ANGLICANS, OLD CATHOLICS, AND THE CONFERENCE AT BONN.
Under the title of Anglicanism, Old Catholicism, and the Union of the Christian Episcopal Churches, an essay has recently been published by the Rev. Father Tondini,[178] Barnabite, whose intimate acquaintance with the respective languages of England, Germany, and Russia, as well as the religious history and literature of those countries, peculiarly qualifies him for dealing with the questions just now exciting so much attention in Western Europe. We shall, therefore, not only make his treatise, which merits more than ordinary notice, the basis of the present article, but shall reproduce such portions of it as are particularly suggestive at the present time, and conclude with some account of the Conference at Bonn and the considerations it suggests.
In the Introduction to his treatise the reverend author gives the reasons which called it forth, the last being the promise made on the tomb of a friend[179] to leave nothing untried which might promote the return of the Greco-Russian Church to Catholic unity; an unexpected opportunity being given for fulfilling this promise by the reference made more than once by Mr. Gladstone, in his recent publications, to the organization of the Eastern as contrasted with that of the Catholic Church. Moreover, the sympathy displayed by Mr. Gladstone for the Old Catholics and their Conference at Bonn serves to complete the argument.
There are two passages in Mr. Gladstone’s Vaticanism with which Father Tondini has more especially dealt. One is the following:
“Of these early provisions for a balance of church power, and for securing the laity against sacerdotal domination, the rigid conservatism of the Eastern Church presents us, even down to the present day, with an authentic and living record.”[180]
These valuable “provisions” are set forth at length in the second edition of a former work by Father Tondini, The Pope of Rome and the Popes of the Oriental Church.[181] In a special preface he there says: “There is much to be learned from them, especially if we take into consideration their recent date, and the ecclesiastical canons of which the Eastern Church has not been indeed a rigid conservator.”
In the quotations there given at length from the original documents, we find abundant evidence of the manner in which the ancient canons have been set aside, wherever convenient to the czar, for his own regulations.
The second passage requiring comment is the following:
“The ancient principles of popular election and control, for which room was found in the Apostolic Church under its inspired teachers, and which still subsist in the Christian East.”[182]
This, as we shall see, is disposed of in the third chapter of the present essay, into which has been collected trustworthy information as to the non-popular mode of election of bishops resorted to in the Oriental Orthodox Church.[183]
Towards the close of the Introduction the writer remarks that if the statements made by Mr. Gladstone respecting the Catholic Church were true, she could not be the true church of our Lord, and, if not, he asks, where then is the true church to be found? The Oriental Church could not solve the question, because she is in contradiction to the doctrine contained in her own liturgy,[184] and also for other reasons, to which for some years past he has been directing public attention.[185] There remain to be considered the Anglican Establishment—this being the church to which belongs the writer who accuses the Catholic Church of having changed in faith, and deprived her children of their moral and mental freedom—and the newest sect of all, namely, the so-called Old Catholics, owing to the same writer’s admiration of those who figure in its ranks.
Reason, so loudly appealed to by Mr. Gladstone, has been strictly adhered to by Father Tondini in his careful examination of the credentials of the two latter bodies, and we will give, in as concise a form as may be consistent with clearness, the result of his inquiry. He especially addresses those who admit the existence of a visible Church of Christ, and still more particularly those who, rather than reconcile themselves to the Catholic Church, say that neither the Roman Catholic Church, nor the Anglican Establishment, nor the Old-Catholic Society, but the Oriental Orthodox Church, is the true visible church of Christ.
I.
The claims of the Anglican Church are first examined, her vitality being an argument that we are in presence of an institution adhered to, at least by a large portion of her members, with conviction and devotedness, as a valuable medium between unbelief and superstition, worldliness and sanctity; and of a state church as solidly framed as human genius could devise.
“Bodies,” says Mr. Gladstone, “are usually held to be bound by the evidence of their own selected and typical witnesses.”[186] Now, the selected and typical witnesses of the Church of England are the sovereign, who is “Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church in her Dominions,” and the episcopate. If the whole clergy is consulted, the evidence becomes as undeniable as it can possibly be.
This perfect evidence is found in the Thirty-nine Articles, which are thus headed: “Articles agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops of both provinces, and the whole clergy, assembled in convocation holden at London in the year 1562, for the avoiding of diversities of opinions,” etc., etc.
The Ratification is to the same effect, with the addition of the assent and consent of the queen (Elizabeth), after their final rehearsal in the General Convocation of bishops and clergy in 1571. They are, moreover, reprinted in the Book of Common Prayer, with the Declaration of King James I. affixed, and which runs as follows:
“Being by God’s ordinance, according to our just title, Defender of the Faith and supreme governor of the church in these our dominions, … we will that all curious search be laid aside, and these disputes shut up in God’s promises as they be generally set forth in the Holy Scriptures, and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England according to them; and that no man hereafter shall either print or preach to draw the article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and full meaning thereof, and … shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense.”
“Following this last admonition, and bearing in mind that the Church of England considers herself to be a branch of the universal church of Christ, we open the Book of Common Prayer, and turn to those among the Articles which treat of the universal church, that we may see how, without renouncing our Italian nationality—which to us is very dear—we could belong to the universal church of Christ. We see an article headed ‘Of the Authority of General Councils,’ and, on reading it, find to our astonishment the definition, not indeed of the infallibility of the Pope, but of the fallibility, without any exception, of the universal church of Christ! It is: Article XXI.—‘General Councils may not be called together without the commandment and will of princes. And when they be gathered together (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the spirit and word of God), they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture.’”
“Thus” (we give Father Tondini’s words) “the Church of England has defined, in two plenary national councils, that the universal church of Christ, even when assembled in a general council, may err, and ordain, as necessary to salvation, things which have neither strength nor authority; and a king, ‘Defender of the Faith,’ has declared that this is the true doctrine of the Church of England, agreeable to God’s word, and required all his loving subjects to submit to this article ‘in the plain and full meaning thereof,’ and to take it ‘in the literal and grammatical sense’!
“We can hardly trust our own eyes. Again: What does the word ‘declare’ mean in the concluding words of the article? This word may convey two senses—that of proving and of making a declaration.
