Che son chiesti e ben pagati.
And who would not gladly pay a handsome sum to be armed with an infallible decision, which will at once crush all opposition and put down all adversaries? The golden age of papal chanceries and clerks lies not in the past, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries [pg 483] when, as a court prelate of the day tells us, the papal officials were daily employed in counting up gold pieces; it will first dawn on the day this truly golden doctrine of infallibility is promulgated. Were Cicero to re-appear in Rome now, he might repeat what he said in the Oration Pro Sextio, “Jucunda res plebi Romanæ, victus enim suppeditabatur large sine labore;” only he could no longer add, “Repugnabant boni, quod ab industriâ plebem ad desidiam avocari putabant.” For such “boni” no longer exist at Rome; rather is the account of Tacitus completely verified, “Securi omnes aliena subsidia expectant, sibi ignavi, aliis graves.”[93] Another thing is the large and incurable deficit in the Roman finances, which must increase every year. There is an annual expenditure of thirty million francs to cover, and the Peter's pence, which came to fourteen millions in 1861, have sunk to about eleven millions, notwithstanding the collections ordered to be made everywhere twice a year. No further help can be obtained from loans. M. de Corcelles, who has exposed this uncomfortable state of things with the best intentions, has no other remedy to propose but a great increase of Peter's pence. [pg 484] It is hoped in Rome that the different nations will contribute larger sums than before to the Pope, now he is become infallible and thus more closely united to Deity. But they reckon much more on the enormous centralization and all-embracing monopoly of all possible dispensations, indulgences, consultations, canonizations, and decisions on moral, liturgical, political, dogmatic and disciplinary questions. They remember the treasures amassed in the temple of Delphi in ancient days, and expect the new oracle to be erected on the Tiber to attract, like a vast magnet, not iron but gold and silver.
Neither Pius nor the Monsignori and other curialists think it conceivable that the minority will hold out to the last in their opposition. They reckon securely on this fraction of the Council being broken up by fear and discouragement, and that few if any of them will let matters come to a non placet in the next public Session, and thus openly confess themselves unwillingly subdued. To those Roman clerics, who are accustomed to look at religious questions only as the ladder by which to mount to an agreeable life and good income, courage and steadfastness in the confession of ascertained truth is something strange and [pg 485] inconceivable. Fear and hope, calculations of loss and gain, will finally decide the Bishops' votes—that is the firm persuasion of every Italian member of the Curia. So much is certain: if on the very eve of the Solemn Session, when the new dogma is to be promulgated, it was certainly known that eighty Bishops would say Non placet next day, the Session would be countermanded and the Church saved. The first question for us Germans is of course whether we can trust our Bishops? Will they abide steadfast? Or will they at last sacrifice themselves and the truth, their clergy and their flocks? As to what immediately concerns the clergy, this is not strictly a question of doctrine belonging to the sphere of religious faith and mystery, where one might make a willing submission of mind to a decree held to be the voice of divine revelation; it is a pure question of historical facts to be determined by historical evidence, of points on which every educated man capable of judging evidence, whether a Catholic or not, can form an independent judgment. Every one with eyes to see can answer with absolute certainty these three questions, on which the whole matter hinges—
1. Is it true that the admonition to Peter to confirm [pg 486] his brethren has always and in the whole Church been understood of an infallibility promised to all Bishops of Rome?
2. Is it true that this infallibility of all Popes has been taught and witnessed to in the whole Church through all ages down to our own day?
3. Is it true that no Pope has ever taught a doctrine rejected by the Church, and that no Pope has ever been condemned by the Church for his doctrine?
It is absolutely impossible for any one, who feels compelled by his own investigation of history to answer these three questions in the negative, to submit inwardly to the opposite decision of the Council, whatever external homage he may pay to it. Ten Councils will not be able to shake him for a moment in his conviction; he will only say, “pur si muove.” His doubts will be turned, not against what is historically certain but against the Council; he will call in question the real freedom, the intrinsic claims and authority of this Council, and—to go no further—the two successive regulations for conducting business supply in this case abundant materials for the question. And it is just as impossible for a man who has a notion of historical certainty to believe in any one else's mind being changed by the [pg 487] decree of an assembly of Bishops. If a well-educated man told me he had just come to the conclusion that Julius Cæsar never lived, I should not believe in his conviction but in some disorder of his mental faculties, and should advise him to undergo medical treatment. And so, if the new dogma is proclaimed and the clergy submit either tacitly or expressly, no cultivated man in all Germany will believe that the thousands of scientifically trained men who have had a German education have suddenly changed their convictions, because some hundreds of Italians and Spaniards have chosen to decree away the testimony of history. “Facts are stubborn things.” Public opinion will recognise only two alternatives in the case of those who submit, ignorance or dissimulation and falsehood. And the effect will be an immeasurable moral degradation of the Catholic clergy and a corresponding decay of their influence.
This consideration will not of course make the slightest impression on the majority of the Council, or even on those Germans who belong to it. We have psychological riddles to deal with here. How, e.g., are we to explain the fact that a man, who has taught the very opposite doctrine in a manual of instruction for [pg 488] the higher class of colleges published seventeen years ago, and has let it pass through eleven or twelve editions without a word being altered, is now in Rome one of the most zealous promoters of the definition, and is constantly affirming that all the clergy except a few professors will readily submit?