Postscript.—I have just been put in a position to tell you something of the contents of the episcopal protest against the new order of business. In respect to the thirteenth article it is objected, that in former Councils a method of voting simply designed to secure expedition (“eo expedito modo”) has never been adopted—a form “quo nullus certe alius gravitati et maturitati deliberationis, imo et ipsi libertati minus favet.” It is added, that even in political assemblies the right is [pg 328] granted of demanding that votes should be taken by calling names. It is not rapidity of decision, but prudence and the utmost possible security, that is the important point. “Quod in Concilio maxime refert, non est ut cito res expediatur, sed ut caute et tutissime peragatur. Longe satius est paucas quæstiones expendere et prudenter solvere, quam multo numerosiores proponere et decurtatis discussionibus suffragiisque præcipitanter collectis res tam graves irrevocabiliter definire.” The document goes on to protest against the regulation for first counting the votes of those who assent to the proposed decrees, and not till after this has been done of those who reject them. This is quite wrong; “Cum in quæstionibus fidei tutius sit sistere et definitionem differre, quam temere progredi, ideo conditio dissentientium favorabilior esse debet, et ipsis prioritas in dandis suffragiis excedenda esset.” The memorialists further desire that, in the definition of a dogma or the establishment of a canon armed with anathema, the votes should be orally given by Placet and Non placet, not by rising and sitting down. And then great stress is laid on the point of dogmas not being decided by a mere majority but only by moral unanimity, so that any decree opposed by a considerable number of [pg 329] Bishops may be held to be rejected. The Bishops say, “Cum dogmata constent Ecclesiarum consensu, ut ait Bellarminus,” moral unanimity is necessary. There is a further demand or request of the Bishops, “ut suffragia patrum non super toto Schemate et quasi in globo, sed seorsim super unâquâque definitione, super unoquoque Canone, per Placet aut Non placet sigillatim rogentur et edantur.” The Fathers should also be free, according to the Pope's previous arrangement, to give in their remarks in writing. But the following is the most important passage:—“Id autem quod spectat ad numerum suffragiorum requisitum ut quæstiones dogmaticæ solvantur, in quo quidem rei summa est et totius Concilii cardo vertitur, ita grave est, ut nonnisi admitteretur, quod reverenter et enixe postulamus, conscientia nostra intolerabili pondere premeretur. Timeremus, ne Concilii Œcumenici character in dubium vocari posset, ne ansa hostibus præberetur, S. Sedem et Concilium impetendi, sicque demum apud populum Christianum hujus Concilii auctoritas labefactaretur, ‘quasi veritate et libertate caruerit,’ quod his turbatissimis temporibus tanta esset calamitas ut pejor excogitari non possit.” On this we might however observe with all respect, that a greater calamity is quite conceivable, [pg 330] and that is the sanctioning of a doctrine exegetically, dogmatically and historically untenable by an assembly calling itself a Council. The Protest ends with these words:—“Spe freti futurum ut hæ nostræ gravissimæ animadversiones ab Eminentiis vestris benevolenti animo accipiantur, earumque, quae par est, ratio habeatur, nosmet profitemur: Eminentiarum Vestrarum addictissimos et obsequentissimos famulos.”
Twenty-Eighth Letter.
Rome, March 9.—The decree on infallibility appeared on Sunday, March 6, just a year after the project was announced in the Allgemeine Zeitung. The Bishops knew three weeks before, through an indiscretion of Perrone's, that it was drawn up. But its extreme and unqualified form will have taken many by surprise. Men could hardly believe that the Roman See would publicly confess so huge an excess of ambition, and itself court a reproach of which the Catholic Church may indeed be cleared, but the Papacy never. The circumstances preceding the appearance of this composition, which will be a phenomenon in the world's history, are hardly less remarkable and significant than the text itself.