“In the first case, who is to offer the proofs that ‘the thing ordained as necessary to salvation’ is taken out of Holy Scripture? This the Church of England has forgotten to tell us!… Moreover, an authority whose decrees, in order to have a binding power, must be proved to be taken out of Holy Scripture, is by that very fact subordinate to those who are called to examine the proofs.[187] The chief authorities of the church assembled in a general council are thus rendered as inferior to the faithful as the claimant is inferior to the judge who is about to pronounce sentence upon his claims. The teaching and governing body of the church is consequently no more than an assembly commissioned to frame, ‘as necessary to salvation,’ laws to be submitted to the approbation of the faithful!
“Is this serious? Is it even respectful to human intelligence?”
Again, if the word “declare” must be taken in the sense of a declaration, Father Tondini asks: “But by whom is such a declaration to be made? Assuredly not by the council itself—‘judice in causâ propriâ.’ An authority liable to err, ‘even in things pertaining unto God,’ and to ordain ‘as necessary to salvation’ things which have ‘neither strength nor authority,’ is liable also to mistake the sense of Holy Scripture. To seek such a declaration from this fallible authority would be like begging the question.
“The declaration must, then, be made by some authority external to the general council. But the ‘archbishops, bishops, and the whole clergy of England’ have omitted to inform the faithful where such an authority is to be found. Moreover, since a general council—that is, the ‘selected and typical witnesses’ of the whole Church of Christ—may err (according to Article XXI.), it necessarily follows that portions of the whole church of Christ may err also. In fact, this natural consequence is explicitly stated in Article XIX. The zeal displayed by the Church of England in asserting the fallibility, both of the whole church of Christ and of portions of that church, may be said to rival that of the most fervent advocates of the infallibility of the Pope.”
This XIXth Article modestly asserts that, “as the Churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.”
Whereupon “a legitimate doubt arises whether the Church of England, too, might not have erred in issuing the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. This doubt is very material. These Articles ordain several things as ‘necessary to salvation.’ Are they, or are they not, ‘taken out of Holy Scripture’? Have they, or have they not, ‘strength and authority’?”
Shortly after their promulgation, we have it upon the authority of King James I. himself that this doubt gave rise to “disputations, altercations, and questions such as may nourish faction both in the church and commonwealth,” and his majesty adds that “therefore, upon mature deliberation,” etc., he “thought fit” to make the declaration following:
“That the Articles of the Church of England … do contain the true doctrine of the Church of England, agreeable to God’s Word, which WE do therefore ratify and confirm.”
“May we” (with Father Tondini) “be allowed respectfully to ask whether King James I. was infallible?”
And if so, why should Catholics be charged with having forfeited their mental and moral freedom, etc., etc., because they admit the infallibility of the Pope, which results, by the law of development, from several passages of Holy Scripture; whereas, on the contrary, no “brain power” will ever be able to discover a single word in Holy Scripture which can, by the most vigorous process of development, bud forth into the infallibility of a King of England?
On the other hand, if King James were not infallible, by what right could he then prohibit and will in matters of faith for his subjects?
His only right was this: that the Church of England had been made a powerful instrumentum regni in the hands of her sovereigns,[188] just as the Church of Russia is in the hands of her czars.
After this, observes the writer, no inconsistency ought to astonish us.
In Article XVIII. it is declared that “the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the [Lord’s] Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner”; and again, at the end of the “Order of the Ministration of the Holy Communion,” that “the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here.” How can these declarations be made to agree with the following, which is taught in the Little Catechism?—“The body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper.”
Again, in Article XI. we find: “That we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort”; whereas in the order for the visitation of the sick we read as follows:
“Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort,” etc., etc.
“But,” asks Father Tondini, “by what strange metamorphosis can the above-quoted doctrine of justification by faith only, declared to be ‘most wholesome and very full of comfort’ while we are in good health, cease to possess the power of comforting the conscience of a sick person? And how can confession, which through life is to be considered by Anglicans as ‘grown of the corrupt following of the apostles’ (see Article XXV.), become suddenly so transfigured by the approach of death as to obtain the power of relieving a conscience ‘troubled with any weighty matter’?”
Although it may not be matter of much surprise that a church which has so carefully defined her own fallibility should have one doctrine for her children in their days of health and vigor, and another for the time of their sickness and death, still it does surprise us that a man of education like Mr. Gladstone should be so unconscious of his own extraordinary inconsistency in appealing—as he does throughout his attacks against Catholics and the Catholic Church—to “mental and moral freedom,” “logic,” “consistency of mind,” “manliness of thought,” etc., etc.
Already arise from all sides echoes of the question singularly enough asked by Mr. Gladstone himself: “Is the Church of England worth preserving?”[189]
“The Church of England,” said Laud, “is Protestant.” And Mr. Gladstone, true to “the church of his birth and his country,” protests, like her, against the church which made his country a Christian nation. The Ritualists, the latest sect within her, still boast that they “help to keep people from the Church of Rome,” and reject the imputation of sympathy with her as an insupportable calumny.[190] “They will give communion in Westminster Abbey to an Unitarian, flatter Jansenists and Monophysites, remain in communion with bishops whom they themselves proclaim to be heretics; but one thing they will not do—tolerate the creed of the church to which they owe every fragment and crumb of truth that remains to them.” “Take the great Anglian divines,” writes Mr. Marshall: “Bull scorned and preached against the Catholic Church; Barrow wrote a book against it; Sandys called the Vicar of Christ ‘that triple-crowned thief and murderer’; Hooker sent for a dissenter on his death-bed; Morton, Bramhall, Andrews, and the rest avowed the opinion that the Protestant sects of the Continent were as true churches as their own. Episcopal ordination, as the late Mr. J. Keble confessed, was not made a condition for holding Anglican preferment until the latter half of the XVIIth century; and it was then adopted as a weapon against the growing power of the dissenters. Then Anglicans who had always argued as Protestants against the church began to argue as Catholics against dissent.”
At the present time, however, the English episcopate seems veering round again to the Protestant quarter, against the pseudo-Catholic innovations of a portion of the clergy. The Church Herald, which, up to the time when it ceased to exist, a few weeks ago, had been protesting for many months previously, with good reason, against the implacable opposition offered by the Anglican bishops to the so-called “Catholic revival,” gravely told its readers, while asserting once more that “no one trusts the bishops,” and that “of influence they have and can have next to none,” nevertheless that “their claims as Catholic bishops were never so firmly established.” (!) Certainly Anglican logic is peculiar. Their bishops were never more vehemently opposed to the Catholic faith; but no matter, “never were they more truly Catholic.” (!)
