This memorable day has already become the subject of myths, and so it is no longer possible to define with certainty how many prelates were hurried into these passionate outbreaks. Some speak of 400, some of 200; others again say that the majority disapproved of the interruption. The excitement was followed next day by a profound stillness, which was not broken even when Haynald and the North American Bishop Whelan said very strong things. It seemed as if a sense of what they owed to the dignity of the Council and a feeling of shame had got the better of those turbulent spirits. But enough has occurred to show the world what spirit prevails here, and what sort of men they are who support infallibilism. That up to this time this Council does not deserve the respect of the Catholic world, is the least point; it is of more importance, that an internal split in the Church is more and more revealing itself. Henceforth it will no longer be possible to throw in the teeth of genuine Catholics their compromising or dishonourable solidarity with error and lies, for this has given place to an open and avowed [pg 389] opposition. On one side stands the small but morally powerful band of those who accept Strossmayer's noble words with head and heart, on the other a crowd of “abject”[71] fanatics and sycophants. This division is of supreme significance for the future course of the Council, because it strengthens and consolidates the minority in their harmony and determination, and obliges them to take a further step, as soon as the majority have made it unmistakably clear that they will not acknowledge and respect their claim to prevent a dogmatic definition.
The Presidents, by denouncing Strossmayer's speech but not the interruption of it, as it was their duty to do, gave evidence of an undisguised partiality, and justly incurred the suspicion of sympathizing with the shouters and not with the speaker, and thinking the proclamation of infallibility allowable without the moral unanimity of the Council. Accordingly a categorical demand was sent in to them to declare themselves on this point, and, in case of their giving no answer, another last step is reserved, which will have the nature of an ultimatum and will bring the Œcumenicity of the Vatican Council to a decisive test. And so it may be said that the Bishops of the minority have [pg 390] delayed but not wavered. The moment for a decisive move, which may test the existence of the Council, must come when a dogmatic decree has to be voted on. This crisis seemed to have arrived on Saturday, March 26, when the preamble of the Schema de Fide was to have been voted on. Various amendments had been proposed, one very important one by Bishop Meignan of Chalons, in which the Fathers were designated as definers of the decrees, and another equally important, implicitly containing infallibility, by Dreux-Brézé, Bishop of Moulins. Moreover this preamble contained the obnoxious passages immortalized by the glowing eloquence of Strossmayer. The antagonistic principles seemed to have reached their ultimate point. Votes were to be taken on dogmatic decrees before any agreement had been come to on the necessary conditions of such voting. At the last moment the Presidents resolved to evade the crisis. The very day before the sitting, Friday, March 25, Cardinal Bilio went to the authors of the amendments and persuaded them to withdraw them, and so on Saturday the text of the preamble was brought forward without any amendment. Nor was there any voting on that either, but they passed at once to the discussion on the first chapter of the Schema, [pg 391] in which the Primate of Hungary (Simor) made an adroit and conciliatory speech as advocate of the Commission on Faith. The debate then proceeded. By the eleventh article of the new order of business, every separate part of a Schema must be voted on before the next can come on for discussion.
It was a breach of this rule to pass on straight to the first chapter of the Schema, without having voted on the preamble. The Bishops asked themselves what this meant. Was it intended, by the withdrawal of the amendments and the abandonment of the discussion, to declare the preamble tacitly accepted? Was it intended to correct that objectionable passage? But the wording of the regolamento was too strict to allow of that being done except in the General Congregation. It seemed at any rate as if more prudent counsels had prevailed and it was intended to avert the dreaded contest on the main principle by concessions, so as to pass such decrees as were possible, that they may be unanimously promulgated in the Easter session. Thus time would be gained for loosening the compact phalanx of the Opposition, and at the same time getting it more deeply implicated in a compromising actual acceptance of the new order of business, in its form as well as its [pg 392] spirit. This double danger is always imminent, but in fact the Opposition as yet has suffered no loss.
We are at the end of the fourth month of the Council, and yet they have not dared to put one decree to the vote. The amendments, which were so obnoxious, have disappeared. The passage about unbelief being the offspring of Protestantism, which Strossmayer assailed, will perhaps be corrected, though in an irregular manner. The simple and sanguine spirits among the Opposition Bishops exult over a victory obtained. One of the most famous of them exclaimed, “It is clear the Holy Ghost is guiding the Council.”
Thirty-Third Letter.
Rome, March 30, 1870.—Yesterday (the 29th) the first voting in Council took place, on the preamble of the Schema de Fide. As I told you in my last letter, this preamble had been objected to by Strossmayer on account of the passage representing rationalism, indifferentism, the mythical theory of the Bible and unbelief as consequences of Protestantism. Several amendments had been proposed; two of them I have mentioned already, one introduced by Bishop Meignan of Chalons, substituting for a mere approbation of the decree a statement expressly guarding the right of the Episcopate to define,—the other, proposed by Dreux-Brézé, designed to smuggle in the infallibilist doctrine in a form requiring a sharpsighted eye to detect it.[72] Many [pg 394] infallibilists had reckoned on the victory of their dogma last week by means of this amendment. The Presidents had got some of the amendments withdrawn on Friday, the 25th, but these two they suffered to remain. They were equally sure that the first would be rejected and the second accepted by the majority; nay they counted on a far larger majority for the passage implying infallibility than for the rejection of Meignan's proposal, and hoped that this occasion would tend to bring to light unmistakably the power and extent of the infallibilist party.
At the beginning of the sitting of Saturday, the 26th, the exact regulations for the method of voting were first read out, and this was repeated a second time to preclude any risk of misapprehension. Yet it was announced immediately afterwards that there would be no voting, and this unexpected change was made during the Session and in presence of the Fathers. There had in fact been a kind of fermentation going on since Tuesday, the 22nd, when Strossmayer's affair occurred. The justice of his criticism on the passage about Protestantism [pg 395] and unbelief had become evident to many; at least fifteen Bishops made representations to the President about it as late as the Friday. According to a very widely-spread report, one of them was the Bishop of Orleans and the other the Bishop of Augsburg. But in spite of this, and of the prospect of a catastrophe, which the union of the Germans made imminent, they seem to have gone into Saturday's sitting firmly resolved not to yield. Yet a last attempt succeeded. After the mass, when all were assembled, a Bishop handed in a paper with a few lines to the Presidents, on which two of them at once left the Hall. Meanwhile the order of the day and the method of voting was read out. On their return the decision was announced; the preamble was withdrawn to be amended. It was an English Bishop whose paper produced such important results.[73]
On Monday, the 28th, the preamble was distributed in its revised form; Dreux-Brézé's objectionable amendment had disappeared, the passage about Protestantism was altered, and even the style was improved. Primate Simor, speaking in the name of the Commission, had already stated officially that the Bishops were at liberty to subscribe the decrees by definiens subscripsi, i.e., to use [pg 396] the ancient conciliar formula by which the Bishops used to describe themselves as defining the decrees. And thus the principle for which Meignan, Strossmayer, and Whelan had contended, was conceded. In this form and after these concessions the preamble could no longer be opposed.