It was decided on February 21, at a meeting of the French Cabinet presided over by the Emperor, to send a special ambassador to the Council. A despatch [pg 332] to this effect was forwarded to Rome the same evening. The notion so greatly displeased the Marquis de Banneville, that he delayed carrying out his instructions and sent word of his anxieties to Paris. Here he said quite openly that he could remain no longer, and must go to Paris to get the decision reversed. He contented himself however with sending an attaché to France. At last, on March 1, the design of the French Government was communicated to Cardinal Antonelli, and three days afterwards, on March 4, the Marquis de Banneville came to receive his reply. The Cardinal was unfortunately prevented by an attack of gout from seeing him. And thus the answer has been given in the unexpected form of a dogmatic decree.
Not less remarkable is the coincidence of the decree with the publication of Count Daru's Letter. Its publication, which proclaims to the world the policy of the French Cabinet towards the Court of Rome, has excited the greater sensation in Rome, as it could not have emanated from any ordinary correspondent. The letter was only known to the English Government, and there was no copy in England except in the hands of the Ministry. It cannot be supposed that it would be offered for publication without the connivance of [pg 333] Count Daru himself, and this conjecture is confirmed by the tone of the Français, Count Daru's organ, on the subject. It was open to it to disavow the letters, which are addressed to a private individual, and not, as the Times incorrectly stated, to a French prelate. But instead of seizing on this loophole, the Français says that the private letters of the minister contain nothing different from his public despatches. What gives these things the greater weight is that they imply the probability of interpellations, in Paris as well as in Florence, and the ministry must be presumed to be determined to persist to the end in the path it has entered upon.
But the clearest light is thrown on the act of the Curia, when we look at its relation to the simultaneous movement among the minority.
The new order of business seemed to many calculated to bring the internal split in the Opposition to the surface. To accept it was equivalent to accepting the dogma itself. To reject it was to intimate the resolution not to surrender the rights of Bishops, of whom St. Thomas says, “Obtinent in Ecclesiâ summum potestatem,” and therefore not to recognise the Pope's infallibility. But it has just been explained in the most [pg 334] emphatic terms in Father Gratry's Letters, which are in the hands of all the Bishops, how difficult it is to coquet with the Jesuit dogmas without falling into the old Jesuit system of morality. However, this much desired division only occurred on a very limited scale.
The Opposition resolved to protest against the order of business. The Protest is said to have been drawn up by skilful French hands, and was subscribed on March 4 by thirty-four French Bishops, and another, signed by almost the same number of German Bishops, was presented to the Legates two days later. A very high estimate is formed of its importance here. According to the Roman view the majority of the Council has no better right than the minority to proclaim a new dogma, for the right belongs to the Pope alone, who can just as well elevate the teaching of the minority as of the majority into a dogma. And therefore, in maintaining that no dogma can be defined without the universal consent—the moral unanimity—of the Episcopate, and that a Council which receives a dogma without that consent is liable to be rejected as not free and Œcumenical, the Bishops are not only protesting against the threatened encroachments of the majority, but just as much against the claim of the Pope to define dogmas by his own [pg 335] authority. I have lately cited the words of Pius iv. on that point. In putting forward and defending their right and qualification to be witnesses of the faith and representatives of their Churches, the Bishops are not only vindicating a position very difficult to assail, but at the same time shaking the principal foundation of the present Council. In the first place the minority represent relatively far greater numbers of Catholics than their adversaries, and in the next place the bulk of the majority is artificially swelled by a crowd of prelates who really represent no Churches and only bear witness for themselves. That many of them have been simply created to give their services at this Council, is notorious. According to the official Roman register, fifty-one Bishops in partibus were named between June 1866 and August 1869. By every one of these creations the Pope has neutralized by his own plenary power the vote of an Archbishop of Paris or Vienna; in other words, he has put some favourite Roman monsignore on an equality, as regards the decisions of the Council, with a venerable Church containing more than a million of souls. The presence of such elements in the assembly gives grounds for doubting whether it can be regarded as a real representation [pg 336] of the whole Church, and so this declaration of the Bishops is like knocking a nail in the coffin of the Œcumenical Council.