Letters From Rome on the Council Part 4

It is now said to be certain that Darboy, Simor, and Tarnoczy have been apprised of the intention to make them Cardinals. As regards the two last, the abandonment of all opposition to the Infallibilist dogma, and to every other decree on faith in a Papal sense, is an indispensable condition. But with Darboy the case is different: the _Curia_ must take him as he is or let him alone, for he cannot be bought at any price. The irritation, complaints, and sighs of the Pope at having to make this man a Cardinal, who will not yield or apologize, have already lasted some years. The Romanist party have published in a Quebec newspaper the Pope's bitter and reproachful letter to him, to which he made no reply. Darboy was and is resolved to be the _bona fide_ Bishop of his diocese, the largest in the world, and will not admit any arbitrary encroachments or concurrent jurisdiction of the Court of Rome to annul his acts at its caprice. "This stinks of schism," say the Romans here.(34) And therefore, according to Roman notions, he is "a bad Christian," for he does not believe in Papal Infallibility, and will not vote for it even as a Cardinal. Moreover, n.o.body sees better through the whole web of curialistic policy, with its artifices, small and great, and he shows not the slightest sympathy for it, so that in any case he will be a very inconvenient and unprofitable Cardinal. At the same time he is a man of rare eloquence, rich experience and knowledge of mankind, and easily outweighs ten Italian Cardinals in culture and learning. And the worst of it is that this bitter necessity of elevating Darboy has to be accepted with a good grace, for France wills it, and France must still remain the magnanimous champion of Rome and the Council. Some consolation is found for it in the now openly proclaimed apostasy of Archbishop Spalding of Baltimore, who has. .h.i.therto been wavering, for it is hoped that other American Bishops will follow his example.

If at the end of the first month we take a view of the situation, it is clear that the word "Council" requires to be taken in a very wide and general sense to include this a.s.sembly. It cannot be compared with the ancient Councils in the first thousand years of Church history, before the separation of East and West, for there are no points of contact. In the first place, the whole lay world, all sovereigns and their amba.s.sadors, are entirely excluded from the Synod, which has never happened from the Council of Nice downwards. That was, of course, necessary, for even at Trent the French amba.s.sador announced, on entering the Council, that his King had sent him to watch over the freedom of the Bishops; and certainly the amba.s.sadors of Catholic Powers would have protested against the present arrangements and order of business, which give much less security than even at Trent. Here the Bishops are in a sense the Pope's prisoners.

Without his permission they cannot leave the Council, they are forbidden to meet together for common deliberation, are not allowed to print anything till it has pa.s.sed the censors.h.i.+p, or to bring forward any motion without the Pope's approval. It is the Pope who makes the decrees and defines the dogmas; the Council has simply to a.s.sent. Two rights only are left to the Bishops; they can make speeches in the General Congregation, and they can say _Placet_ or _Non placet_. There is a quite luxurious abundance of means of coercion, impediments and chains;-with the Pope's 300 episcopal boarders, the 62 Bishops of the Roman States, the 68 Neapolitans, Sicilians, etc., all manuvring with a precision a Prussian General could not wish to surpa.s.s on the reviewing-ground, the _Curia_ might have fairly hoped to gain its ends, even were a little more freedom allowed to the Opposition section of the a.s.sembly.(35)

TENTH LETTER.

_Rome, Jan. 15, 1870._-On Sunday last the Pope gave audience to a great crowd of visitors,-some 700 or 1000, it is said,-at once, and took occasion to express before them his displeasure at the Opposition Bishops.

He said there were some Prelates who lacked the temper of perfect faith, and hence arose difficulties, which however he, the Pope, should know how to overcome. In Church matters no attention was to be paid to the judgment of the world, as he himself despised it, for the Church's kingdom is not of this world. It has. .h.i.therto of course been held in the Church that the judgment of the world-that is, of their flocks, who const.i.tute their own immediate world-is exactly what the Bishops ought to attend to very much, and to avoid giving offence to them and perplexing their consciences in matters of religion.

