Twenty-Sixth Letter.
Rome, Feb. 28, 1870.—Our last letter closed with an account of a scene in the Session of February 22, occasioned by some attacks on the Roman Breviary. The Bishop of Namur had maintained that no one who attacked it could be a good Christian.
Haynald was one of those who had censured the present condition of the Breviary, and he now replied to Bishop Gravez that in criticising it he had the Fathers of Trent and the Popes themselves for accomplices (complices). A tempest broke out at these words. But Haynald went further and said, with reference to Bishop Langalerie of Belley, that the majority, with their proposals for new dogmas, were the cause of the disunion which had broken out in the Church, and that it would be much better for the heads of the Church to confine themselves to preserving the ancient doctrines in their purity, instead of adding new [pg 310] ones. The Church had succeeded very well with the old doctrines. At this first open attack in Council on the Infallibilist project the storm grew fiercer, and Capalti seized the bell of the President, De Angelis, rung it violently and forbade the speaker to proceed. “Taceas et ab ambone descendas,” he exclaimed. When Haynald went on all the same, a wild cry broke from the majority. The Archbishop of Calocsa at last came down, and so great was the excitement that the sitting was closed and the next postponed to March 2.
Meanwhile more attention and care than before has been devoted in Paris to what is going on at Rome. The Emperor and his present ministers understand the gravity of the situation; they know what would be meant by such journals as the Monde and the Univers daily appealing to infallible Papal decisions, and under their authority calling in question every institution and law of France, and proving beforehand to their readers that there is no obligation in conscience to submit to them, because the Pope has directly or indirectly signified his disapproval. Archbishop Lavigerie of Algiers brought back word to Cardinal Antonelli, on returning to Rome from his mission, that France was in no condition to tolerate the definition of Infallibility, [pg 311] which might lead to a schism, since not only the whole body of State-officers, but the writers, and even the Faubourg St. Germain, were opposed to the new dogma. Antonelli is not apt to be much influenced by such representations, which he views as mere idle threats; he is spoilt by the courtly flatteries of the ever obsequious M. de Banneville, whom he has managed completely to disarm. He has three devices of domestic diplomacy by which he knows how to make excellent use of both Banneville and Trautmansdorff. At one time he says, “It is not we—Pius, the Curia and I—who want the dogma, but the foreign Bishops, and we should be encroaching on the freedom of the Council by impeding them. And we ought not to subject ourselves to that reproach.” Then, for a variety, he adopts another line. “The Pope,” he says, “has all he wants already, and the dogma of Infallibility would not give him anything more. As it is, and with a Council assembled, all the decrees emanate from him and receive from him their validity, and he can summon or dissolve the Council at his pleasure, so that it only exists by his will and would crumble into dust without him. It is therefore the interest of the Bishops, not ours, that is in question here, and they will know well why [pg 312] the dogma is so valuable to them.” His third formula is, “Every good Christian believes the doctrine already, and therefore little or nothing will be changed in the Church by defining it, and we have not the least desire to use the new decree for calling in question the existing compacts and Concordats. We shall gladly leave alone the concessions we have already granted.” These resources of the Cardinal have hitherto sufficed. But new powers and demands seem to be coming to the front, which his diplomatic counters will no longer satisfy. I have copies of two letters of Count Daru, of January 18 and February 5. These official expressions of opinion from Paris have made the Civiltà Jesuits bitterly angry, and their famous article on the Policastri, in its original form, contained a violent attack on the French statesmen, who were classed with the other ministers and diplomats in such ill repute at Rome. But this roused the alarm of the supreme authority, and so the Jesuits had to eat their own words, and to substitute for their attack a high commendation of Count Daru and the loyalty of France to the Concordat. There is some good in having the articles of the Civiltà regularly revised in the Vatican. I understand that it is intended at Paris to send a special ambassador to Rome to the Council.
