I have mentioned that the Protest of the French Bishops was handed in on March 4. That day was the beginning of the decisive crisis for the Opposition. The adhesion of the Germans was next awaited; it followed on the 6th March, and their example is pretty sure to be followed by other nations. The prospect of this danger, combined with the news from France, brought the long preconcerted resolve of the other side to sudden and immediate maturity. A few days before they had not intended to come forward with the decree yet. But now the great object was to cut short any further development on the part of the Opposition, and, if possible, to hinder the German Protest. The existing situation seems even to have influenced the form of the decree. For a moment the French middle party—Bonnechose, Lavigerie, etc.—had fancied a professedly moderate formula would be carried, but now the counsels of the most determined infallibilists prevailed, and the Pope, in great visible excitement, gave his assent to the decree in the form in which it has been published. This took place on March 5. The [pg 337] decree is dated March 6. With the view of stopping the German Protest, they did not wait for the next sitting to distribute the printed copies to the Fathers in Council as usual, but sent them direct to their houses. This was the answer to the protesting movement.
Considering that none of the former addresses of the minority—some twelve have been presented—have been taken the slightest notice of, there were of course the best reasons for anticipating no better fate for this last. But it has served another purpose. It was an intimation on the part of the signataries that their patience has reached its limits. The Protest did not indeed pledge them to any definite course of action. But it certainly imposes on them the duty of not tolerating anything further of the same kind, and not lending a hand to any decision affecting the whole future of the Church, under conditions they have themselves declared to imperil the authority and solidity of the Council. Either the Protest means nothing, and the signataries are as persuaded of its worthlessness and insincerity as their adversaries, or it means that they will not allow the great dogma to come on for discussion unless they obtain an assurance that no dogma shall be proclaimed by Pope or Council without a moral [pg 338] unanimity. The Curia have known how to give so emphatic an expression to their contempt for the Opposition, that even the sharpest and bitterest words would show less scorn and insolence than their act. By choosing the precise moment, when the minority declare that their conscience is troubled and in doubt about the legitimacy and result of the Council altogether, for bringing forward the very decree which has all along been the main cause of that doubt and trouble of conscience, they proclaim plainly and emphatically that they know the Opposition regards its own words as nothing but words, and that there is no earnest manly decision or religious conviction behind them. The conscientiousness of the Opposition, i.e. of the most distinguished French and German Bishops, could not be put to a prompter, a more crucial, or a more decisive test.
How will this test be borne? How will the doctrine of the Church and the honour of two nations be saved? The events of the next few days will decide.
Twenty-Ninth Letter.
Rome, March 15.—Livy relates that, in the battle at the Thrasimene Lake, the combatants on either side, Romans and Carthaginians, felt nothing of the earthquake under their feet. Here in Rome it is not so much the heat of the contest that makes the great body of Bishops unconscious of the moral earthquake which has begun to shake the Church, for there is no strife in the ranks of the majority, and their intercourse with the other party is very small. But every one thinks first of his own home and diocese, and the Italians, Spaniards and South Americans—nearly 500 prelates in all—have abundant cause for reckoning on absolute indifference and ease, on a passive and generally willing assent. In those countries it is only money questions, the contest about Church property, that stirs men's minds. How much is to be left to the clergy or taken from them, that is the question here. And the Bishops hope that papal [pg 340] infallibility will give some added force to the papal decisions on the inviolability of Church property.
Among the Opposition Bishops many are still in good spirits and full of confidence. “We are too many, and we represent too considerable portions of the Christian world, for our resistance to be ignored and our votes thrust aside,” is what many of them still assert. But the dominant party don't admit this. Antonelli says: “As soon as the Pope promulgates a decree with the assent of a great number of Bishops, he is infallible, and therefore a minority of opposing votes need not be attended to.” Naturally—for he, like other Italians, moves in the circle of papal infallibility which he, as advocate and financier, considers to belong to the “grandes idées de l'Église.” He would certainly, if asked, agree with the view of Cardinal Jacobazzi, about 1530, that the Pope could hold an Œcumenical Council with one Bishop only and issue an infallible decree. The state of the case is this: if the decree is published by the Pope with the assent of the majority of the Council, it is ruled that the gift of infallibility has all along resided in the Popes alone, and that the supreme authority in dogmas has only been derived to General Councils from them, whether by their taking part in [pg 341] the proceedings or confirming them. On this theory, even a very considerable number of opposing Bishops have no rights; the Pope could issue a dogmatic decree with the minority against the votes of the majority, for he and he alone would always be the organ of the Holy Ghost. Either no reply will be given to the complaints of the Bishops about the new order of business, any more than to their previous memorials, or they will be told that it is reserved to the Pope to settle whether a decree or Schema voted by a majority only shall be promulgated, since he, being alone infallible, can do what he pleases. In this sense the silence of Section 14 may well be interpreted.
All the talk about “inopportuneness” is now quite at an end. I had predicted that from the first. Any Bishop who wanted to discuss now, whether it was the right time for making the new dogma, would be laughed at rather than listened to. It has been decided by 500 Bishops with the Pope that the decree is opportune, and in saying that the question is about the truth of articles of faith, not their convenience, they have reason and history on their side.
There are said to be 100 Opinions or Objections of the Bishops about or against the Schema on the Church, [pg 342] already in the hands of the Commission of Faith. Among them is the memorial of an eminent German Bishop, whose bosom two souls seem to inhabit, and who therefore occupies the singular position at once of a friend of papal infallibility and an opponent of the definition and member of the Opposition. He read his paper in the meeting of German Bishops, and it was received with general approval, in spite of the pungent comments it contained on the new order of business in connection with the publication of the Schema on infallibility a few days later, as being a disgrace to the Council and the Church.