The prohibition to hold large episcopal meetings, communicated to the French Bishops only through Cardinal Bonnechose, is not obeyed either by the French or Germans, who continue to take counsel together. The united Germans and Hungarians have accepted in substance an address drawn up by Cardinal Rauscher, and on Sunday, January 9, bound themselves by a reciprocal obligation, with forty-three signatures, to vote against and combat in all conciliar methods the erection of Papal Infallibility into a dogma. The Austrian Prelates stand foremost in clearness, decision, and courage. Rauscher, Schwarzenberg, Haynald, and Strossmayer know what they want, are full of true love for the Church, understand the greatness of the danger, and are perfectly aware that no positive gain, nor any of the important reforms so urgently needed, can be expected from this Council-the Spanish and Italian phalanx is too strong and impenetrable for that,-but they hope, at least, by energetic resistance to ward off positive mischief from the Church.

The French on their part are active; Cardinal Mathieu, who returned to Rome, January 5, has opened a saloon in his house for the deliberations.

Next to Dupanloup, Bishop Place of Ma.r.s.eilles, Meignan of Chalons, Landriot of Rheims, and Ginoulhiac of Gren.o.ble, speak most decidedly.

There are some thirty-five like-minded with them, and the inopportunists among them and the Germans are gradually coming to perceive that their position is quite untenable, and that to persist in treating Infallibility as a mere question of time and convenience, is to give their adversaries a safe and easy victory. But the Germans are further advanced in this conviction than the French. The now famous Infallibilist Address seems to have been simultaneously hawked about from two quarters, viz., by the trio of Manning, Deschamps, and Spalding, and by Martin and Senestrey. Who composed it, and how many Bishops have signed it, is still uncertain; the movement has come to a dead-lock, perhaps because the Spaniards, who talk of presenting an address of their own, don't want to sign it. Several Italians too refused to sign, and so the result has not been as satisfactory as was hoped, although it can hardly be doubted that the dogma will have 450 or 500 votes when it is laid before the Council.

It is a characteristic feature of the case, that throughout Italy prayers are offered in all the monastic communities still surviving, and in all zealously Catholic families, for the definition of the new dogma. The fact is mentioned in English journals, and I have heard it confirmed here. It reveals the patriotic feeling, that Papal Infallibility is an Italian possession more or less profitable to every member of the nation. "The Pope," as one hears it said here, "will always feel and think above all as an Italian; his decrees are manufactured by a Court nine-tenths of whom, at least, are Italians, and with his infallibility under our management, we Italians shall be able to dominate and make capital out of all other nations, in so far as they desire to be Catholic." The Italian is generally a good calculator. However, Italian priests and prelates feel and know right well what every nation and national Church owes to itself.

If the Papacy belonged to any other nation, the Italians would never dream for a moment of acknowledging the system of Papal absolutism with its grand prop of Papal Infallibility. One soon observes, in conversing with these Monsignori, how they despise in their hearts the French and German Ultramontane Bishops, while at the same time admitting the correctness of their views, and praising them liberally for rolling in the dust before the infallible _Curia_, and crying out to the Romans, as that orator Ekebolius cried out to the Emperor Julian, "Only trample us under your feet, the salt that has lost its savour."

Thirty-five German Bishops have declared at the beginning, that they are ready to subscribe the above-mentioned counter address against the dogma of Infallibility, pretty fully expressed in the form of a pet.i.tion to the Pope, and among them are included those who were before of opinion that they had sufficiently discharged their duty by the letter they sent to him from Fulda. This is a praiseworthy example of harmony, but at the same time the greatness of the danger, which has now become evident to even the most trustful mind, is shown by the fact that all present at the consultation on this address bound themselves in writing to subscribe it.

It is needless to say that the Tyrolese and the pupils of the Jesuits, with Bishop Martin, held aloof from the meeting.