“I have very reluctantly,” says Dr. Lee (as reported in the John Bull), “come to a conclusion which makes me melancholy—that the passing of the Public Worship Bill has to all intents and purposes sealed the fate of the Church of England.” Its end, he thinks, is very near, because no church can last unless it be a true portion of the one family of God—not a mere human sect, taking its variable opinion from the civil government, and its practice from a parliamentary officer without the faintest shadow of spiritual authority. “The point that gravely perplexes me,” he writes, “with regard to the new law, is that our bishops, one and all, have, with their eyes open and deliberately, renounced their spiritual jurisdiction, which, for both provinces and every diocese, is placed in the hands of Lord Penzance, ex-judge of the Divorce Court.” For which reason certain Ritualist papers lament it as “strange and sad” that Dr. Lee should say of the bishops and their bill exactly the same after their victory as they themselves had said before it. These papers, after the example of some learned Anglican professors, etc., are ready enough beforehand to threaten, in the event of such and such a decision, to “reconsider their position.” The decision is made; they then discover that, after all, it is not so very serious, and compose themselves, for the third, or fourth, or fifth time, just where they were before.
It is stated that the first case under the Public Worship Regulations Act is now being brought before Lord Penzance. It is a suit against the Rev. J. C. Ridsdale, incumbent of S. Peter’s, Folkestone. According to the new law, three inhabitants made a representation to the Archbishop of Canterbury as to the manner in which the services were conducted at S. Peter’s. A copy of the representation was forwarded to Mr. Ridsdale, and, no agreement to abide by the decision of the archbishop having been made, the proceedings will be determined by the judge, from whom there is an ultimate appeal to her Majesty in council. There are, it is said, three cases pending under the new law; and fresh proceedings are about to be commenced against the clergy of S. Alban’s, Holborn. The bill bids fair to be as one-sided in its application as it avowedly was in its intention. “The Puritan triumph in the XVIIth century,” said the Bishop of London, “would not be more disastrous than a pseudo-Catholic triumph now,” and the rest of the episcopal bench are evidently of the same mind.
Nor can it be matter of much surprise that such repression should be exercised against men, many of them truly earnest and self-denying, who are the means of reviving a certain amount of Catholic doctrine as well as practice (however illegal) in their communion, when Dr. Lee is able to write as follows to an episcopal correspondent: “The Catholic faith, Archbishop Tait, in the presence of his suffragans, frankly declared that neither he nor they believed, and his grace—to give him all credit—has done his worst to get rid of it.”
Here again can we wonder at the result, even to her highest dignitaries, of the uncertain teaching of a church which, from its very beginning, was intended to be a compromise?
And, again, how can a church which is essentially a compromise be expected to sympathize with that unchanging church which is “the pillar and ground of the truth”?
II.
To return to Father Tondini’s essay. We come now to consider the newest among the sects, the so-called Old Catholics, who, after the manner of many other schismatics, appropriate the name of “Catholic” with an affix of their own, which is a proof that theirs is a base metal, unworthy of the “image and superscription of the King” or his appointed vicegerent.
Mr. Gladstone’s judgment of these people is thus expressed: “When the cup of endurance,” he says, “which had so long been filling, began, with the Council of the Vatican in 1870, to overflow, the most famous and learned living theologian of the Roman communion, Dr. von Döllinger, long the foremost champion of his church, refused compliance, and submitted, with his temper undisturbed and his freedom unimpaired, to the extreme and most painful penalty of excommunication. With him many of the most learned and respected theologians of the Roman communion in Germany underwent the same sentence. The very few who elsewhere (I do not speak of Switzerland) suffered in like manner deserve an admiration rising in proportion to their fewness.
“It seems as though Germany, from which Luther blew the mighty trumpet that even now echoes through the land, still retained her primacy in the domain of conscience, still supplied the centuria prærogativa of the great comitia of the world.”[191]
After giving this quotation, Father Tondini, in the exercise of his “mental freedom,” proceeds to examine whether Old Catholics really deserve this highly laudatory and enthusiastic passage, and in what their merit consists.
Their merit consists “in having rebelled against the church to which they previously belonged, on the ground that, in their conviction, she had changed her faith.
“Not one single bishop, not one out of the teaching body of the church, has expressed the same conviction. Old Catholics are, then, a mere handful … protesting against the Pope and the whole episcopate, preferring their own private judgment to that of the whole teaching body of the Catholic Church, and fully decided to do everything in their power to bring about the triumph of their private personal judgment. Their first act was to raise a schism in the church. They had openly and freely separated themselves from her long before the sentence of excommunication was notified to them. They then became the occasion of a severe persecution against their former fellow-Catholics; and now, whilst the persecution is raging, and Old Catholics, supported by governments and the press, have suffered neither in person nor property, nor in their individual liberty, we are called upon to bestow upon those who suffered ‘in like manner’ an admiration rising in proportion to their fewness!”[192]
But why is this? and what is the Expostulation itself but a cry of alarm to prevent British Catholics from rebelling against the queen? Why, then, is the rebellion of some private individuals to be extolled in terms like these? Or if, indeed, strong private religious convictions (taking it for granted that the Old Catholics have such) make it praiseworthy to rebel against the church, why should not strong private political convictions make it equally praiseworthy to rebel against the state? The field of similar applications is fearfully wide, and many a parental admonition to an indolent or disobedient child might be met by the young rebel in Mr. Gladstone’s words, that “with temper undisturbed, with freedom unimpaired,” he had no intention to do as he was bid.
The first official document of the Old Catholics is the “Declaration” of Dr. von Döllinger and his adherents, dated Munich, June, 1871,[193] and which bears the signatures of Dr. von Döllinger, sixteen professors or doctors, seven magistrates, three private gentlemen, two manufacturers, one “Maître royal des cérémonies,” and one “Intendant royal de musique au théâtre de cour”—thirty-one signatures in all, to which was added later that of the unhappy Loyson.
The second document is a French manifesto or appeal, “Aux fidèles de l’Ancienne Eglise Catholique,” signed “E. Michaud, Docteur en Théologie,” dated 1872, and widely circulated in France, with a request that every reader will help to make it known and gain as many additional adherents as possible.
