Thirtieth Letter.
Rome, March 20, 1870.—At last the greatest theologian of Catholic England, in fact the only man of learning there who would be called in Germany a real theologian, has spoken out in the great controversy. Dr. Newman is superior of the Birmingham Oratory. It has long been notorious that he deplored the condition of the English (Catholic) Church, which has for many years been brought under the convert yoke, and sympathized with the old Catholics, both clergy and laity, who are now crushed under it; so much so, that the convert party there tried to brand him with the reputation of heterodoxy, and strangers intending to visit the illustrious Oratorian were warned not to incur suspicion by doing so. Newman had accordingly maintained a persistent silence in the controversies going on in England, desirous as everybody was and is to know his judgment upon the question which is now [pg 355] “gladius animam Ecclesiæ pertransiens.” But in the midst of this silence he had opened his heart, in a letter to a Bishop who is a friend of his own, on the uncomfortable and dangerous position into which an “aggressive and insolent faction” has brought the Church, and disturbed so many of the truest souls. He says:[66]
“... Such letters, if they could be circulated, would do much to reassure the many minds which are at present distressed when they look towards Rome.
“Rome ought to be a name to lighten the heart at all times, and a Council's proper office is, when some great heresy or other evil impends, to inspire hope and confidence in the faithful; but now we have the greatest meeting which ever has been, and that at Rome, infusing into us by the accredited organs of Rome and of its partisans (such as the Civiltà [the Armonia], the Univers, and the Tablet) little else than fear and dismay. When we are all at rest, and have no doubts, and—at least practically, not to say doctrinally—hold the Holy Father to be infallible, suddenly [pg 356] there is thunder in the clearest sky, and we are told to prepare for something, we know not what, to try our faith, we know not how. No impending danger is to be averted, but a great difficulty is to be created. Is this the proper work of an Œcumenical Council?
“As to myself personally, please God, I do not expect any trial at all; but I cannot help suffering with the many souls who are suffering, and I look with anxiety at the prospect of having to defend decisions which may not be difficult to my own private judgment, but may be most difficult to maintain logically in the face of historical facts.
“What have we done to be treated as the faithful never were treated before? When has a definition de fide been a luxury of devotion and not a stern, painful necessity? Why should an aggressive, insolent faction be allowed to ‘make the heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful’? Why cannot we be let alone when we have pursued peace and thought no evil?
“I assure you, my lord, some of the truest minds are driven one way and another, and do not know where to rest their feet—one day determining ‘to give up all theology as a bad job,’ and recklessly to believe henceforth [pg 357] almost that the Pope is impeccable, at another tempted to ‘believe all the worst which a book like Janus says,’—others doubting about ‘the capacity possessed by bishops drawn from all corners of the earth to judge what is fitting for European society,’ and then, again, angry with the Holy See for listening to ‘the flattery of a clique of Jesuits, Redemptorists, and converts.’
“Then, again, think of the store of Pontifical scandals in the history of eighteen centuries, which have partly been poured forth and partly are still to come. What Murphy inflicted upon us in one way M. Veuillot is indirectly bringing on us in another. And then again the blight which is falling upon the multitude of Anglican ritualists, etc., who themselves, perhaps—at least their leaders—may never become Catholics, but who are leavening the various English denominations and parties (far beyond their own range) with principles and sentiments tending towards their ultimate absorption into the Catholic Church.
“With these thoughts ever before me, I am continually asking myself whether I ought not to make my feelings public; but all I do is to pray those early doctors of the Church, whose intercession would decide [pg 358] the matter (Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Basil) to avert this great calamity.
“If it is God's will that the Pope's infallibility be defined, then is it God's will to throw back ‘the times and moments’ of that triumph which He has destined for His kingdom, and I shall feel I have but to bow my head to His adorable, inscrutable Providence.
“You have not touched upon the subject yourself, but I think you will allow me to express to you feelings which, for the most part, I keep to myself....”
Thus writes Newman in most glaring contrast to Manning. The latter was long nothing but his admiring disciple, and does not possess a tenth part of the learning of his master. He owes simply to his infallibilist zeal acquired in Rome his elevation to the Archbishopric of Westminster, to which the Pope appointed him, in anticipation of his present services, against the will of the English Catholics and the election of the Bishops. The Roman correspondent of the Standard having published extracts from Newman's letter, he took occasion to come forward and say that he had no wish to conceal that he “deeply deplored the policy, the spirit, the measures of various persons [pg 359] lay and ecclesiastical, who are urging the definition of that theological opinion” (of papal infallibility), while on the other hand he has “a firm belief that a greater power than that of any man or set of men will overrule the deliberations of the Council to the determination of Catholic and Apostolic truth, and what its Fathers eventually proclaim with one voice will be the Word of God.”