Another proof was given on this occasion of the very different measure dealt to the two parties. The Infallibilist Address was at once printed, though everything else here has first to undergo the most rigorous censors.h.i.+p. The Roman censors would, of course, have refused their _imprimatur_ to the counter address, and there was some scruple felt about printing it out of the country, as though by an evasion of the Papal laws, and so it cannot be printed at all. Even Bishop Dupanloup has been refused permission to print his answer to Deschamps. The address will probably be subscribed by the Bishops of each nation in separate batches, so that there will be five addresses, coinciding in substance. Forty-seven Germans and Hungarians are reckoned on-so many have subscribed already-and thirty-five French. The Anglo-Americans have somewhat altered the wording of the address, and say they can command twenty-five signatures. But what is most remarkable is, that a considerable section of the North-Italian Bishops from Piedmont and Lombardy now come out as opponents of Infallibilism, and give promise of twenty-five signatures for the counter address. The decisive point with them is their relation to the Italian nation and government, for the Infallibilist dogma must inevitably lead to a hopelessly incurable rupture between it and the Church. To these must be added six Irish and four Portuguese, making in all an Opposition of from 140 to 150 votes.

The great question daily mooted in the Vatican is now, how Infallibility can be erected into a dogma in spite of the resistance of the Opposition minority, for there is no longer any illusion as to an obstinate residue of anti-Infallibilist protesters being sure to be left, after allowing for the fullest effects of all the alluring seductions used. Precedents are sought for in the history of Councils where the majority has pa.s.sed decrees according to its own will, without regard to the opposite representations and negative votes of the minority. But no such precedents are to be found. At all Councils from Nice downwards the dogmatic decrees have always been pa.s.sed only with entire or approximate unanimity. Even at Trent, where the Italians, commanded from Rome through the legates, dominated everything, many very important decrees were abandoned after being drawn up, as soon as a few Bishops only had p.r.o.nounced against them.

If only this fatal precedent of the Tridentine Synod could be got rid of!

The Jesuits investigate and refine, but, unluckily for them, one of their own body, Father Matignon, in 1868, when an Opposition was still believed to be impossible, himself established the fact, and justified it on doctrinal grounds;(36) and that is made use of now. So there is nothing left but to labour indefatigably for the conversion of opponents. But people in Rome seem not to know "qu'on ne prend pas les mouches avec du vinaigre;" and that methods of coercion, intimidation, and discrediting character, are not quite the most effectual means, psychologically, for converting adverse Bishops, is clear from the tone again and again manifested in the speeches on the _Schema_, which has gained conspicuously in sharpness and explicitness. On January 10, a Northern Prelate, distinguished for gentleness and refinement, but accustomed to parliamentary contests, said he had been obliged to speak in the vigorous style usual in his own country of the entire absence of real freedom in the Council, for the insolence of the other party was becoming daily more intolerable.

ELEVENTH LETTER.

_Rome, Jan. 17, 1870._-It is a remarkable phenomenon that Pius IX., who is every way inferior to his predecessors of this century in theological culture, lets himself be so completely dominated by his pa.s.sion for creating new articles of faith. Former Popes have indeed had their hobbies: some wanted to aggrandize and enrich their families; others, like Sixtus VI., were zealous in building, or, like Leo X., in fostering art and literature, or they waged wars like Julius II., or, finally, they wrote learned works, and composed many long Bulls full of quotations, etc., like Benedict XIV. But not one of them has been seized with this pa.s.sion for manufacturing dogmas; it is something quite unique in the history of the Popes. Herein, therefore, Pius IX. is a singular phenomenon in his way, and all the more wonderful from his. .h.i.therto having kept aloof from theology, and, as one always hears, not being in the habit of ever reading theological books. If it is inquired how this strange idiosyncrasy has been aroused in the soul of a Pope who began his reign under such very different auspices, as a political reformer, the answer given by every one is, that it is the Jesuits, whose influence over him has been constantly growing since he took Father Mignardi of that Order for his confessor, and who have created and fostered in him this pa.s.sion for dogma-making.

The displeasure and discontent of the Bishops finds constant nutriment in the conduct of the _Curia_. They say that if these momentous propositions had been laid before them in good time, some months before the opening of the Council, so that they might have carefully examined them and pursued the theological studies requisite for that purpose, they should have come duly prepared, whereas now they are in the position of having to speak and vote on the most difficult questions almost extempore. The attacks and objections directed against the first part of the _Schema_ in their speeches have not applied so much to the separate articles as to the general scope and tendency of the whole, and I have not been able to ascertain anything more certain about the matter, for the real elaboration of the _Schema_, and discussion of its articles in detail, has to be managed in the Commission; in the Council Hall it is impossible. As yet there have been only long speeches on either side, as in academies or in a school of rhetoric, which, for the most part, were not understood, and in which the main question-what shape the decrees are to take, if issued at all-was never grappled with.