The style of both documents is peculiar. They alike belong to those literary productions which betray an almost feverish excitement of mind. A small number of persons, till lately belonging to the Catholic Church, declare themselves “determined” to do their utmost towards bringing about “the reform of ecclesiastical affairs, so long desired and henceforth so inevitable, in the organization as well as in the life of the church.” In fact, the authors of both these documents show a faith in their own infallibility, both doctrinal and practical, at least as strong as their conviction of the fallibility of the Pope. They are peculiarly unfortunate in their choice of the fathers they quote, as well as in their appeal to the authority of S. Paul. Their style is certainly wholly unlike that of this great apostle, who, with so much earnestness and humility, begs the prayers of the faithful, while the necessity of prayer for such an undertaking as that which the Old Catholics call the “regeneration of the church” is not even once alluded to in their manifestoes.
There is another consideration which presents itself. Every practical man is careful to ascertain the competency, in any particular subject, of those who give him their advice upon it. A sick man would not consult a lawyer for his cure, nor an aggrieved man seek legal advice of his baker or shoemaker. The distinguished magistrates who signed the German Declaration must be supposed to have done so, not in consequence of a clear and detailed knowledge of the grounds of the assertions it contained, but in consequence of their confidence in Dr. von Döllinger, which led them to adopt his views. In the same way must be explained the adhesions given by the respectable manufacturers, “Maître royal des cérémonies,” and “Intendant royal de musique au théâtre de cour”; for though these pursuits need not be in themselves an obstacle to a man being well acquainted with religious matters, still they are an undeniable argument against his having made it the chief object of his studies.
“Now,” continues Father Tondini, “the charges brought in the present case against the Catholic Church are so heavy, and the mere probability of their being founded on truth of such vital importance to the whole Christian world, … that to require something more than the ordinary amount of theological science which is in general to be found in men involved in worldly affairs of the most distracting kind, is only acting in accordance with the most ordinary laws of prudence. All this will become evident if we only suppose that the ‘Declaration’ had appeared without the signatures of Dr. von Döllinger and the above-mentioned professors.” In looking over the latter we find that none of them can lay any claim to the same scientific authority and repute as that which he enjoys; and the same remark applies to all who have subsequently joined the Old Catholics.
With regard to Dr. von Döllinger himself, he has till now, if we are rightly informed, abstained from joining his fellow-subscribers to the German “Declaration” in their submission to Mgr. Reinkens, the Old-Catholic Bishop of Germany. “Thus the chief promoter of the opposition to the Vatican Council stands apart, and we should be grateful to any one who might tell us to what church he belongs and whom he recognizes as his legitimate bishop. We cannot suppose that he whom Mr. Gladstone calls ‘the most famous and learned theologian of the Roman communion’ has the pretension of forming a church in his own person.”
Father Tondini next notices the remarkable phenomenon presented by Old Catholicism during the first three years of its existence as body without a head, and calls the reader’s attention to the following passage in the French manifesto:
“If it be the will of God,” thus it runs, “that some Roman bishops have the courage to return publicly to the profession of the ancient faith, we will place them with joy at our head. And if none break publicly with heresy, our church, though essentially episcopal, will not for that reason be condemned to die; for as soon as it shall be possible to regularize its situation in this respect, we shall choose priests who will receive either in the West or in the East an episcopal consecration of unquestionable validity.”
“These,” he remarks, “are plain words. It evidently results from them that there was a time when the church, ‘unstained by any Roman innovation,’ was still looking for a bishop—in other words, for a head, which she did not possess as yet. How, in spite of this deficiency, the Old-Catholic Church could be termed essentially episcopal we are at a loss to understand. That which is essential to a thing is that without which it cannot possibly exist for a single moment; but here we are asked to believe in a miracle which at once destroys all our physical and metaphysical notions of things. A new-born warrior fighting without a head, and a being existing without one of its essential constituents—such are the wonders which accompanied the genesis of the so-called regenerated church of the Old Catholics.”
The German Declaration in like manner states the then headless condition of the Old-Catholic body. Its subscribers, and among them Prof. Reinkens, say they look forward to a time when “all Catholicity shall be placed under the direction of a primate and an episcopacy, which by means of science,” etc., etc., “and not by the decrees of the Vatican, … shall approach the crowning object assigned to Christian development—we mean that of the union of the other Christian confessions now separated from us,” etc.
Such was their language in June, 1871, when they were already nearly a year old. Their first bishop, Joseph Hubert Reinkens, was consecrated in August, 1873. These dates are very important. No power on earth will ever be able to annul them as historical facts, which prove that a body calling itself the true church of Christ has existed some time without a single bishop, although bishops are essential to the church of Christ, as Scripture, tradition, history, all antiquity agree. S. Cyprian says:
“The church is the people in union with the bishop—a flock adhering to its shepherd. The bishop is in the church and the church in the bishop. He who is not with the bishop is not in the church.”[194] And again: “He cannot be accounted a bishop who, in despite of the evangelic and apostolic tradition, has, of himself, become one (a se ipso ortus est, nemini succedens), and succeeds to none.”
Now, “to what bishop” (asks Father Tondini) “did Dr. Reinkens succeed? His first pastoral letter, dated August 11, 1873, is addressed ‘to the priests and faithful of Germany who persevere in the ancient Catholic faith.’ Who ever heard of the bishop and diocese of Germany before this letter?” Again: “That same Dr. Reinkens who in June, 1871, signed the ‘Declaration’ in which the Christian confessions outside the Roman Church were called ‘Christian confessions now separated from us,’ in August, 1873, saluted with the title of ‘Old Catholics,’ the Jansenists of Holland, and Mgr. Heykamp, the bishop by whom he was consecrated, with that of ‘bishop of the Old Catholics’!”[195]
III.
We now come to the consideration of Old Catholicism as an instrument of union between the Christian Episcopal churches. In accordance with their “Declaration,” the Old Catholics insist upon its being one of their main objects to reunite the Christian churches separated from Rome during the VIIIth and IXth centuries, and complacently boast of the marks of sympathy bestowed upon them by these churches.
