Thus does Pius lay bare the egotism and cowardice of the Bishops who demur to infallibility. They are afraid of conflicts with the modern State, which is the product of the Revolution, and are loath to alienate the educated classes of the Church, which is mere popularity-hunting. Pius is in earnest in what he says about humility, and applies it to himself as well as others; he frequently says that he too is a [pg 422] poor sinner, who has his place in the great hospital of diseased and sinful humanity, but with this difference,—in all other mortals sin begets error as its necessary consequence, but not with him. He is indeed a sinner, but in his case sin, through a special miracle, has no influence on the intellect, and when he feels his own infallibility, it would be presumptuous to dream of any self-exaltation or flattering illusion.
It is of course understood that other and very various methods are also being made use of to diminish the numbers of the Opposition. Leave of absence is most readily accorded to them. It has become visible now to the blindest eye that the infallibilist dogma is the real object of the Council, for which alone it was convoked. The great aim hitherto in all sessions and votings has been gradually and imperceptibly to bring the Bishops to the point of practically accepting the decisions of the majority on questions of faith, and to get them to let the critical moment for protest and refusal of participation slip by unused. By this means precedents are created, and when the crucial question of infallibility comes on, they will be told that they have already virtually conceded the principle, and it is now too late to deny it.
The Governments have made it quite clear that it is only encroachments on the secular and civil domain, such as the relations of Church and State, and especially the twenty-one canons, which give them any anxiety, and have led them to make representations and protests. They disclaim all intention of meddling with questions of pure dogma, and therefore leave untouched the infallibilist theory, which Count Beust regards as a mere internal question of Church doctrine. This admission breaks off the point of all diplomatic arrows shot from Vienna, Paris, or anywhere else, for with infallibility the Curia possesses all it wants for the attainment of its ends and the extension of its power over the social and political domain. Prévost-Paradol justly remarked the other day in the Journal des Débats, “The ministers who are so ready to let the infallibilist dogma slip through their fingers seem not to consider that it comprehends everything (qu'il emporte tout). If the Pope is declared infallible to-day, he was infallible yesterday, and, if so, the Syllabus has precisely the same force and validity as if the Council had confirmed it.” So it is in truth, and moreover the Bulls and decisions of former Popes, which claim absolute dominion over the State, become inviolable articles [pg 424] of faith. And then again it seems to pacify the Governments that Antonelli assures them he and his master are merely concerned with the theory, and have no intention of at once putting the new articles of faith into practice, summoning kings before their tribunal, overturning constitutions, and abrogating laws. On the contrary the Pope, if his mercy is appealed to, will look favourably on much belonging to the present civilisation and order of the State; only of course all this must be regarded as a mere indulgence which might at any moment be withdrawn. Meanwhile at Rome the disclaimers of the Governments of any desire to meddle with doctrine are sedulously made capital out of for working on the Bishops. They are referred to in proof that the whole lay world has nothing to say to this purely dogmatic question, and that the Governments themselves treat the matter as politically innocuous, and the Bishops are admonished to lay aside their foolish resistance to a doctrine which with the power of the Pope will also so mightily increase their own.
Thirty-Sixth Letter.
Rome, April 13, 1870.—The Schema de Fide has occupied the Fathers in almost daily sessions, and the Solemn Session for the public voting and promulgation of the decrees finally completed, which was first fixed for Easter Monday, has been postponed to Low Sunday. The number of amendments proposed gives the Bishops a great deal of labour, if the handling of these matters in the Council Hall is to be called a labour. What takes place is this: the Bishop who wishes to propose an alteration in the text of the Jesuit draft ascends the tribune and delivers an address, which as a rule the majority of his auditors cannot follow. Then he hands the President his motion, which however is not read, so that the Council gain their first knowledge of it through the Deputation, who have the amendments sent in to them—which of course are often very contradictory—printed and distributed [pg 426] in the order of precedence. Thus, e.g.,—there were no less than 122 amendments proposed on the third chapter of the Schema, occupying 44 folio pages. They began to be distributed on April 3, and most of the Bishops only got their copies on the 4th, when there was a sitting of the Council, and on the 5th the voting was to take place, so that most of them had no time even for a cursory reading: still less was it possible to give explanations or attempt to come to any oral understanding or comparison of the various views. Meanwhile the discipline of the majority continues to be admirable; they always know exactly how they are to vote, and obey the signal given as one man. Nor has there been any repetition of the wild paroxysm of passion on March 22, which turned the Hall into a bear-garden of demoniacs while Strossmayer was speaking. Many who were most conspicuous that day in their screams and gesticulations, seem to have felt ashamed since, and have no doubt also received a hint that such excesses of zeal may injure the good cause. But however well organized and docile the majority show themselves, the defects of the order of business, combined with the bad qualities of the Hall, become very perceptible, and the result of the many votings is a [pg 427] confusion into which the Deputation tries afterwards to impart some sort of order.
Strossmayer has made a representation to the Legates; at the sitting of March 22 he was called “a damnable heretic,” without having given any intelligible occasion for it, and he expects and demands a public reparation for this injury in whatever way they deem most suitable. What is still more important, his conscience has constrained him to put the question from the tribune, whether articles of faith are really to be decided by mere majorities according to the 13th article of the new order of business. When he expressed his conviction that moral unanimity was essential in such cases, he was interrupted by a frightful tumult and could not say any more.
The Legates have given no answer either to the three representations of the Bishops about the second order of business with its principle of majorities, or to Strossmayer's complaint. But on April 1 an admonition of President de Angelis was again read, directing the Fathers to be as brief as possible in their speeches, that they might not produce disgust (nausea) in the assembly by their prolixity or digressions, in which case they had only themselves to thank for the marks [pg 428] of displeasure elicited. This was commonly understood as an indirect answer to Strossmayer; he had produced “nausea” in the prelates, and had therefore no cause for complaint. That was rather too much for the minority, and their international Committee of about 30 Bishops resolved on presenting a common protest to the Presidents against the frequent interruptions and the wording of the admonition. Meanwhile Haynald was not interrupted, when he declared his agreement with Strossmayer. And it is worth notice that the Presidents have not as yet availed themselves of the right assigned them by the Pope to cut short the discussion, and get the speeches of the Opposition put an end to by the vote of the majority. There was nothing certainly in the subjects last under discussion to tempt them to do so. The Bishop of Rottenburg had proposed that the decree should contain no anathemas on persons but only on doctrines; the Germans and about six French Bishops agreed with him, but the rest would hear nothing of it. But it was significant that the most extreme section of infallibilists urged that in mentioning the Church in the Schema de Fide, the predicate “Romana” should alone be affixed to Church, with a perfectly correct instinct that the complete [pg 429] Romanizing of the Church which they desiderate must lead to the annihilation of its Catholicity, and that the particular predicate necessarily excludes the universal. But they did not carry their point.
It is the universally prevalent feeling that all these detailed discussions and motions are mere preliminary skirmishes in which both parties practise themselves for the great contest and the decisive blow to be struck when the Schema de Ecclesiâ comes on. The chief aim is to ascertain how far the minority can be induced to go, how much they will put up with, and what can be wrung from them by surprise or by quiet working on them individually. Public scenes, solemn protests before the whole world, are what the Legates want at any price to avoid. When the infallibilist dogma was to have been carried by sudden acclamation on St. Joseph's Day, four American Bishops handed in a paper declaring that, if this were done, they would immediately leave the Council and announce the reasons of their departure as soon as they got back to their dioceses. That took effect.