On Friday, January 14, the debate on the _Schema_ opened. This is occupied with the duties of Bishops-their residence, visitation of their dioceses, and obligation of frequently travelling to Rome and presenting regular reports on the state of their dioceses; the holding of Provincial and Diocesan Synods, and Vicars-General. The duties of Bishops are the one thing spoken of, and the design is everywhere transparent of increasing their dependence on the _Curia_, and centralizing all Church government in Rome still more than before. Archbishop Darboy observed on it, that it was above all necessary, in examining this second _Schema_, to discuss the rights of Bishops, instead of only the duties Rome a.s.signed them. Cardinal Schwarzenberg had really opened the debate in this sense, and he had the courage to speak of the College of Cardinals, and the reforms it needed. A simple Bishop would not have been suffered to do this, but they dared not interrupt a Cardinal. The speakers who followed, too, had a good deal to find fault with in the _Schema_, especially Ballerini, formerly rejected as Archbishop of Milan, and now t.i.tular Patriarch of Alexandria, and Simor the Primate of Hungary. This Prelate has protested so emphatically against the _Schema_ and the treatment the Bishops have experienced at the hands of the _Curia_, that the offer of a Cardinal's Hat seems by no means to have produced the desired effect upon him. There are said to be still sixteen portions or chapters of the _Schema_ in reserve, so that the authorities are already displeased at the length of the Bishops' speeches; and lately one Bishop gained general applause by saying he renounced his right to speak.

We may gain some very valuable evidences in Russia and Poland as to how Papal Infallibility is already conceived of, and what hopes and fears respectively are entertained in reference to the projected new dogma. The six or seven million Catholics of that empire are very variously situated, and have different interests, and therefore, in some sort, opposite wishes. Among the Polish Catholics, who are just now being denationalized and Russianized, many are always looking out for the overthrow of the Russian dominion, and the restoration of a kingdom of Poland. To this party belongs Sosnowski, formerly administrator of the diocese of Lublin, whom the Pope has admitted to the Council. He is to represent the whole Polish Church at the Council, and is an ardent Infallibilist; he has accordingly given a severe snubbing, by way of answer, to the Polish priests who had communicated to him certain proposals of reform, with a view of restricting Papal absolutism, to be laid before the Council. His reply circulates here, and is also to be printed in a newspaper published at Posen. Sosnowski represents to the Polish clergy that the emanc.i.p.ation of Poland from Russia must continue to be the great object; and that for this a Pope recognised as completely absolute and infallible is indispensable. He appears to mean that such a Pope, being supreme lord over all monarchs and nations, can even depose the Russian Czar, or at least absolve the Poles from their oath of allegiance. He moreover a.s.sures them that Pius IX. has told him he reckons confidently on this emanc.i.p.ation of Poland from Russia. Here in Rome it is said and taught that the Pope is supreme master even of heretical and schismatical just as much as of Catholic sovereigns; for through baptism, whether received within or without the Church, every one at once becomes his subject. And we are reminded, in proof of this, how Pope Martin IV., in 1282, deposed the Greek Emperor, Michael Palaeologus, and absolved his subjects from their allegiance, simply because he had made a treaty with the King of Aragon. This explains why the Russian Government told the Bishops who requested leave to attend the Council, that they might go to Rome, but should not return. The 2,800,000 Catholics in Russia Proper, in the ecclesiastical province of Mohilew, think very differently from Sosnowski.

A clergyman from thence said to-day, "If Papal Infallibility is made an article of faith, put into the catechisms and taught in the schools, it will bring us into a most difficult and desperate position as regards the Russian Government and people. We shall be told that our Czar sits in Rome, and that we obey him rather than the Czar at St. Petersburg, to whom we only swear a conditional allegiance, holding ourselves ready to rebel, if our infallible master at Rome absolves us from the oath; that we put his commands and prohibitions above the law of the land and the will of the Emperor. And thus, if Papal Infallibility is defined at Rome, it will be almost equivalent for us to a sentence of death on the Catholic Church in Russia, for everything will be done to undermine a Church regarded as an enemy and standing menace to the State."

