Thirty-Seventh Letter.
Rome, April 15, 1870.—The Constitutio Dogmatica de Ecclesiâ Christi will receive its definitive form in the Congregation of Easter Tuesday, but the substance is already fixed. It received many significant alterations in the course of discussion, and the ready reception accorded to it as a whole is due to the many detailed amendments which have been conceded. These changes are so important that the spokesman of the Commission, Pie of Poitiers, said in his closing speech it was really the work of the whole Council, so that the Fathers might truly say, “Visum est Spiritui Sancto et nobis.” After the insertion of the word “Romana” before “Catholica Ecclesia,” the three first chapters were accepted in their amended form. The fourth, on faith and knowledge, was debated only cursorily and by a few speakers on April 8. But this chapter contains a passage of the greatest practical importance. At [pg 436] the end occur these words: “Since it is not enough to avoid heretical pravity, unless those errors which more or less nearly approach it are shunned, we admonish all of the duty of observing the constitution and decrees where such evil opinions not expressly named here have been proscribed and prohibited by this Holy See.”[78] The Bishops with good reason saw in this passage a confirmation of the judgments and increase of the authority of the Roman Congregations, i.e., of the tribunals through which the Pope exercises his power. It seemed to them desirable to give due expression to their objections, and accordingly a request was made to the President to appoint a further day for this subject. But as nobody had inscribed his name to speak, the request was refused and the whole debate was closed on that day, Friday, April 8. But to avoid the danger of opposition at the last moment and secure the decrees being unanimous, a certain concession was made by announcing that the closing paragraph should not be voted on till the whole Schema de Fide, four chapters of [pg 437] which only were as yet ready, should be completed. Thus a great point was gained,—a decree on matters of faith was carried by moral unanimity and not by surprise, but after a serious though compressed debate, which helped to win for the views of the minority a very perceptible influence on the form of the decree.
But on the following day, April 9, a notice was communicated that, as the closing paragraph of the Schema—beginning with the words “Itaque supremi pastoralis,” etc.[79]—had not been treated with sufficient particularity at the last general sitting, it must be again brought forward for deliberation before the whole fourth chapter came to be voted upon. The Fathers were thereby admonished that they might produce their amendments on the fourth chapter at the next sitting. This Congregation was held on April 12, when the final paragraph was put to the vote, and this roused them from the dream of unanimity. It was observed in the debate that if the voting on the paragraph were put off [pg 438] till the whole Schema de Fide was completed, this would be putting it off to the Greek Calends. But if the fixing of this Schema was undertaken directly after Easter, the more important subject of the Schema de Ecclesiâ must give place to it, and so it might easily happen that infallibility would not come on at all this spring. To withdraw the closing paragraph would be not only not to maintain but to lose that favourite form of authoritative papal utterance through the medium of the Roman Congregations, which especially required to be upheld. Pie of Poitiers insisted on the fact that the paragraph had been published in the Allgemeine Zeitung, and could not therefore without peril be withdrawn even for the moment only.
The Opposition were partly disposed themselves to treat the passage as unimportant. There were some who thought that in principle it was right for the Roman decisions to be respected and a certain authority attached to them, for this was necessary for the government of the Church; and the very wording of the passage distinguished these decisions from matters defined under anathema. So the minority resolved not to make any collective resistance to it, and many well-known members of the Opposition accepted it without [pg 439] contradiction. Notwithstanding this, when the whole fourth chapter came to be voted on on Tuesday, April 12, the desired unanimity was not attained; 83 Bishops gave a conditional Placet only. They handed in the grounds of their vote in writing, which seem to have been of various kinds, for even the Bishops of Moulins and Saluzzo, who are notorious infallibilists, were among them. Some, especially English Bishops, may well have demurred to the designation “Romana Catholica” before “Ecclesiâ;” others may have thought it necessary to guard their rights as against majorities; but far the greater number wanted to repudiate the concluding passage. The vote was understood here in this latter sense, and no stone was left unturned to induce the Opposition to yield on that point. The step they have taken makes the deeper impression, because it is known that they have not put forth their full strength.