No one knows better than Newman that, next to the Jesuits, two of his old Oxford friends and disciples, Manning and Ward, are the chief authors of the whole infallibilist agitation. Well for him that he does not live in Manning's diocese! In the English clerical journals, e.g., the Weekly Register, the fact has lately several times come to light, that English priests who utter a word against infallibility are promptly reduced to silence by threats of suspension and deprivation. Every infallibilist, who has the power, is also a terrorist, for he feels instinctively that free and open discussion would be the death of his darling dogma. Under these circumstances it is very significant that some of the English Bishops are bold and honest enough to speak their minds plainly, to the effect that the English Catholics had gained all their political rights on the repeated assurance, [pg 360] and with the express condition, that the doctrine of papal infallibility would not be taught and received in the English Church, and that on that ground they have felt bound to repudiate this opinion. The chief among these Bishops are Clifford, Bishop of Clifton, and Archbishop Errington.[67]
I can give you the precise facts of the affair about Montalembert's Requiem from the most authentic sources, and it is worth while to do so, for it speaks volumes on the present state of things. The news of his death had reached Rome some hours, when a considerable number of foreigners, chiefly French, were admitted to an audience with the Pope. Immediately after the first words of blessing and encouragement, which they had come to request of him, Pius went on to speak of the man whose death had just been announced to him, saying that he had done great services to the Church, “mais il était malheureusement de ces Catholiques libéraux qui ne sont que demi-catholiques. Il y a quelques jours il écrivait des paroles”—here the [pg 361] Pope made a pause, and then proceeded—“Enfin, j'espère qu'il est bien mort”—or probably “qu'il a fait une bonne mort”—“L'orgueil était son principal défaut, c'est lui qui l'a égaré.”
While this was going on in the Vatican, Bougaud, one of the Vicar-Generals of the Bishop of Orleans, was inviting his countrymen from the pulpit of the French church of St. Louis to a Requiem for the illustrious dead, to be held next day in the church of Ara Celi. Archbishop Merode, Grand Almoner of the Pope and brother-in-law of Montalembert, had so arranged it, because it is an ancient privilege of the Roman patricians to have funeral services solemnized for them in this church, and Montalembert had been named a patrician by Pius ix. in recognition of his services in restoring the States of the Church and bringing back the Pope to Rome. He had contributed more than any of his contemporaries to that restoration, and it was he whose speech in the National Assembly at Paris in 1848 had decided the question of the Roman expedition. Bougaud had also mentioned that. Many had heard on the day before the service that it had been suddenly forbidden; nevertheless at the appointed hour in the morning about twenty French Bishops appeared with [pg 362] many priests and a large assemblage of laymen, the élite of the French visitors now in Rome. There before the entrance of the church they found M. Veuillot, the old and implacable opponent and accuser of Montalembert, standing among a group of sacristy officials, who announced to all comers that the Pope had forbidden any service being held or any prayers offered there for the departed Count. They thought this incredible and forced their way into the church, and here the sacristans informed them that, by special order of the Pope, not only was the intended Requiem stopped but the usual masses must be suspended, as long as the French remained in the church. By degrees the congregation broke up, and about an hour afterwards, when the church was empty, a French priest contrived to say a low mass in a side chapel.
It was probably Banneville who intimated to the Pope, at his audience for taking leave on the 17th, what a feeling this had created in French circles in Rome, and what impression it must produce in France. So on the morning of Friday the 18th, to the amazement of the court officials, the Pope went to Sta. Maria Transpontana, an out-of-the-way church, without his usual cortége. Several Bishops passed the church on [pg 363] their way to the Council, and were surprised to see the Pope's carriage waiting at the door, as they knew nothing of what had taken him there. In the church the Pope sent orders to a Bishop to say mass “for a certain Charles,” at which he assisted, and the following notice then appeared in the Giornale di Roma: “His Holiness, in consideration of the former services of Count Montalembert, ordered a mass to be celebrated for him in Sta. Maria Transpontana, and himself assisted at it from the tribune.” Meanwhile the journalists were instructed to say in their correspondence columns, that the prohibition had been issued, because the Requiem was meant to be made into a demonstration.[68] That insinuation implicates Archbishop Merode also, who resides in the Vatican, for he had given the order. The charge of pride, which the Pope brought against Montalembert, will excite astonishment and something more in France, where it was precisely his gentleness and modesty that had made him so universally beloved.