Meanwhile the Bishops of the minority are consulting how they shall deal with the new order of business. It was announced to the Fathers at the Session of February 22 that, in accordance with these new regulations, they must hand in all their observations on the first ten chapters of the Schema de Ecclesiâ in writing within ten days.
Archbishop Spalding of Baltimore has not receded from his ludicrous notion that his Infallibilist formula is milder and more tolerable than that of the 400. He has laid it before the thirty-five French Bishops (of the minority), who have unanimously rejected it. Its essence consists, as was mentioned before, in asserting that everybody must receive with unconditional inward assent every Papal decision on every question of faith or morals or Church life. On all theological principles such faith can only be accorded in cases where all possibility of error is excluded, or, in other words, where a revealed truth is concerned; and therefore to accept this formula would be to set aside the limitation of Papal Infallibility, hitherto recognised even in Rome, to decisions pronounced ex cathedrâ. And thus, in the crush and confusion of the innumerable and often contradictory decisions of Popes, theology would degenerate [pg 314] into a lamentable caricature of a system—“science” it could no longer be termed—involved in hopeless contradictions. If the good Spalding had the slightest acquaintance with Church history, he would know that he was bound, in virtue of his inward assent paid to all Papal decrees, first of all to reject his own orders as invalid.[59]
And now I must notice more particularly what Bishop Ketteler has published against me in some German newspapers. He says that in the telegram of February 13, published in the Allg. Zeitung of February 15, he has found the opportunity he had long desired for convicting the writer of the Letters from Rome of building up “a whole system of lying and deceit.”[60] It is “an indescribable dishonesty,” a “detestable untruth,” etc. His short letter bristles with such accusations. The untruths he complains of are the following:—
(1.) The telegram called the statement made by Bishop Ketteler and his ally, Bishop Melchers, a “proposal.” He replies that it was only a “communication.”
(2.) It treats the occurrence as a “negotiation,” whereas it was only a “short conference.”
(3.) There was no debate with “a serious opposition.” The Bishops indeed had expressed different views, and some had disapproved Döllinger's pronouncement, while the others thought only certain individual Bishops might have occasion to come forward against it. (They accordingly understood Ketteler's “communication” just as my informant did, and therefore spoke out against accepting it.)
(4.) Ketteler did not hear any Bishop say, as stated in the telegram, that Döllinger really had the majority of (German) Bishops with him.
And now let us compare Ketteler's account, deducting the abusive comments subjoined to every sentence, with the—of course extremely compressed—account in the telegram, and we shall find the two in substantial agreement. The Bishop is obliged to interpolate something into the telegram, in order to find fuel for the fire of holy indignation his delirious fancy has betrayed him [pg 316] into. He quarrels with me fiercely for saying there was a debate and a negotiation, whereas there was only a conference; but I never made use of those words. He says he made no motion, but he himself recounts statements of the Bishops which show clearly that they understood his “communication” as an invitation to do as he did. Only one somewhat important point of difference remains, viz., whether the Bishops named in the telegram said what they are there reported to have said or not. Bishop Ketteler can only say that he did not hear them say it. But considering that in an informal meeting of forty or forty-five persons, broken up into groups, a great deal is said which every one in the room does not hear, and that I received my information the same day from one who was present, I still adhere to my assertion that they did say it. For the rest, I am much indebted to Bishop Ketteler; he assures us that he has long desired an opportunity for saying all the evil he can of me and my Letters. He has now made a grand onset. If he had found anything in the eighteen long Letters before him better suited to his purpose, he would certainly not have taken refuge in such petty trivialities and, like a boy with snowballs, have flung what has turned into water in his hand. He has [pg 317] thus unwillingly given testimony to the truthfulness of my Letters. And for this I pardon him his exaggerated rhetoric, but will not suppress the remark made by an Englishman who knows mankind well: “There are certain women, says Fielding, always ready to raise a cry of ‘Murder, fire, rape’ and the like, but that means no more in their mouths than any one else means in going over the scale, Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol,” etc.