Two new works have arrived here, each of which, in its own way, touches on the great question of the day. The one is a book of Dr. Pusey's, on the relations of the English Church to the Catholic, where he declares that making Papal Infallibility a dogma would destroy all hope of a reunion of the Churches, or of the adhesion of any considerable section of the English Church.(37) Manning has a.s.sured them in Rome of precisely the reverse. The other work is the first Letter of the famous Oratorian, Father Gratry, to the Archbishop of Mechlin, a pungent criticism on that Prelate's brochure in favour of Infallibility, and on his gross misrepresentations of the history of Pope Honorius.(38) Gratry also exposes the Roman falsifications introduced into the Breviary. It may alarm the curialists, when they discover how all the most intellectually conspicuous among the French clergy p.r.o.nounce against their favourite doctrine, and their design of imposing it on the whole Church, and how the disreputable means employed for building up this system, by trickery and forgeries, are more and more being brought to light.

The Pope's attempt to reduce 740 members of the Council to complete silence on all that goes on there has proved a failure, as might have been foreseen. A great deal has come out, and the Pope manifests great displeasure at it. In a conversation with a diplomatist, who asked him how, with this rule, trustworthy reports could be sent to the different Governments, he accused the French Bishops of violating the secrets of the Council, and called them "chatterboxes" (_chiacceroni_). Accordingly, in the Session of January 14, a more rigorous version of the order of business was read, to the effect that the Pope had made it a mortal sin to communicate anything that took place in the Council; so that any Bishop who should, for instance, show a theologian, whose advice he wanted, a pa.s.sage from the _Schema_ under discussion, or repeat an expression used in one of the speeches, incurs everlasting d.a.m.nation! If your readers think this incredible, I can only a.s.sure them that it is literally true, and must refer them to the moral theology of the Jesuits on the foundation of the Pope's right to brand human actions, forbidden by no law of G.o.d, with the guilt of mortal sin, at his good pleasure. A Papal theologian, whom I questioned on the subject, appealed simply to the statement of Boniface VIII., that the Pope holds all rights in the shrine of his breast.

TWELFTH LETTER.

_Rome, Jan. 26._-The grand topic of all conversations is Bishop Strossmayer's speech of yesterday; and it is possible to give a pretty correct description of its contents, which seem to have made a profound impression on his 747 hearers. The Bishop declared it to be unseemly to begin with the disciplinary decrees about Bishops and their obligations, because this might raise the suspicion in their dioceses that their recent conduct had given occasion to it. When their duties were spoken of, their rights should also be put forward. But, in fact, the reform must be carried through from the highest ranks of the hierarchy to the lowest, so that the Bishops should be introduced in their proper order. He spoke of the necessity of making the Papacy common property, _i.e._, making non-Italians eligible; for it is now a purely Italian inst.i.tution, to the immense prejudice of its power and influence. He pointedly insisted on a similar universalizing of the Roman Congregations, so that the important affairs of the Catholic Church should not be arranged and settled in a narrow and jealous spirit, as had unfortunately been the case hitherto.

And all matters not necessarily pertaining to the whole Church must be withdrawn from the competence of the Congregations, so that it might no longer be the case, as before, "ut qui superfluis et minimis intendit, necessariis desit."

Strossmayer insisted on a reform of the College of Cardinals, in the sense of its containing a representation of all Catholic countries in proportion to their extent and importance. The impression produced is said to have been most thrilling, when he exclaimed that it was to be wished the supreme authority in the Church had its throne, where the Lord had fixed His own, in the hearts and consciences of the people, and this would never be the case while the Papacy remained an Italian inst.i.tution. And with regard to the more frequent holding of Councils, he is said to have reminded the Fathers of the _Decretum Perpetuum_ of Constance, that a Council should be a.s.sembled every ten years. But the presiding Legates seemed to be greatly disturbed at the mention of Constance. The Bishop proceeded to point out that ordinary prudence urgently dictated to the Church the more frequent holding of Councils. The increased facilities of intercourse supplied means to the Church to gather more frequently in Council round its head, and thus show an example to the more advanced nations, who transact their affairs in common a.s.semblies, of the open-heartedness and freedom, the patience and perseverance, the charity and moderation, with which great questions should be treated. Once, when Synods were more frequent in the Church, the nations had learnt from her how to bring their affairs to a settlement, but now the Church must offer herself teacher in the great art of self-government.