It must be allowed that the final paragraph contained no actual doctrine which made the resistance of the Episcopate an absolute duty and required unanimous consent, but still it is obvious that the Council thereby sanctioned and strengthened what it ought to have reformed and limited, and therefore the carelessness manifested by a portion of the Opposition admits of no [pg 440] favourable explanation. For the chief cause of the weakness and corruption of the Church is to be found in those Roman Congregations,—in the principles of some and the defects of others. The Bishops who accept the paragraph give their approval, e.g., to the Inquisition and the Index, and thereby prejudice not a little their moral influence and dignity. The vote of last Tuesday does not accordingly appear to me any proof of the firm organization or imposing power of the minority; it only shows what they might accomplish if they chose, but that they do not choose to do as much as they can. But the event will show whether the Curia holds to its policy of securing unanimity by prudent and well-timed concessions. The minority will be urged and entreated first to withdraw their objections. If that fails, the Court must either give up the hope of unanimity or accept a very sensible humiliation. For if the text remains unaltered, those who have now given a conditional Placet can give no simple Placet next time.[80] Rome will certainly exhaust all her arts to avert the scandal of an open opposition in a Solemn Session.
I said in a former letter that the Opposition had taken up a position which no enemy from without could dislodge them from, but this did not imply at all that all internal dangers are overcome. These by no means consist in the decomposing influences of hope and fear which the Curia makes such use of, or the prospect of a Cardinal's Hat, or again in party divisions at home, which might have disturbed and divided the French, Austrian and North American Bishops. The latter danger might have made itself felt at the commencement of the Council, but constant intercourse and community of experiences during this winter have put an end to it. The real disease which has weakened the minority in the past and threatens it in the future lies deeper—the great internal differences of Catholicism, which are now being brought to a decisive issue, do not coincide with the antagonism of the rival parties in the Council, but divide the minority itself. The main question, exclusive of the immediate controversy and partly independent of it, which divides Catholics into two sections so sharply that no sympathy or confidence can bridge over the gulf, remains unsolved within the minority and constantly endangers their coherence. The common designation of Liberal Catholics tends rather [pg 442] to obscure than to express the principle of this division. By Liberal Catholics may be understood those who desiderate freedom not only for but in the Church, and would subject all arbitrary power of Church as well as State in matters of religion to law and tradition; but that is the end they aim at, not their fundamental principle. Such requirements concern the constitution rather than the doctrine of the Church, law rather than theology. They are important, but they do not contain the crucial point of the present contest in the Church. The root of the matter lies not simply in the relation to be maintained towards the chief authority in the Church, but in the right relation to science; it is not merely freedom but truth that is at stake. It is mainly as an institution for the salvation of men and dispenser of the means of grace that the Church has to deal with the labouring, suffering and ignorant millions of mankind. And in order to guard them from the assaults of popular Protestantism, a popular Catholicism and fabulous representation of the Church has been gradually built up, which surrounds her past history with an ideal halo, and conceals by sophistries and virtual lies whatever is difficult or inconvenient or evil, whatever, in short, is “offensive to pious ears.”
But such a transfigured Catholicism is a mere shadow Catholicism, not the Church but a phantom of the Church. Its upholders are compelled at every step to employ various weapons, to ward off any triumph of their enemies and avoid disturbing the faithful in a religious sentiment artificially compounded of error and truth combined. The more the notion of the supreme glory, and even infallibility, of the Pope was developed, the greater solidarity with the past became requisite, that the history of the Popes might not be suffered to bear witness too strongly against such views. To quote a significant phrase in constant use here during this winter, “the dogma must conquer history.”[81] A contest has arisen, not of dogma but of a theological opinion against history, that is against truth; the end sanctifies the means. It was held allowable in order to save the Church and for the interest of souls to commit what would in any other case have been acknowledged to be sin. Not only was history falsified, but the rules of Christian morality were no longer held applicable where the credit of the hierarchy was at stake. The very sense of truth and error, right and wrong,—in a word the conscience—was thrown into confusion. Thus, e.g., [pg 444] when Pius v. demanded that the Huguenot prisoners should be put to death, he did right, for he was Pope and a Saint to boot. Since Charles Borromeo approved the murdering of Protestants by private persons, it is better to approve it than to call his canonization in question. Or one moral aberration is got rid of by another. Many of the leading Catholic writers of this century deny that Gregory xiii. approved the massacre of St. Bartholomew,[82] or that heretics have ever been put to death at Rome.
