Fifty-Eighth Letter.
Rome, June 21, 1870.—What I have to communicate in this letter is so important, that I find it desirable to take it out of the historical order of events and let it precede the detailed account of what occurred between June 8 and 17.
A circumstance occurred on Saturday, which has kept all who are interested about the Council in breathless suspense ever since. Nothing in fact could be more unexpected than that, at the moment when the Opposition, though still maintaining the contest from a sense of conscientious duty, almost despairs of success, a fresh ally should join its ranks in the person of a Roman Cardinal, whose accession is the more valuable because he does not only speak in his own name, but has concerted his speech with the fifteen Bishops of his Order. In fact I hear his speech spoken of in many quarters as the most important and unexpected [pg 672] event in the Council. It must not of course be supposed that Guidi's spirited speech represents adequately the tendencies of the Opposition, but still it must be affirmed that it involves a complete, and as we believe irreconcilable, breach with the majority. In order to enable people to appreciate the full weight of the speech it is of some importance to premise a brief account of the speaker.
Cardinal Guidi has belonged, almost ever since his entering the Dominican Order, to the convent of the Minerva. For a long time he belonged to the theological professoriate connected with the convent, and enjoyed, as such, the well-earned reputation of great learning and strict orthodoxy. When eleven years ago Pius ix. wished to send thoroughly trustworthy and learned Roman theologians to the University of Vienna, to inculcate genuine Roman science and views on the young clergy, his eye fell on Father Guidi. After working there for some years he returned to Rome, having been meanwhile appointed Cardinal, and was soon afterwards made Archbishop of Bologna; and as the Italian Government promised to place no impediment in the way of his residing there, he actually betook himself to his See. But he soon found that it [pg 673] was not the place for him. The Dominican Order had seriously compromised itself in the notorious Mortara affair, and accordingly the Bolognese rabble broke out repeatedly into the most deplorable demonstrations against the new Archbishop as a member of the hated Order. He therefore returned to Rome, and administered his diocese from hence. And here he was one of the Pope's favourites, only during the last year he has lost favour through his freedom of speech. Since then he has been prosecuting his theological studies in retirement, and it was pretty well known what he thought about the personal infallibility of the Pope. Several months ago he had assembled the Dominican Bishops at the Minerva about this affair. His view prevailed, and when Father Jandel, the General imposed on the Order by the Pope and reluctantly accepted, tried to put a pressure on them, they replied that they were Bishops, and were bound, as such, to consult their consciences when called to act as judges of faith. Then began a notable agitation in the Order, which was already divided into two camps. One arbitrary act followed another. A so-called academy of St. Thomas was opened, and hardly had the President taken his seat, when he made a long speech, expounding the [pg 674] doctrine of St. Thomas and the Order on papal infallibility in the most tactless and violent manner to his episcopal audience. A Dominican Bishop delighted the Pope by getting up an infallibilist address among his episcopal colleagues. Then followed a series of writings defending St. Thomas against Janus. A member of the Order was forbidden by the General, Jandel, “to speak either publicly or privately about infallibility,” and the Civiltà Cattolica of June 18 praised the General for prefixing to the infallibilist writing of a Dominican the approbation that in the Dominican Order papal infallibility has always been held as a Catholic truth.