Strossmayer urged that an influence over episcopal appointments should be given to Provincial Synods, in order to remedy the dangers connected with the present system of nominations, which have become incalculable. He lashed with incisive words and brilliant arguments those who preach a crusade against modern society, and openly expressed his conviction that henceforth the Church must seek the external guarantees of her freedom solely in the public liberties of the nations, and the internal in intrusting the episcopal Sees to men filled with the spirit of Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Anselm. It cut to the quick when he spoke of the centralization which is stifling the life of the Church, and of the Church's unity, which only then reflects the harmony of heaven and educates men's spirits, when her various elements retain inviolate their proper rights and specific inst.i.tutions. But as the Church now is, and in the organization designed to be imposed on her, her unity is rather a monotony that kills the spirit, excites manifold disgust, and repels instead of attracting. On this point the Bishop is said to have made very remarkable statements from his own experience, proving that, as long as the present system of narrow centralization endures, union with the Eastern Church is inconceivable, and, on the contrary, new perils and defections will be witnessed. He called the canon law a Babylonish confusion, made up of impractical and in most cases corrupted or spurious canons. The Church and the whole world expect the Council to make an end of this state of things by a codification adapted to the age, but which must be prepared by learned and practical men from every part of the Catholic world, and not by Roman divines and canonists. In repudiating the proposal of a previous speaker, that the Pope should take a general oversight of the Catholic press, he seized the opportunity of p.r.o.nouncing a glowing panegyric on a man who had been shamefully maligned by that press, but to whom is chiefly owed any real freedom that exists in this Council. Every eye was turned on Dupanloup.

Many single sayings are quoted from this magnificent speech. A French Prelate had desired that Bishops should not sit in the confessional; Strossmayer replied that he must have forgotten he was the countryman of St. Francis of Sales. Another speaker had maintained that the reformation of the Cardinals should be intrusted to their Father, the Pope; Strossmayer replied that they had also a Mother, the Church, to whom it always belongs to give them good advice and instruction.

The speech lasted an hour and a half, and the impression produced was overwhelming. Bishops affirm that no such eloquence in the Latin tongue has been heard for centuries. Strossmayer does not indeed always speak cla.s.sical Latin, but he speaks it with astonis.h.i.+ng readiness and elegance.

Cardinal di Pietro, who answered him yesterday, spoke of the "rara venustas" of his speech. It is related in proof of his n.o.ble manner, and the spirit in which he spoke and was listened to, that the opponent he most sharply attacked immediately asked him to dinner. He is said to have received 400 visits in consequence of his speech. The President paid him a singular compliment in putting out a special admonition the day after his speech against any manifestation of applause.

There was the greatest excitement beforehand. His eloquence was already known from his former speech, which was rendered more significant from the Legates interrupting him. Had he been again interrupted this time, every one felt that the freedom of the Council would be in the greatest danger.

Strossmayer's tact and moderation prevented it, although it was observed that Cardinal Bilio wished on one occasion to make the Presidents interfere. When Strossmayer mounted the tribune, somebody was heard to say, "That is the Bishop against whom the bell will be used."

THIRTEENTH LETTER.

_Rome, Jan. 30, 1870._-A great deal has happened since my letter of January 17. My last was exclusively devoted to the impression produced by Strossmayer's speech, and I must go back to several previous occurrences.