This spirit, which falsifies history and corrupts morals, is the crying sin of modern Catholicism, and it reaches high enough. Of the three men who are commonly held in France to stand at the head of the Catholic movement, one wrote a panegyric on Pius v., another under the name of Religion et Liberté attacked absolutism in France while defending the double absolutism in Rome, and a third vindicated the Syllabus—all three thus manifesting the influence of this deplorable spirit.
On the other hand the genuine Catholic, who wishes also to be a good Christian, cannot separate love for his [pg 445] Church from the love of goodness and truth. He shrinks from lies in history as much as from present adulation, and is divided by a deep moral gulf from those who deliberately seek to defend the Church by sin and religious truth by historical falsehood. This contrast is most conspicuously exhibited in the question of infallibility, as one example may suffice to prove. The principles of the Inquisition have been most solemnly proclaimed and sanctioned by the Popes. Whoever maintains papal infallibility must deny certain radical principles of Christian morality, and not merely excuse but accept as true the opposite views of the Popes. Thus the Roman element excludes the Catholic and Christian. Such differences obviously cut deep into men's ethical character, and divide them far more decisively than any striving for common practical ends or community of interest and feeling can unite them on the ground of prudence. In presence of so profound an internal division the question of the opportuneness of the definition of infallibility assumes a very subordinate place, and the mere inopportunist is immeasurably removed from the decided opponent of the dogma. Between Bishops who consider Popes fallible and those whose conscience is easy enough to swallow certain [pg 446] doctrines of former Popes on faith and morals, and who do not see any deadly peril for souls in giving a higher sanction to these dogmas—between anti-infallibilists and mere inopportunists—the difference is far deeper than the union. The inopportunists stand nearer to the infallibilists than to those who oppose the dogma on principle. They are divided from the one party on a mere question of prudence, from the other on a question of faith and morality; with the one they are united by an internal bond, with the other by an external bond, only which circumstances may dissolve.
This is the true explanation of the halting policy so often observed in the Opposition. The honest opponents of infallibility wished to secure the support of those who do not properly speaking share their sentiments. But they should never for a moment have forgotten that they have to attack what Gratry has rightly described as an “école de mensonge.” And the greatest honesty and outspokenness is necessary for defending the honour and truth of Catholicism against that school. Instead of that they exhibit themselves in a false light and obscure the situation.
Meanwhile Pius ix. by his letters to Guéranger and Cabrière has completely and publicly identified himself [pg 447] with that school, at the very moment when Gratry was so unmistakeably exposing its spirit, and he has made this still clearer by the distinctions bestowed on Margotti and Veuillot at the very moment when Newman characterized them as the leaders of “an aggressive and insolent faction.” He said plainly to the French Bishop Ramadie of Perpignan that “only Protestants and infidels denied his infallibility.” His official organ describes the Opposition as allies of the Freemasons, and he himself calls all who oppose his infallibility bad Catholics. It is true that the Opposition has gradually been brought to make very decided declarations of opinion, and has itself expressed doubts about the future recognition of the Council. But that has complicated its attitude still further. The other party may ask, “Why these doubts about Œcumenicity? The Bishops of various countries are assembled in great numbers; the Governments offer no hindrances, and the Council has united itself with the Pope in the greatest freedom in the capital city of the Church. Why then doubt the good results and œcumenical character of the Council and the validity and future recognition of its decrees?” And the Opposition can only answer, “For the sole and single reason that the Pope destroys all [pg 448] freedom of action by his regulations, that he has already overthrown the ancient constitution of the Church and exercises a power over the Council incompatible with the rights of the Bishops and the freedom of the Church.”
The French note is to be presented to-day to Antonelli and next week to the Pope, instead of to the Council. It is doubted whether Pius will communicate it to them.[83]