Letters From Rome on the Council

by Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger

Twenty-Fifth Letter.

Rome, Feb. 24, 1870.—Since my last letter, the Council, whose movements for a long time were like those of a tortoise, has made gigantic strides. The Goddess of Insolence (ὕβρις) rules here just as the Greek tragedians—especially Sophocles—describe her. All rumours of an adjournment of the Council were partly well-meant wishes of several Bishops, partly produced by the fact of the Governments—the French in particular—earnestly desiring it. Here in Rome no one of the Vatican party has thought of it for a moment. All who know the real state of things and persons here must be convinced that the Council will certainly be gone through with to the end, either completely—in full accordance with the well-calculated plan sketched out during the last two years for partly Jesuitizing and partly Romanizing everything in the Church, in theology and in the religious life, and carrying [pg 299] out centralization to the utmost extent—or that, at least, there will be no adjournment till the most precious jewel hitherto wanting to the Papal tiara, dogmatic Infallibility, has been inserted there. Then, and not till then, will the Curia have obtained the irresistible talisman which opens every gate, fulfils every desire and brings every treasure. That dogma is Aladdin's magic lamp for Rome.

There are three powers who wish to gain by the Council, and who decide on its proceedings and destiny—the Pope, the Jesuits, and the Curia. Among the members of the Curia there are indeed very few who have not long since made their calculations, with that appreciation of the realities of life which is peculiar to the Italian nation, and who do not know as well what a dogma is worth for Rome as people know what a man is “worth” in England. Every assailant of the dogma is their personal enemy; he is simply emptying their gold-mine. Nor is the doctrine less valuable and indispensable to the Jesuits, at this day more than before, since they no longer have to fear the rivalry of any other Order in making capital out of the prerogative of Infallibility.

As regards the Pope, he has constantly changed in [pg 300] his official life and vacillated from one side to the other, and those about him say that in many, nay in most, things he follows capricious and momentary impulses. But Pius is inflexible and immutable where he fancies he is a divine instrument and has received a divine mission, and that is the case here. He is persuaded that he is ordained by the special favour of God to be the most glorious of all Popes. Among his predecessors there are three to whom he seems to me to have a great likeness. I should say that he had chosen them as models, if I could assume that he knew their history. But Pius has never occupied himself with the past; he is purely the child of his age, and lives only in the present. The three are Innocent x., Clement xi., and above all Paul iv. He has in common with the first his strong experimental belief in his own personal inspiration without any theological culture. He resembles the second in giving himself up to the theological guidance of the Jesuits, and in his highhanded treatment of such Bishops as dare to have an opinion of their own. And just as Paul iv. used to boast that hereafter men would be obliged to tell of the lofty plans conceived by an aged Italian who, as being near his death, might have rested and bewailed [pg 301] his sins,[56] so does Pius too desire in his old age to make great though peaceful conquests, and to establish the Papal sovereignty as a “rocher du bronze,” to borrow the phrase of another autocrat. With the help of the Council he hopes to render the universal dominion of the Papacy an impregnable fortress, by means of new walls, bastions and batteries, and to hand it down to his successors as an omnipresent and omnipotent power. He believes that the thoughts and desires of his soul are in reality the counsels of God made known to him by inspiration, and that if by following these counsels he accomplishes the deliverance of the Church and of mankind, it is the Hand of God which uses him as an instrument. And why should not Pius see a sign of his election to high and extraordinary destinies in the circumstance of his having already sat longer than any of his 256 predecessors, even Pius vi., on the apostolic throne? A history of his Pontificate has already been written in this sense by one of the Jesuits of the Civiltà, and Pius has the chapters read to him one after the other. I am told that a chapter on the Council is already written. The French Court historiographer, Vertot, who had to describe a Belgian campaign including [pg 302] the siege of a fortress, wrote the history of the siege before it was finished, and said quietly, “Mon siège est fait.” And thus the Jesuit historian of the Pope can already say, “Mon Concile est fait.” And in one sense the Council is indeed finished since the 23d inst.—finished by the new order of business.

