successive regulations for conducting business supply in this case abundant materials for the question. And it is just as impossible for a man who has a notion of historical certainty to believe in any one else’s mind being changed by the decree of an assembly of Bishops. If a well-educated man told me he had just come to the conclusion that Julius Cæsar never lived, I should not believe in his conviction but in some disorder of his mental faculties, and should advise him to undergo medical treatment. And so, if the new dogma is proclaimed and the clergy submit either tacitly or expressly, no cultivated man in all Germany will believe that the thousands of scientifically trained men who have had a German education have suddenly changed their convictions, because some hundreds of Italians and Spaniards have chosen to decree away the testimony of history. “Facts are stubborn things.” Public opinion will recognise only two alternatives in the case of those who submit, ignorance or dissimulation and falsehood. And the effect will be an immeasurable moral degradation of the Catholic clergy and a corresponding decay of their influence.

This consideration will not of course make the slightest impression on the majority of the Council, or even on those Germans who belong to it. We have psychological riddles to deal with here. How, _e.g._, are we to explain the fact that a man, who has taught the very opposite doctrine in a manual of instruction for the higher class of colleges published seventeen years ago, and has let it pass through eleven or twelve editions without a word being altered, is now in Rome one of the most zealous promoters of the definition, and is constantly affirming that all the clergy except a few professors will readily submit?

FORTY-SECOND LETTER.

_Rome, April 29, 1870._—What I mentioned in my last letter as a pamphlet of Cardinal Rauscher’s, is a printed memorial addressed to the Presidents of the Council, bearing the title of _Petitio a pluribus Galliæ, Austriæ et Hungariæ, Italiæ, Angliæ et Hiberniæ et Americæ Septentrionalis Præsidibus exhibita_, and dated April 20th. It states that papal infallibility is beset by many objections and difficulties, which require an examination such as is impossible in a General Congregation. Among them is one of supreme importance, bearing directly on the instruction to be given to the faithful on the divine commandments and the relation of the Catholic religion to civil society.

“The Popes have deposed Emperors and Kings, and Boniface VIII. in the Bull _Unam Sanctam_ has established the corresponding theory, which the Popes openly taught down to the seventeenth century under anathema, that God has committed to them power over temporal things. But we, and almost all Bishops of the Catholic world, teach another doctrine. We teach that the ecclesiastical power is indeed higher than the civil, but that each is independent of the other, and that while sovereigns are subject to the spiritual penalties of the Church, she has no power to depose them or absolve their subjects from their oaths of allegiance. And this is the ancient doctrine, taught by all the Fathers and by the Popes before Gregory VII. But if the Pope, according to the Bull _Unam Sanctam_, possessed both swords—if, according to Paul IV.’s Bull _Cum ex Apostolatûs officio_, he had absolute dominion by divine right over nations and kingdoms,—the Church could not conceal this from her people, nor is the subterfuge admissible,(94) that this power exists only in the abstract and has no bearing on public affairs, and that Pius has no intention of deposing rulers and princes; for the objectors would at once scornfully reply, ‘We have no fear of papal decrees, but after many and various dissimulations it has at last become evident that every Catholic, who acts according to his professed belief, is a born enemy of the State, for he holds himself bound in conscience to do all in his power to reduce all kingdoms and nations into subjection to the Pope.’ We need not define more precisely the manifold accusations the enemies of the Church might deduce from this.

“This difficulty then must be most carefully sifted before papal infallibility is dealt with. The Conference we demanded on March 11 may do much towards clearing it up. But the question, whether Christ really committed to Peter and his successors supreme power over kings and kingdoms is, especially in this day, one of such grave importance that it must be directly brought before the Council, and examined on all sides. It would be inexcusable for the Fathers to be seduced into deciding, without thorough knowledge and sifting, on a question which has such wide consequences and affects so deeply the relations of the Church to human society. This question therefore must necessarily be brought before them, before the eleventh chapter of the _Schema de Ecclesiâ_ can be taken in hand. It might, if you please, be separately treated. But, as it cannot be adequately judged of without a thorough examination of the relations of the ecclesiastical to the civil power, it appears to us very desirable that the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the _Schema_ should be discussed before the eleventh.”