From one of their manifestoes Father Tondini quotes the following important statements:
“The bishops of the Oriental Orthodox Church”—thus runs the manifesto—“and those of the Episcopal Church of England and the United States of America (!) encourage Old Catholicism with their most profound sympathy. Representatives of the Orthodox Church of Russia assist every year at its congress.… The interest displayed for it by governments is not inferior to that of the churches.… The governments of Russia and of England are disposed to recognize its rights when it shall be opportune to do so.”[196]
Upon which he points out the exceeding inexpediency, for their own sakes, of these governments or their bishops having any participation in the doings of Old Catholics; and this for the following reasons, which are worthy of careful consideration by the two governments in question, and which we give in his own words:
“In order, it would seem, to escape the stringent conclusion of S. Cyprian’s words, ‘He who does not succeed to other bishops, but is self-originated, cannot be reckoned among bishops,’ Mgr. Reinkens, in his above-quoted pastoral letter, … authoritatively declared not only that the ‘apostolic see of Rome was vacant,’ but that not one of the actually existing Roman Catholic bishops was legitimate.
“In support of this assumption the Old-Catholic bishop invokes some fathers of the church—not, indeed, what they said or did while living, but what they would say or do if they were to return to life: ‘If the great bishops of the ancient church were to return to life in the midst of us,’ says Mgr. Reinkens, ‘a Cyprian, (!) a Hilary, an Ambrose, … they would acknowledge none of the existing bishops of the Roman Catholic Church as validly elected.’[197]
“So much for the fact. As it can only be ascertained when those great bishops are restored to life, all we can do is to defer this verification until the great day of judgment.
“Now comes the general principle on which the assumed fact is founded. Let us listen again to Mgr. Reinkens: ‘They [the resuscitated bishops of the ancient church] would not acknowledge any of the existing bishops of the Roman Catholic Church as validly elected, because none of them were appointed in conformity with the immutable rule of the fathers of the church. Never! no, never! would they have received into their company, in the quality of a Catholic bishop, one who had not been chosen by the people and the clergy. This mode of election was considered by them as of divine precept, and consequently as immutable.’”
“How many bishops are there in existence at the present day,” asks Father Tondini, “either in the Anglican Church or in the Christian East, who have been chosen by the people and the clergy?”
In answer to this question we have, respecting the non-popular mode of election in the Oriental Orthodox Church, the following trustworthy information: In the Orthodox Church of the Turkish Empire the election of a patriarch is made by the members of its synod, which is composed of metropolitans, of one of their own number, and this election “is then made known to the people assembled in the atrium of the synodicon, who give, by acclamation and the cry of ἄξιος (worthy), their assent to the election.… This, however, is in fact an empty formality; the more so as the election itself is the result of previous secret understandings between the more influential members of the synod and the leading men among the people.”[198]
“The three patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem are elected by their respective synods, composed of metropolitans.
“The metropolitans and bishops of each patriarchate are elected by the respective patriarchs, together with their synods.”
Did the Patriarch of Constantinople, in agreeing, on the invitation of Dr. von Döllinger, to send representatives of the Greek Orthodox Church to the Old Catholic Church Congress at Bonn, forget that, according to Mgr. Reinkens, all bishops who have not been elected by the clergy and the people are illegitimate bishops, that their sees are all vacant, that this mode of election is of divine precept, and consequently immutable?
“We know not,” says Father Tondini, “which of the two is more to be wondered at: the boldness of the Old Catholics in inviting the patriarch to be represented at the congress, or the logical inconsistency of the patriarch in accepting the invitation.”
Next, with regard to the Orthodox Church of the Russian Empire.
No one who may have read “The Future of the Russian Church,” which recently appeared in the pages of The Catholic World,[199] will need to be told how little voice either the inferior clergy or people of Russia have in the election of their bishops. The Most Holy Governing Synod proposes to his majesty two persons (on an eparchy becoming vacant), and that one of the two selected by the czar is chosen and consecrated.[200] (See Consett, Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great.)
In the formula of the oath taken by the Russian bishops before being consecrated, they engage themselves to yield true obedience to the Holy Synod, “the legitimate authority instituted by the pious Emperor Peter the Great of immortal memory, and confirmed by command of his (or her) present imperial majesty,” and to obey all the rules and statutes made by the authority of the synod agreeably to the will of his (or her) imperial majesty, adding the following words: “Furthermore, I do testify that I have not received this province in consideration of gold or silver given by me, … but I have received it by the free will of our most serene and most puissant sovereign (by name), and by the election of the Holy Legislative Synod.[201] Moreover, at the beginning of the ceremony the bishop-consecrator thus addresses the newly-elected bishop: “Reverend Father N., the Most Serene and Most Puissant Czar N. N. hath commanded, by his own singular and proper edict, and the Holy Legislative Synod of all the Russias gives its benediction thereto, that you, holy sir, be bishop of the city of N.”; to which the future bishop is made to answer: “Since the Most Serene, etc., Czar has commanded, and the … synod … has judged me worthy to undertake this province, I give thanks therefor, and do undertake it and in nowise gainsay.”[202]
After similarly disposing (with regard to the remaining Oriental churches) of Mr. Gladstone’s extraordinary assertion that “the ancient principles of popular election and control exist in the Christian East”—an assertion of which also he makes use as a weapon against the Catholic Church[203]—Father Tondini passes on to the election of bishops in the Anglican Church. With regard to this, the following abstract from Stephen is amply sufficient to show how far “the principles of popular election” prevail in the nomination of the bishops of the Establishment:
“By statute 25 Henry VIII. c. 20 the law was altered and the right of nomination secured to the crown, it being enacted that, at every future avoidance of a bishopric, the king may send the dean and chapter his usual license to proceed to election, or congé d’elire, which is always to be accompanied with a letter missive from the king, containing the name of the person whom he would have them elect; and if the dean and chapter delay their election above twelve days, the nomination shall devolve to the king, who may by letters-patent appoint such person as he pleases. This election or nomination, if it be of a bishop, must be signified by the king’s letters-patent to the archbishop of the province; if it be of an archbishop, to the other archbishop and two bishops, or to four bishops, requiring them to confirm, invest, and consecrate the person so elected; which they are bound to perform immediately, without any application to the See of Rome. After which the bishop-elect shall sue to the king for his temporalities, shall take oath to the king and to none other, and shall take restitution of his secular possessions out of the king’s hand only. And if such dean and chapter do not elect in this manner by this act appointed, or if such archbishop or bishop do refuse to confirm, invest, and consecrate such bishop-elect, they shall incur all the penalties of a præmunire—that is, the loss of all civil rights, the forfeiture of lands, goods, and chattels, and imprisonment during the royal pleasure. It is to be observed, however, that the mode here described of appointing bishops applies only to such sees as are of old foundation. The five new bishoprics created by Henry VIII. … have always been donatives, and conferred by letters-patent from the crown; and the case is the same as to the bishopric of Ripon, now recently created” (Stephen’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. iii. p. 61).