I will therefore enter directly on the most important facts of the last few days. You have already heard from the telegrams that the Pope has returned the addresses of the Opposition, of which there were several, divided according to nationality. They will be at once handed over to the Commission _de Fide_, composed of twenty-four members. These counter addresses are subscribed by 137 Bishops, while 400 or 410 have signed the first address in favour of the dogma. This doc.u.ment, I can now inform you definitely, was the joint production of a committee consisting of Manning, Deschamps, Spalding, the German Bishops Martin and Senestrey, Bishop Canossa of Verona, Mermillod of Geneva, and perhaps one or two more. That none of these gentlemen, or of the 400 signataries, have observed the gross and palpable untruths and falsifications of which this composition is made up, is marvellous, and justifies the most unfavourable inferences as to the theological and historical cultivation of these Prelates. If the names of the Bishops on either side are, not counted simply, but weighed, and the fact is taken into account that the main strength of the Infallibilist legion consists of the 300 Papal boarders who go through thick and thin in singing to the tune of their entertainer-that all the host of t.i.tular Bishops, with very few exceptions, and of the Romance South Americans, who are even more ignorant than the Spaniards, are ranged on the same side-and if we then compare the countries and dioceses represented respectively by the 400 and the 137, we shall come to the conclusion that the overwhelming preponderance in number of souls, in intelligence, and in national importance, is wholly on the side of the 137 of the Opposition. It is besides affirmed now that the Address of the 400 was not really presented to the Pope at all, but withdrawn at the last moment. If that is true, it must have been in consequence of a command or hint from the Pope, either from his advisers even yet feeling ashamed of exposing him by the reception of a doc.u.ment bristling with falsehoods, or because they thought he could not in that case reject the hated counter address, as he has done, without too glaring an exhibition of partisans.h.i.+p. The Spaniards have drawn up an address of their own, which harmonizes so well with the address of the 400, that Manning declared himself quite ready to sign it.

The second important occurrence of the last few days is the treatment of the Chaldean Patriarch, an aged man of seventy-eight. He had commissioned another Bishop to deliver a speech he had composed, when translated into Latin, in the Council, expressing his desire to preserve the ancient _consuetudines_ of his Church and to lay a new compendium of them before the a.s.sembly. He added, with indirect reference to the Infallibilist dogma, a warning against innovations, which might destroy the Eastern Church. The Pope at once ordered him to be summoned, he was to bring n.o.body with him; only Valerga, whom the Pope has named Patriarch of Jerusalem, one of the most devoted courtiers of the Vatican, was present as interpreter. He found the Pope in a state of violent excitement, trembling with pa.s.sion, and after a great deal of vehement language he was commanded either to resign his office on the spot, or renounce all the prerogatives and privileges of his Church. His request for two days to consider the matter was instantly refused, as also the request for leave to consult his own suffragans then in Rome. Had he refused, he would certainly have been incarcerated in a Roman prison; for it is notorious that according to the Roman theory every cleric is the subject, not only spiritually but bodily, of his absolute lord the Pope. So nothing was left him but to subscribe one of the papers laid before him, and make his renunciation.

The third recent circ.u.mstance to be mentioned is the confidential mission of Lavigerie, Archbishop of Algiers, to Paris. I have spoken of this man before as Bishop of Nancy, and forgot to add that he had been translated to Algiers. He is to persuade the Emperor and the ministers Ollivier and Daru to make no opposition to the pa.s.sing of the Infallibilist dogma, and to offer in return that the articles of the Syllabus on Church and State shall be either dropped, or modified in their application to France. He of course a.s.serts that he has no mission of the kind, and is only going to Paris about an educational question, just as Cardinal Mathieu professed to have only gone to France to hold an ordination.(39) In Paris the strangeness of the situation is remarked on, that the very State which used always most vigorously to a.s.sert its independence against the domineering pretensions of the Pope is now suffering, not only the infallibility but the supreme dominion of the Pope, and his right of interference in its political affairs, to be decreed under cover of its bayonets. And in Rome it is understood that, if the French troops were suddenly to disappear during the rejoicings and illuminations following on the Infallibilist triumph, the situation might become very uncomfortable.

