Sixthly, Whenever a law of the Church conflicts with a law of the State, the latter must give way; and whoever maintains that anything forbidden by the law of the Church is allowed by the law of the State incurs anathema.—(Can. 20.)
These ecclesiastical maxims, which deprive the laws of the land of all force and of all obligation for the conscience, are partly those already in existence, partly those any Pope may issue hereafter whenever it pleases him.
Thus marriage, primary instruction and education, the toleration or suppression of dissenting communions, the jurisdiction and privileges of the clergy, the acquisition and control of ecclesiastical property, oaths, wills, and the whole of the unlimited domain taken into her [pg 271] hands and legislated for by the mediæval Church, and in short whatever comes under the head of permissible or forbidden—this, en masse, forms the sphere of the Pope's jurisdiction, wherein he rules with absolute and sovereign power, and puts down all opposition by coercion and punishments. Truly this reminds one of the Prophet's words, “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are fallen, and we will plant cedars in their place.” Since Paul iv.'s time, 260 years ago, no Pope has so openly and undisguisedly spoken out the thoughts and wishes of his heart. The kernel of the doctrine, then, is this: there is on earth one sole lord and master over kings and subjects alike, over nations as over families and individuals, against whom no right or privilege avails, and whose slaves all are. The only difference is that some, viz., the Bishops, can on their side rule and lord it in their dioceses as upper servants in the name of the Church or the Pope, so far as their master does not interfere to stop them, while all others are mere slaves and nothing more. This obviously goes far beyond the Syllabus. This is the Bull Unam Sanctam modernized and, so to speak, translated out of military language (about the two swords) into political and juristic [pg 272] terms. Innocent iii., Innocent iv., and Boniface viii., said that, “ratione peccati,” they could interfere anywhere, and bring any affair or process before their Court, for it belongs to the Pope to decide what is sin and to punish it. What is said here comes to the same thing, that the Pope determines what is or is not allowable, and acts accordingly.
It is a stately edifice of universal Papal dominion whereon the keystone of Infallibility, which bears and upholds the whole, is to be placed, so that every command and ordinance of the Pope, even in political matters, is infallible, as the Jesuit Schrader has so clearly and forcibly pointed out. And to this must be added further (according to Canon 9) a vast and infinite domain for infallible decisions, viz., “all that is requisite for preserving the revealed deposit in its integrity.” Who can specify what is included here, or fix any limits to it?
Two other links in this world-embracing chain are not visible, which are yet necessary for its coherence. The Interdict, which robbed whole populations of divine service and sacraments, must be restored in its ancient splendour, and the Pope's right to dispense from oaths must be distinctly asserted.
The Fathers of the Council have daily opportunities of feeling how useful the temporal power is for the plenary jurisdiction of the Papacy. Were they assembled anywhere else than in Rome, there would be the possibility of holding a real Synod in the sense and manner of the Ancient Church, while the so-called Synod in Rome is in fact the mere painted corpse of a Council laid out on a bed of state.
Soul and freedom are wanting. On any other soil than that of the States of the Church, the Bishops could assemble in a room where they could debate and understand one another, while they are now forcibly detained in the Council Hall. They could come to a mutual understanding by means of the press, by printed proposals or statements of opinion, weekly reports and the like. Anywhere else such treatment as the Patriarch of Babylon experienced would have been impossible; he has now taken refuge under the protection of the French Embassy. But here the King of Rome lends to the Pontiff the means of enforcing unreserved submission, and it is like the lion's den, “vestigia nulla retrorsum.”
Many a French Bishop has shared the experiences of the famous Lamennais thirty-eight years ago, who [pg 274] came to the Eternal City full of ardent devotion to the Chair of Peter and firm faith in its infallibility, and on his departure, after a long stay there, wrote to a friend, “Restait Rome; j'y suis allé et j'ai vu là la plus infame cloaque qui ait jamais souillé les regards humains.” I will not transcribe what follows, though it was lately read to me by a Bishop. It may be seen in his Letters.[54] But this I can testify: there are men in the French Episcopate who used to be zealous champions of the temporal power, but who would now bear its loss with great equanimity, if only the calamity of the decrees chartered for the Council could be thereby warded off.
Yesterday, February 14, the ice was broken at last. The Bishop of Belley for the first time mentioned the Infallibility doctrine in the General Congregation, observing that the Council should at once proclaim it and go home, as that was the only object they had been summoned to Rome for.
Meanwhile an instructive calculation has been made of the proportion in which the different nations and Catholic populations are represented in the Council. It appears from them that the Catholics of North Germany [pg 275] have one vote in Council for every 810,000 souls, and those of the States of the Church for every 1200, so that one Roman outweighs 60 Germans. It has been further ascertained that the 512 Infallibilists in the Council represent a population of 73,011,000 souls, while only 94 opponents of the dogma represent 46,278,000. With the Infallibilists one vote represents 142,570, with the Opposition, 492,320 souls.