In concluding his essay, Father Tondini repeats Mgr. Reinkens’ words: “If the great bishops of the ancient church were to return to life in the midst of us, … never! no, never! would they have received into their company, in the quality of a Christian bishop, one who had not been chosen by the people and the clergy; this mode of election was considered by them as of divine precept, and consequently as immutable”; and then asks: “How can the support given by the state churches and governments of England and Russia to Old Catholicism be explained? Is it for the purpose of declaring that all the episcopal sees, both of England and Russia, are vacant and awaiting the choice of the people?”
The reader, being now acquainted with much of the contents as well as with the general tenor of Father Tondini’s essay, may find some interest (possibly amusement also) in comparing the following remarks of the London Tablet (Sept. 18) with the confirmation of their accurate appreciation of the “British Philistine’s” pride in his own obtuseness so ingenuously furnished (Sept. 25) by a writer in the Church Review:
LONDON TABLET.
“We are a little afraid that the Anglican sympathizers with the Old Catholics will not be sharp enough to understand the keen logic of Father Tondini’s concise reasoning. The British Philistine rather glories in being impervious to logic or wit, and chuckles over his own obtuseness as a proof of the strength of the religion which he patronizes. It is provoking to a zealous controversialist to have to do battle with such a heavy antagonist, but we trust the good father will not cease to labor at the conversion of our illogical but worthy fellow-countrymen. We thank him for a well-timed and well-written pamphlet.”
(The Universe calls it “another fatal blow for the theology of our ex-prime minister; closely reasoned and perfectly terrible in its manner of grasping its luckless opponent.”—Universe, September 25, 1875.)
CHURCH REVIEW.
“The Rev. Cæsar Tondini, who is fond of linking Russian Orthodoxy and Anglican Catholicism in one sweeping condemnation, is by no means one of the Pope’s greatest controversialists. But this pamphlet is hardly worthy of even his reputation. Every point in it might be answered by a tu quoque. Fact might be set against fact, defect against defect, innovation against innovation, inconsistency against inconsistency, and error against error. But picking holes in our neighbor’s coat will never mend the rents in our own. So we forbear, content for the present to congratulate ourselves on the fact that, while Romanists are still utterly blind to their own nakedness, we have at least plucked a fig-leaf by the efforts already made to bring about reunion.” [Who could help thinking, “We would not give a fig for such a leaf as this”?]
IV.
We will conclude the present notice by some account of the recent Conference at Bonn, in which the Old Catholics have given abundant proof that they are no freer from variation than are any other of the Protestant sects.
Desirous of strengthening their position by alliance with other forms of schism, Dr. von Döllinger invited to a congress representatives of the schismatic Greek and Russian Church, the English and American Episcopalians, and the Old Catholics. The assembly was called the “International Conference of the Union of the Christian Churches,” and proposed as its object an agreement on the fundamental points of doctrine professed by Christendom before its divisions, with a view “to restore by a reform as broad as possible the ancient Catholic Church of the West.”[204]
In this International Conference, which began on the 12th of August and ended on the 16th, the principal Orientals, who numbered about twenty in all, were two bishops from Roumania; an archimandrite from Belgrade; two archimandrites, Anastasiades and Bryennios, from Constantinople, sent by the patriarch as being well versed in all the questions which have divided and which still divide the Greek and Latin Churches; there were also present the Archbishop of Syra and Tino, Mgr. Licourgos, well known in England, and six professors, among whom were Profs. Osinnin and Janischef, the latter being the gentleman who at the last Conference was so severe on Anglican orders. The Protestant Episcopalians were the most numerous, being about a hundred in number; but they had only one bishop among them—namely, the Bishop of Gibraltar. Those of Winchester and Lincoln, who had also given their adherence to the movement, found themselves at the last moment unable to attend. The most notable person in the Anglican group was Dr. Liddon, Canon of S. Paul’s. Dean Howson, of Chester, was also one of its members; his “views” on nearly every point of church teaching being diametrically opposed to those of Canon Liddon. The same group contained an Unitarian minister from Chesterfield (Mr. Smith), and a “Primitive Methodist” (Mr. Booth, a chemist and druggist of the same town), who on a late occasion was voted for and returned at the head of the poll as an advocate of secular education. The Americans sent only three delegates, and the “Reformed Church” one—the Rev. Th. de Félice. The Old Catholics, all of whom were Germans, numbered eighteen or twenty, with Dr. von Döllinger and Bishop Reinkens at their head, supported by Herr Langen, “Altkatholik”; Herr Lange, Protestant, and Herr Lang, the least orthodox of all. Close to this little group figured seven or eight more German Protestants. In all, the Conference was composed of about one hundred and fifty persons, of whom the Times observes that, “slender as the gathering was, it was forced to display an almost ludicrous caution in drawing up such articles of faith as would command the assent of the whole assembly”—articles “so vague that they might be made to mean anything or nothing”; and, further, that the few English divines who went to Bonn to play at a council no more represent the Church of England than Dr. von Döllinger represents the Church of Rome, but spoke in the name of nothing but themselves. It suggests to them, with scornful irony, that “charity begins at home,” and that in the present distracted state of the Church of England, “when nothing keeps the various and conflicting ‘schools’ of clergy in the same communion but the secular forces of the Establishment, there is surely there a magnificent field for the exercise of even a genius of conciliation.”
