IV.
To satisfy so great a want, the City of God, exercising the most perfect act of its power of goodness and love, convoked the Council of the Vatican. But in opposition to the City of God in its exercise of this supreme act of love and goodness, stands the City of Satan, which has always combated it, and will continue to do so to the end of time. It was, therefore, an easy matter to predict that the City of Satan would assuredly put forth its utmost powers of evil in opposition to that supreme effort of the church of Christ. Such a conclusion would be warranted both by reason and history. By reason, inasmuch as humanity may well be likened to a battle-field, wherein the powers of good and evil contend for mastery, falsehood, and truth, the old Adam and the new, Cain and Abel, Satan and Christ, so that a state of warfare may be said to be the law of this life; and as no real progress can be made but as the result of a hard-won victory, it follows logically that our own age, being subject to the same law, must pass through a terrible conflict. History bears evidence to the same effect, how at critical times the whole powers of evil rose up in terrible conflict against the great undertakings of the church. And I will add that as the work of the Vatican Council was to bring to light in a special manner the naturalism of modern civilization, which deduces its origin from atheism and pantheism, and afterwards to strengthen and exhibit in a clearer light the supreme authority of the Pope, so, on the other hand, modern civilization had to put forth all the strength it derived from naturalism to crush the Papacy.
All this might have been and was foretold. Two periods are to be distinguished in the brief existence of the Vatican Council: they are those which correspond to the two sessions which the Pope presided over in person. The first was directed specially against those monster errors from which naturalism springs; the second, after not a hasty but a long and comprehensive discussion, decreed the universal supremacy of the papal authority, the supremacy of his teaching, that is, the infallibility of the Pope, when he speaks (to use the language of the schools) ex cathedrâ. You might have said, then, that the great task of the council was ended, and time will perhaps show that you would not have judged amiss.
However, the City of Satan was meanwhile no idle spectator, but exerted its powers in many and various ways, yet so that it may be said with truth that two of these corresponded singularly to the two important periods of the council. In the first place, there was witnessed a great and portentous gathering of free-thinkers from all countries of the earth, and to this was assigned the title of Anticouncil, to signify in the most open way possible the war which the naturalism of the day is waging against the church and the Papacy. But this gathering failed to accomplish anything, so that, as was justly said, the infant cries of the new-born Anticouncil were also the last gasp of its mortal agony. In vain, besides, were all the efforts of the irreligious press, its sarcasms and calumnies; in vain the intrigues of anti-christian diplomacy. In vain, too, was that last effort, those appeals of discord flung into the camp of the assembled bishops. Nor do I say all when I affirm that such guilty efforts accomplished nothing against the council. I might have added, and I do so without hesitation, that they shed additional lustre on it. For, if they prove nothing else, they prove at least these two truths: first, that all the efforts of the world and hell shall not prevail against the church; et portæ inferi non prevalebunt adversus eam; secondly, that the freedom and fulness of discussion that took place in the council before defining dogmatically was greater than its adversaries expected or even desired. A new proof, were any such needed, that the church of Christ is neither an opponent nor a weakener of the powers of human reason, but is the harmonizer of the human element with the divine, of science with faith, of liberty with supernatural authority.
This was the first great effort of the adversaries of the council, but there soon followed a second. Peaceful opposition having failed, it was easy to foresee that modern civilization would change its mode of warfare, and instead of moral force would call to its aid physical force and violence. But for this it was necessary that some opportunity be given, and the invasion of Rome by ruffian bands as contemplated was too hazardous an undertaking, so long as the French eagle cast the shadow of its protection over the Vatican. The opportunity wanted was not long in presenting itself. Strange coincidence! At the very time when papal infallibility was added to the dogmas of faith, and almost on the very day, war broke out unexpected between France and Prussia. How Satan must have exulted with ferocious joy at that terrible hour! Such a war seemed to supply his city with the means of renewing its assaults on the City of God.
The Prussian minister Bismarck, the chief representative of modern civilization, had been for a long time in closest alliance with the double atheism of authority and modern liberty, that is to say, with the autocracy of Russia and modern revolution, which both desired the triumph of the German arms. In consequence of this alliance, France came single-handed into the contest, while Prussia drew with her all Germany. The Northern armies won astonishing victories, and their allies shared in the advantages of them. Preponderance in the East was again made practicable to the atheism of authority, and the atheism of liberty took possession of Rome—Rome from whose walls, through a blunder or a crime, the French government had withdrawn its troops. As a consequence, the Pope was stripped of his temporal power, and the council suspended.
This was the result of the war against the Papacy; this was the crowning effort of the City of Satan against the City of God—an effort in relation to which modern civilization showed more clearly than before both its character and the end at which it aimed. All the organs of the press that have sold themselves to the false spirit of the age—and their number is very great—all with unanimity of sentiment and in one chorus extolled the shameful outrage to the skies, and made it the subject of a senseless triumph. And what deserves notice, in as far as it goes to show the truth of our opinions, is that all pronounced this exploit as the greatest victory of modern civilization against Catholic superstition and the theocracy of the middle ages.
Was it a real victory? And will it be lasting? Will it be in our power, reverentially and with due timidity, to withdraw a little the veil that covers the designs of Providence in reference to these facts, and predict the future? The answer to these questions cannot be briefly given, and must therefore form the subject of a future article. Nevertheless, to close this article and prepare the minds of our readers for what is to follow, I think it necessary to draw a conclusion from the matters discussed, and it is this: that our brethren in the faith have no reason in the world to be astonished at the painful events happening in these times. Such things were necessary—so necessary were they that we ourselves, a year ago, ventured to predict this contest, when the political atmosphere was still unclouded, and all around breathed an air of peace. "This new year," said we on the first day of January, 1870, "will be doubtless one of the most memorable of all recorded in history. In it, not two ages, but two great eras meet and trace broadly their distinction one from the other—an era that is closing, and one that is about to begin. And in this same year, a momentous struggle will correspond to the meeting of the two eras—the struggle of two contrary principles which aim at the conquest of the human race. The two eras are, that of Protestantism religious and civil, and that of Christian revival in all the orders and relations of the Catholic Church. The two principles are egotism and charity—egotism, which begot and animates Protestantism, and charity, which is the life of Catholicity." The conflict, fierce, terrible, and waged under different forms, was a necessity; why, then, be astonished that what was to take place has really happened? Is not the spouse of him who espoused her with his sacred blood sent forth to combat? Had this conflict not taken place, we should have been tempted to say that it would be necessary to call in question the great law of human history—progress through suffering.
Away, then, with astonishment, which would be folly! Away with vain fears! The church has combated and overcome all the moral force brought to bear against the Papacy and the council, and shall it tremble before brute force? Is not the first victory a most certain pledge of the second?