It is therefore thought that a couple of articles of the Syllabus might the more easily be surrendered, as the s.h.i.+eld of Infallibility would cover the whole Syllabus, and no one could hinder an infallible Pope from taking the first opportunity, in spite of all secret promises, of again utilizing the principle now made into a dogma. The Roman clerics, whether high or low, are unable to comprehend that not only the German but the Latin nations feel so decided an antipathy to the domination of the priesthood over civil and social life, and on that account only must resist the Infallibilist theory, because it involves the doctrine that the Pope is to encroach on the secular and political domain with commands and punishments, the moment he can do so without too great prejudice to his office and fear of humiliation. It seems so natural and obvious to a Roman Monsignore or Abbate that the chief priest should rule also over monarchs and nations in worldly matters; from youth up he has seen clergymen acting as police-officers, criminal judges, and lottery collectors, and has no other experience than of the parish priest, the Bishop, and the Inquisition, interfering in the innermost concerns of family life, and the "paternal government" often taking the shape of a strait-waistcoat; he lives in a world where the confusion of the two powers is incarnated in every college, congregation, and administrative office. Nowhere but in Rome would it have been possible for Leo XII., with universal consent of all the clergy, high and low, to re-introduce the Latin language into the law courts after it had been abolished under the French occupation.

Lately, for the first time, a local priest, Leonardo Proja, in a work published here, has openly expressed his confidence that the Council will at once condemn the shocking error of setting aside the supreme dominion of the Pope over the nations, even in civil matters ("vel in civilibus") as an invention of the Middle Ages.(40)

The Court of Rome and the Bishops are at present studying in a school of mutual instruction. The _Curia_ studies the Bishops individually, especially the more prominent among them, and watches for their weak points and the ways of getting at them and making them pliable, and, above all, of dissolving national ties. They don't always manage matters skilfully, for the want of all real freedom, the use of coercive measures, and this apparatus of bolts and bars, cords and man-traps, by which the Prelates are surrounded and threatened at every step in Council, by no means produce a _couleur de rose_ state of feeling, and the contrast between the t.i.tle of Brother, which the Pope gives officially to every Bishop, and his way of treating them all, both individually and collectively, like so many schoolboys, is too glaring. Even the boasted freedom of speech does not extend very far, for every Prelate speaks under threat of interruption by the bell of the presiding Cardinal, directly he says anything displeasing to Roman ears. On the other hand, the Bishops, during their stay here of six or seven weeks, have learnt a good deal more than the curialists, and many of them have really made immense advances, before which the Romans would recoil with a shudder, if they could see how things stand. A great many of these Prelates came here full of absolute devotion to the Pope, and with great confidence in the integrity of the _Curia_ and the purity of its motives. When they found themselves oppressed and injured at home by its measures or decrees, they still thought it was so much the better in the other branches of ecclesiastical administration. But now, and here, scales have, as it were, fallen from their eyes, and they are daily getting to understand more clearly the two mighty levers of the gigantic machine. The dominant view in Roman clerical circles here is, that the Church in its present condition needs, above all things, greater centralization at Rome, the extension and deepening of Papal powers, the removal of any limitations still standing in the way in national Churches, and the increase of the revenues accruing from Papal innovations. This it is the business of the Council to accomplish. When, therefore, two Bishops lately attacked in their speeches the abuse of expensive marriage dispensations, it was at once said, "Well, then, if any change is made, what is to become of our Congregations and the revenues of their members?"

The Bishops will return home poorer in their happy confidence, but richer in such impressions and experiences. They will also carry back from Rome with them a fuller knowledge of the Jesuit Order, its spirit and tendencies. They now see clearly that the grand aim of the Order is to establish at least one fortress in every diocese with a Papal garrison, and to hold bishops, clergy, and people under complete subjection to Rome and her commands. A French Bishop observed the other day, "If matters go on in this way, we shall have even our holy water sent us ready-made from Rome." And the Jesuits' business is to see that things do go on in this way. The Bishops have now an opportunity of seeing through the tacit compact, perfectly understood on both sides, between the _Curia_ and the Order. The Pope accepts the Jesuit theology, and imposes it on the whole Church, for which he requires to be infallible; the Jesuits labour in the pulpit, the confessional, the schoolroom, and the press for the dominion of the _Curia_ and the Romanizing of all Church life. One hand washes the other, and the two parties say, "We serve, in order to rule." So far the relations of parties are clear enough, and result from the nature of the case. It is less easy to define the att.i.tude and disposition of the Bishops towards each other.(41)