A Bavarian Protestant clergyman informed the assembly that, as there was no chance of their coming to an agreement by means of discussion about dogma, they had far better throw over dogma altogether, and trust to brotherly love to bring about union. Dr. von Döllinger, however, said that if they all shared this opinion, they had better have stayed at home. One reverend gentleman proposed to settle the difference by examining where the fathers all harmonize, and abiding by the result (a task which, as a looker-on observed, would give all the theological acuteness and learning in the world abundant work for about half a dozen centuries); whereupon Bishop Reinkens nervously tried to draw the debaters into the cloud-land of love and unity of purpose, etc., etc. But here Canon Liddon hastened to the rescue with a carefully-prepared scheme for effecting the reconciliation of the East and West, which was apparently received by the Orientals with a tranquil indifference, and was chiefly remarkable for its adroit semblance of effecting much, while it in fact does nothing. Yielding here and there a phrase of no special meaning, it declared in the next clause that it would retain its own form of the Creed until the dispute should be settled by “a truly œcumenical council.” This announcement was the signal for an outburst of disapproval, questions, and objections. “What did Canon Liddon mean by an œcumenical council?” “An assent of the whole episcopate.” This was too much for Lord Plunkett, who exclaimed that he would never have come to the Conference if he had known that it meant to confine the Christian Church within the bounds of episcopacy. What, he should like to know, was to hinder Presbyterian ministers from being admitted equally with bishops to take part in an œcumenical council?
On this the canon obligingly agreed to substitute “the whole church” for the obnoxious term; but while the assembly hesitated, some paragon of caution suggested the phrase “sufficient authority.” However, this masterpiece of conciliation—for nobody could say what it meant—was rejected for “the whole church,” this latter being equally ambiguous to those who were adopting it. On this they agreed. As the Times’ correspondent observes, “Everybody will agree with everybody else when all deliberately use words for the purpose of concealing what they mean. When men differ from each other essentially, it is childish folly to try to unite them by an unmeaning phrase.”
The great question was that of the procession of the Holy Spirit. On this M. Osinnin was the chief speaker on behalf of the Greeks, and he seems to have challenged every interpretation of the Westerns, maintaining even that procedit was not an exact rendering of ἐκπορεύεται. However, a committee was appointed, composed of the Germans, two Orientals, an Englishman, and an American; and Dr. von Döllinger announced to the Conference on its last sitting that an agreement had been arrived at on all essential points. The Greeks were to retain their version of the Nicene Creed, and the Westerns theirs; the latter were to admit that the Filioque had been improperly introduced, and that both were to agree that, whichever version they used, their meaning was that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. With regard to the last point, however, the Orientals said that although they had personally no objection to the expression, yet they must decline to give any official assent to the article until it had been submitted to their synods or other competent authorities at home.
Judging from every account we have seen (all of them Protestant) of the Bonn Conference, it is evident that its members, in order to give an appearance of mutual agreement, subscribed to propositions which may be taken in various senses. The six articles agreed to by the committee were couched in the following terms:
“We believe with S. John Damascene, 1, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the beginning, the cause, and the fountain of Deity. 2. That the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son ἐκ τοῦ υίοῦ, and that for this reason there is in the Godhead only one beginning, one cause, through which all that is in the Godhead is produced. 3. That the Holy Spirit is the image of the Son, who is the image of the Father, proceeding from the Father and resting in the Son, as the outbeaming power of the latter. 4. The Holy Spirit is the personal bringing forth of the Father, but belonging to the Son, yet not of the Son, since he is the Spirit of the Godhead which speaks forth the Word. 5. The Holy Spirit forms the connecting link between the Father and the Son, and is united to the Father through the Son. 6. The Holy Spirit proceeds [or, as amended by Mr. Meyrick, ‘issues’] from the Father through the Son.”
It is the supposed denial of that unity of the αρχή, or originating principle in the Most Holy Trinity, which has always been the ground of the Greek objections to the Latin form of the Creed.[205] “The double Procession[206] of the Holy Ghost has always been believed in the church, only to a certain number of minds it remained for a time obscure, and thus there are to be found in the writings of the fathers passages in which mention is made rather of the procession from the Father than of the double procession from the Father and the Son, but yet none which, although not formally indicating, exclude or contradict it.
“In recurring to the expressions employed by the fathers, the members of the Bonn Conference have made choice of some of those which are vague and least explicit, instead of others which convey to the mind a clear idea. We are fully aware that, from a historical point of view, the question of the Filioque presents some difficulties. At Nicæa, in 325, the question of procession was not even mentioned, from the fact of its not having up to that time been raised. At Constantinople, in 381, in order to cut short discussions which were tending to result in a denial of the Trinity, the addition had been made to the Creed that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, without mention of the Son. At the Third Council of Toledo, in 589, the faith of the church in the double procession was clearly indicated by the addition of the Filioque—an addition, which was adopted by several particular councils, and which became general in France. The popes, however, foreseeing that the Orientals—always inclined to be ill-disposed towards the West—would make this addition an excuse for breaking off into schism, appeared at first but little in favor of a modification which, although expressing with greater accuracy the faith of the church, would furnish fresh fuel to theological disputes. It was a question of prudence. But when the truth was once placed in peril, they hesitated no longer. All the West chanted the Filioque; and the Greeks themselves, on repeated occasions, and notably at the Council of Florence in 1438, confessed the double procession to be an article of the Catholic faith.”
The Old Catholics of Bonn have thus made, as it seems to us, a retrogression on this question. Will this help to secure “the union of the Christian churches” which was the object of the Conference? In outward appearance possibly it may, because all the separated communities willingly join hand in hand against the true church of Christ; but in reality, no, for the Greeks will continue to reject the procession through the Son, as the Anglicans will continue to accept it; and we have no need to say that the Catholic Church will never cease to confess the double procession, and to sing: Qui ex Patre Filioque procedit.
With regard to other subjects discussed by the meeting at Bonn, we will briefly mention that Canon Liddon spoke against the invocation of saints, and Dr. von Döllinger talked of “making a clear sweep” of the doctrine of purgatory and indulgences; although, in stating the belief of his co-religionists, he was obliged to reaffirm the doctrine of purgatory in terms nearly equivalent to those of the Creed of Pope Pius IV. On this matter, whatever the Greeks might do, how many of the Anglicans would agree with the Old Catholics? Not only are the people who go to these conferences from England in no sense representatives of the body to which they belong, but even they themselves do not always abide by what they have agreed to.[207] Dean Howson, in a statement he read at the last Conference, put a Low-Church interpretation on the resolution of last year’s Conference about the Eucharist, which interpretation Canon Liddon immediately repudiated. Before Greek or German schismatics can unite with the Church of England, they will have to make up their minds as to which of at least four theological systems is Anglicanism, and then to get that admitted by the other three.