What first strikes one about this remarkable document is, that the German Bishops belonging to the minority—Martin, Stahl, Senestrey and the Tyrolese are of course out of the reckoning—are not represented here. Does this indicate a real divergence of view or only a difference of tactics? The former notion seems to me inconceivable. It is impossible that men like Hefele, Ketteler, Eberhard and the rest should have any doctrinal predilection for the system of papal absolutism extended over sovereigns and the whole political and civil domain. Certainly they too are so strongly opposed to the infallibilist dogma because it involves the mediatizing of all kings and governments. I can therefore at present discover no explanation of this phenomenon, and cannot allow any room for the suspicion that the persistently active curialistic influences have succeeded in dividing the German Bishops from the rest of the minority.

What will the Presidents do with a document so serious, so moderate and so incisive? What have they done already? So far as I know, nothing. It is a principle, and has now become an habitual practice with them, to leave all representations and petitions of the minority unnoticed and unanswered. The directing Deputation, which is intrusted with the entire control of the Council, feels quite justified in adopting this line by the papal ordinances.

The policy hitherto pursued by the Jesuits and the _Curia_ was, first to extend to the utmost the comprehensive office of the Church, as legislator for the nations and guardian of faith and morals; and then, by making the Pope absolute master and dictator of the Church, to assign to him all that had been claimed for the Church, so that he—acting of course in the interests of religion and morality, but simply according to his own good pleasure—should have every office, person and institution subject to him, and that the final appeal in every cause should lie to his tribunal. Since all this can only be secured and guaranteed by the infallibilist dogma, the inferences on the relations of Church and State drawn by the opposing Bishops form precisely the chief recommendation of that dogma in the eyes of the Legates, the Italian Cardinals, the Spanish and Italian Bishops and those of the French who are ultramontanes. They all say among themselves, if not aloud before the world, “That is just what we want; our very object is to get the doctrine on the relations of Church and State changed, the independence of civil society and the civil power abolished, and the complete temporal supremacy of the Church—_i.e._, the Pope—at least gradually established.” It is not indeed advisable to say this as yet in such explicit and unreserved terms, but the reason why the infallibilist dogma is so opportune and indispensable is exactly because it implies jurisdiction over the temporal sphere, which the Pope can according to circumstances either leave unused and say nothing about it, or suddenly draw forth for use like a weapon concealed under a mantle. He has dealt thus with the Austrian Constitution; while he let alone other countries, whose constitutional systems must have been partly at least a scandal on Roman principles, he pronounced the Austrian Constitution abominable (_nefanda_). And any one, who wishes to examine the practical significance of this infallible judgment, need only go to the Tyrol and observe how it has been already explained there to the inhabitants by their enthusiastic clergy.

At the audience, when he presented the French note to the Pope, Banneville expressed the wish of his Government that the discussion of the _Schema de Ecclesiâ_ (with the chapter on infallibility) might at least not be taken before its time—which was equivalent to saying, “At least give us time, for the matter is not yet ripe for discussion.” Hitherto delay has been for the interest of the _Curia_, for it was expected that the minority would wither away and finally be extinguished; they trusted to the power so often proved of the Roman solvents. The article of the _Civiltà_ which told the prelates, “We care nothing for your talk about moral unanimity in matters of dogma, and shall make the new dogma in spite of your opposition,” was written _in terrorem_, and was meant to hold up before the refractory the terrible perspective of a contest emerging in the abortion of an impotent schism. The article has not in the main produced the desired effect, for the Bishops still hold together and bind themselves by writings and public declarations, and the number of those who can no longer with any decency desert to the majority threatens to increase. Now therefore it is the interest of the _Curia_ to allow no further delay, but to bring forward the _Schema_ at once.