If the merit of this clever invention is primarily due to the Cardinals on the Commission for revising motions, and the Jesuits who were probably taken into partnership with them, its introduction must be counted among the most eventful acts of Pius, past or future. If it is carried out and adhered to without opposition, it is unquestionably the most conspicuous of all the victories of the Pope. Margotti, the editor of the Unita Cattolica, will hardly be able to find words to do justice to the great day, February 23, 1870, with its boundless wealth of happy results, in the next edition of his work, Le Vittorie della Santa Chiesa sotto Pio IX. A Te Deum will have to be sung in every Jesuit College of the old and new world.

Great anxiety was felt beforehand about the new order of business. It was said that the Sessions were to be something more than mere votings, that there would still be speeches made, that the written memorials [pg 303] would not be so directly thrown into the waste-paper basket, but would be considered and—if they approved of them—made use of by the Commission. But everything will be settled by the Commission and by a simple majority of votes; the minority may talk, but only so long as the Commission and the majority choose to listen to them. Væ victis! The Council belongs to the Italians and the Spaniards, who are in close alliance with them: from henceforth to wish to reject any Schema or decree brought before it, is like wanting to stop water from flowing downwards. All the proposals of the minority for a change in the order of business have been left unnoticed. It had already been resolved that a debate could only be cut short by the votes of a majority of two-thirds, but this has been reversed. What will the French and Germans do now? This is naturally the question which trembles on every lip and is written on every countenance. Will they simply acquiesce in the fait accompli with a good grace, and obediently assume the rôle of the Greek Chorus in the drama of the Council—simply to reflect and moralize, but take no active part in the proceedings? The next few days will show. So much every one perceives; the order of business is the noose which, once fixed on the minority, [pg 304] cannot be got out of, and will only be drawn tighter and tighter till it strangles them at last. It is clear that the majority has the hide of a rhinoceros, from which every arrow shot by the Opposition, however skilfully aimed, glances off harmless. Where are now the wise and foolish virgins? “Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out,” must the Germans, French, and Spanish say henceforth to the Italians, and the answer will be more friendly than in the Gospel: “You need not buy any more oil; come over to our side and be content to use our store.”

It is hardly necessary to observe to your readers that everything which takes place here turns on the question of Infallibility. The new order of business is merely the outer covering for this kernel. “With Infallibility we have all we desire or need,” say the Italians, if that is gained we may “let the nigger go,” and can dispense with his services for the future. But for German theologians, whose hair stands on end at the new order of business and all it involves, I can find no other consolation than what they may derive from the following Persian tale. An English ambassador sent to Persia—I think it was Morier—paid the usual visits at Teheran, and was introduced [pg 305] to the younger son of the Shah. He found him groping about blindfold in the room, and feeling for the furniture in it. The Prince explained this strange business by telling him that it was the rule for the younger sons to be blinded at the death of the Shah, in order to make them incapable of succeeding, and that he wished to prepare and practise himself beforehand for the fate impending over him. “Go ye, and do likewise.”

If the German theologians should still have courage to present an address to their Bishops, the subscription might be, “Morituri vos salutant.” Why have these theologians come to such utter discomfiture?

Here one already hears shouts of triumph; the day of retribution will soon come for those proud Transalpines, when they must bend their necks under the Caudine yoke of the new dogma, or await suspension, degradation, etc.

If German theology had long been decried and hated by the Curia and the Italian Jesuits, and if the Civiltà gladly took occasion to pour out its wrath on the scholars of “foggy” Germany, you may conceive the extent this fury has reached in Italian clerical papers and curialist circles, since it has become known that [pg 306] the most influential theologians have pronounced against Infallibility, and that not one—with the exception of a couple of pupils of the Jesuits—has said a word to defend it. It is well that one of the most distinguished Italians, a man whose devotion to the Church is unimpeached even in Rome, and whom the Pope has commissioned to write a history of the Council—I mean Cantù—has some years ago confessed and censured this characteristic of his countrymen. “To call laziness superiority, and evade the trouble of examining questions by depreciating them, this is only too much the habit of Italians, and then they mock at the ponderous, long-winded, hair-splitting Germans. But we must endure the reproach of negligence and thoughtlessness from the Germans, while we blindly accept falsified documents.”[57]