As to the validity of Anglican orders, Dr. von Döllinger appears to have considered it as resting on the certainty of Parker’s consecration, without going into the really more important questions of Barlow’s orders, or the sufficiency of form or intention, all of which are matters of such grave doubt as to be practically worthless to any one insisting upon the necessity of certainty that the communion to which he belongs possesses the apostolic succession.
We cannot conclude this sketch of the Bonn Conference without presenting our readers with a portrait of its chief, Dr. von Döllinger, drawn by a friendly hand—that of a French apostate priest, and one of the members of the Conference—which we reproduce from the pages of the Indépendance Belge.
“M. Döllinger,” he writes, “pronounced three long and eloquent discourses, marked by that seriousness and depth which so especially characterize his manner of speaking; but notwithstanding their merit, they have not resulted in any new conclusion. May not the blame be in some measure due to M. Overbeck, who … introduced into the discussion authorities posterior to the epoch of the separation of East and West, and mingled the question of the seven œcumenical councils with that of the Filioque?… At all events, both obscurity and coldness found their way into the debates.…
“Truly, this excellent M. Döllinger seems fated to go on from one contradiction to another, and to accept one year that which he refused in the preceding. For instance, in 1871, at the congress at Munich, he energetically opposed the organization of Old-Catholic parishes; afterwards he resigned himself to consent to this. In 1871 he desired the Old Catholics to confine themselves, after his example, to protesting against the excommunication they had incurred; but later on he is willing that their priests should take upon themselves the full exercise of their ministry. In 1871 and 1872 he wished to maintain the decisions of the Council of Trent; in 1873 he decided to abandon them, as well as the alleged œcumenicity of this council. In 1872 … he considered the attempts made to establish union between the Old Catholics and the Oriental churches as at any rate imprudent, if not even compromising. In 1874 he adopted the idea of which he had been so much afraid, and has since that time used every endeavor to promote the union of the churches. Last year a proposal [for a committee to examine on what points the earliest fathers harmonized] was rejected by M. Döllinger with a certain disdain, as impracticable and even childish. Now, however, we find him obliged to come back to it, at least in part.”[208] “It is by no means in reproach but in praise that we say this,” continues the writer, adding: “He accepted with the best grace possible, in one of the sittings of the Conference this year, the observations of Prof. Osinnin on the manner of studying texts; and when an erudite and venerable man like M. Döllinger knows how to correct himself with such humility, he does but raise himself in the esteem of sincere men.”
We would here venture to observe that when “so erudite” a man as Dr. von Döllinger, and one who is acknowledged by an entire sect as its most distinguished doctor and its leader, is so little sure of his doctrine that he is continually altering it, he and his followers are surely among the last people who ought to refuse to the Pope the infallibility which he in fact arrogates to himself in setting himself above an œcumenical council, as was that of the Vatican.
If the head is represented by one of the members as being in a chronic state of uncertainty, so are the members themselves represented by another. In the Church Review (Anglican) for Sept. 18, 1875, is an article entitled “Old-Catholic Prospects,” the greater part of which consists of one of the most abusive and malignant attacks against the Catholic Church, and in an especial manner against the Jesuits, that it has ever been our lot to come upon, even in the journal in which it appears. After informing his readers that “Jesuitism has led the Pope into the egregious heresy of proclaiming his own infallibility,” and that “the Spirit of Christ, who would not rest in the Vatican Council, where all was confusion, restraint, and secrecy, (!) has brooded over the humble (?) Conference of trusting hearts” at Bonn, etc., etc., this person, with a sudden sobriety, ventures on a closer inspection of the favored sect for which he had just profanely claimed the guidance of the Eternal Spirit, while denying it to the œcumenical council where the whole episcopate of the Catholic Church was assembled with its head, the Vicar of Christ.
This writer perceives that, “on the other hand, there are dangers in the future. At present,” he says, “the Old-Catholic body is kept in order by two master minds—Dr. Döllinger and Prof. Schulte. There are innumerable elements of discord” (he adds) “manifest enough, but they are as yet subdued by reverence for Dr. Döllinger, and beat down by the sledge-hammer will of the lay professor. If either of these pilots were removed, it is impossible to say into how many fragments Old Catholicism might split. Its bishop has no means of control over minds, as have Schulte and Döllinger. Michaelis is simply abusive and violent, ready to tear down with hands and teeth, but incompetent to build. Repulsive in personal appearance, his work is that of detraction, denunciation, and destruction. To human eyes the movement is no movement at all; it contains in itself no authority to hold its members personally in check; and yet, in spite of every disadvantage, the Old-Catholic society is the expression of true feeling,” etc., etc.
But we have dwelt long enough on this picture; let us in conclusion turn to a very different one. “Rome accepts no compromise; she dictates laws,” says M. Henri Vignaud,[209] contrasting her in no friendly spirit with the sect we have been contemplating, but yet in a spirit of calmness and candor.
And this, which he intends as a reproach, is in reality a commendation. It is the true church only which can accept no compromise when the truth is in question, of which she is the faithful depository; and whatever laws she dictates are to guard the truth, dogmatic or moral, issued in God’s name and with his authority.
M. Vignaud acknowledges this in the following remarkable manner: “That cannot be conciliated which is by nature irreconcilable. There can be no compromise with faith.… Either man forges to himself the truths which must illuminate his path, or he receives them from the Deity, in which case he must submit to accept the dogma of infallibility; for without this the whole theory falls. It is for this reason that the apostolic Roman Catholicity is so strong. Subordinating reason to faith, it does not carry within it the germ of any scepticism. There can be no transacting with it, and whoever goes out of it enters, whether he is aware of the fact or not, into rationalism, of which the logical outcome is the elimination of the divine action in human affairs.”[210]
It would be scarcely possible to show more clearly that there are but two logical positions in the world of intelligences—namely, Catholicity and scepticism, or, as it is called in the present day, positivism. The next step after refusing God all action in human affairs is to refuse him existence.
The Conference at Bonn, however little it may have done in other respects, has already produced one result which was far from the intention of its promoters. It has furnished an additional proof that there is one church only which is capable of resisting the invasion of scepticism and unbelief, and that this church is the Catholic and Roman.
“Either Jesus Christ never organized a church, or the Catholic is the church which he organized.”[211]