Under these circumstances people were the less prepared to find Cardinal Guidi, in contrast with his numerous sympathizers in the College of Cardinals, venturing boldly on a step which must embitter his whole existence at Rome. The very first sentence of his momentous speech must have concentrated the anger of the majority on a Cardinal, as they thought, so confused and oblivious of his duty. Guidi began by affirming that the separate and personal infallibility of the Pope, as stated in the amended chapter of the Schema, was wholly unknown in the Church up to the [pg 675] fourteenth century inclusive. Proofs for it are vainly sought in Scripture and Tradition. The whole question, he added, reduces itself to the point whether the Pope has defined even one dogma alone and without the co-operation of the Church. No man could claim divine inspiration (doctrina infusa). An act might be infallible, a person never. But every infallible act had always proceeded from the Church herself only, either “per consilium Ecclesiæ sparsæ,” or “per Concilium.” To know “quid ubique credatur, si omnes Ecclesiæ cum Romanâ Ecclesiâ concordent,” information is indispensably required. After this examination the Pope sanctions doctrine “finaliter,” as St. Thomas says, and only so can it be rightly said “Omnes per Papam docent.” He then showed from the works of the Jesuits Bellarmine and Perrone, “in definendis dogmatibus Papas nunquam ex se solis egisse, nunquam hæresim per se solos condemnâsse.” As Guidi uttered these words the majority began to make a tumult under the lead of the Italian Spaccapietra, Bishop of Smyrna. The Cardinal saw he could not continue his speech. One bishop cried “birbante” (scoundrel) and another “brigantino.” But Guidi did not let himself be put out of countenance; he answered with astonishing firmness and calmness [pg 676] that he had a right to be heard, and that no one had given to the Bishops the right of the Presidents. “However, the time will come yet for saying your Placet or your Non placet, and then every one will be free to vote according to his conscience.” Here for the first time his speech was interrupted by loud applause, and the words “Optime, optime” resounded from every side among the Opposition Bishops. Manning was asked by one of them, who stood near him, “Etes-vous d'accord, Monsigneur?” He replied, “Le Cardinal est une tête confuse.” On this a high-spirited Bishop could not refrain from observing to the powerful Archbishop of Westminster, “C'est bien votre tête, Monseigneur, qui est confuse et plus qu'à moitié Protestante.”
After this pretty long interruption Guidi went on to require a change in the chapter on infallibility “ut clare appareat Papam agere consentientibus episcopis et illis occasione errorum qui sparguntur petentibus, factâ inquisitione in aliis Ecclesiis, præmisso maturo examine et judicio et consiliis fratrum aut collecto Concilio.” This was the true doctrine of St. Thomas; “finaliter” implied something to precede, and the words “supremus magister et judex” pre-suppose other “magistri” and “tribunalia.” He concluded by proposing these canons:—
(1.) “Si quis dixerit decreta seu constitutiones a Petri [pg 677] successore editas, continentes quandam fidei vel morum veritatem Ecclesiæ universæ ab ipso pro supremâ suâ et apostolicâ auctoritate propositas non esse extemplo omnimodo venerandas et toto corde credendas vel posse reformari—anathema sit.
(2.) “Si quis dixerit Pontificem, cum talia edit decreta, posse agere arbitrio et ex se solo non autem ex consilio episcoporum traditionem Ecclesiarum exhibentium—anathema sit.”
On sitting down he gave his manuscript to the Secretary, and was soon surrounded by the leaders of the Opposition, some of whom complimented him on his speech, while others expressed their admiration of his courage in resisting the attempts to interrupt him. When a learned Italian Bishop asked Valerga, Patriarch of Jerusalem, what he thought of this speech, he replied audibly with the pun, “Si e squidato,” and on his interrogator rejoining that anyhow the speech contained nothing but the truth, Valerga let slip an expression very characteristic of himself and his party, “Si, ma non convien sempre dir la verità.”
After this speech a large number of Bishops left the Council Hall, and excited groups of prelates might be seen standing about in all directions. Cardinals Bonnechose and Cullen addressed their very pointless [pg 678] speeches to empty benches. Both pleaded for the proclamation of the fourth chapter, as it stood. Bonnechose, from whom Ginoulhiac and others had expected a very moderate speech, proved that he had completely gone over into Manning's camp, which cannot surprise any one in the case of a man who himself made no secret of his having no clear views on the question. Cullen destroyed by his last speech the impression made by the first, which had been admired, not for its contents but for its strictly parliamentary form.
Cardinal Guidi's courageous speech was destined soon to bear its fruits. The Pope—the dearest object of whose heart is the perfect freedom of the Council, as the official journal stated the other day—sent for him at once, and next day boasted to several Cardinals of having energetically rebuked their undutiful colleague for his heresy and ingratitude, and threatened him with being called on to renew his profession of faith. But the Cardinal may consider himself indemnified for these hard words of the Pope by the homage he received the day after his speech from almost the whole body of the Opposition Bishops who came to visit him. And he knows that the best of them were even worse treated by his Holiness than himself, where it was possible.