And now for the first time the excellence of the Council Hall is proved, and the wise foresight of the Curia in choosing it and adhering to it with the firmness of old Romans in spite of all entreaties and representations to the contrary. It is precisely adapted to the present tactics of the majority. The Bishops will occupy a number of sittings with speeches, generally read, seldom spoken, which four-fifths of their auditors, as before, neither understand nor wish to understand. For the majority know everything already, they are [pg 529] armed with a triple breastplate, and have their short and powerful watchword, which renders them invincible. Those who frequent infallibilist circles here may hear St. Augustine's saying quoted ten times a day, “Roma locuta est, causa finita est,” or St. Ambrose's “Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia,” or that St. Irenæus said every one must necessarily agree with the Roman Church. These are mere fables; Augustine and Irenæus said nothing of the kind, but something quite different; and while Ambrose did indeed use the words, it was without the remotest reference to the Pope and his infallibility. But the words are quoted in a hundred books and pamphlets, and are used like theological revolvers which never miss fire. And then Mermillod will repeat in the Council what he lately said in a sermon here about the threefold manifestation of God in the crib of Bethlehem, in the Sacrament of the Altar, and—in the Vatican. Pie of Poitiers will utter some of those bold Oriental metaphors, which all France laughs at but which are gravely received in the Council Hall. Manning will commend infallibility as the one plank of safety for mankind who are sinking in the shipwreck of scepticism, while he sings a pæan over the triumph of the dogma over history. There will be room even for some [pg 530] flashes of genius from the German infallibilists, the Tyrolese and the three Bavarians, if they can resolve on opening their lips hitherto so firmly closed. And then the African heat and sultry atmosphere, drying up the brain, which have already begun to press on Rome like a leaden pall, will come in to expedite the close. The majority will avail themselves of the right the Pope has conferred on them to break off abruptly the discussion, in which nothing has been discussed, and the Pope will appear in a Solemn Session, in the full pomp of the earthly representative of Christ, to proclaim with infallible certainty his own infallibility and that of all his predecessors and successors, “approbante Concilio.” And thus will he enter on his new empire of the world; for he will then for the first time be the acknowledged master and sole teacher of mankind; before, he was only a pretender. The Bishops will bow their heads reverently under a profound sense of their own fallibility before the one divinely enlightened man, and the world will go to sleep to wake next morning enriched and blessed with the new and fundamental article of faith. The day of the promulgation will be a great day of creation. “God said, Let there be light, and there was light, and the evening and the morning were the [pg 531] first day” of the new Church, after the old Church for 1869 years had been unable to ascertain and formulize its chief article of faith. For the Popes were always infallible; “the light appeared in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” From the Pentecost of the blessed year 1870, as Manning has prophesied, dates the age of the Holy Ghost, and the Church is for the first time really complete. As the Pentecost of the year 33 was the birthday of the ancient Church, so will the Pentecost of 1870 be the birthday of the new and infinitely more enlightened Church. Nearly all commentators now assume that the seven days of creation in Genesis are not seven ordinary days, but signify a great period of the world's history. It cannot then be taken ill if the Church, instead of distinctly putting forward her principal dogma on the first Pentecost, which would certainly have been the most natural course, should have waited nineteen centuries in the vain attempt to ascertain and formulate it, and have only now hatched the egg in the year 1870.
Forty-Sixth Letter.
Rome, May 15, 1870.—Yesterday the discussion of the Schema on the Primacy began, i.e., speeches were delivered for and against infallibility, for any regular discussion is of course impossible in the Council Hall. The Hall is really more patient than the proverbially patient paper, as long as the majority do not get excited. Things can be said there which would not be allowed to be written, still less printed. The names of 69 Bishops are inscribed to speak. Bishop Pie of Poitiers had already the day before, as reporter of the Deputation, exceeded the expectations generally formed of him. He had discovered a wholly new argument, to which he gave utterance with evident self-complacency. The Pope, he said, must be infallible, because Peter was crucified head downwards. As the head bears the whole weight of the body, so the Pope, as head, bears the whole Church; but he is infallible who bears, not [pg 533] he who is borne.—Q.E.D. The Italians and Spaniards applauded enthusiastically. On the 14th Cardinal Patrizzi spoke. The Pope, he observed, certainly claims personal infallibility, but he does not therefore wish nor is he obliged to separate himself from the Episcopate. Certainly not, thought the minority, since we must all assent to that claim of the infallible, so that he cannot separate himself from us Bishops or shake us off if he wished it. Bishop Rivet of Dijon carried off the honours of the day among the Opposition. Bishop Ranolder of Vesprim referred briefly but forcibly to the dangers into which the new dogma would plunge the Hungarian Church. Dreux Brézé, who followed worthily in the footsteps of Pie, was this time eclipsed by a Sicilian prelate, who said that the Sicilians had a reason peculiar to themselves for believing the infallibility of all the Popes. It is well known that Peter preached in that island, where he found a number of Christians; but when he told them that he was infallible, they thought this article of faith, which they had never been taught, a strange one. In order to get at the truth about it, they sent an embassy to the Virgin Mary, to ask if she had heard of Peter's infallibility, to which she replied that she certainly remembered being [pg 534] present, when her Son conferred this special prerogative on him. This testimony fully satisfied the Sicilians, who have ever since preserved in their hearts faith in infallibility. This speech was really delivered in the Council Hall on May 14. The Opposition Bishops see a proof of the insolent contempt of the majority in their putting up such men as Pie and this Sicilian to speak against them.
Sicily is truly the land where faith removes mountains, and Pius would find himself among his most genuine spiritual children if he went to Messina. There the letter is still preserved, which the Virgin Mary addressed to the inhabitants and let fall from heaven, and the feast of the Sacra Lettera is annually observed with the full approval of the Roman Congregation of Rites, when the excited populace shout in the streets “Viva la Sacra Lettera.” The Jesuit Inchover has written a book to prove its authenticity to demonstration.
A great many copies of the remarkable pamphlet Ce qui se passe au Concile have been secretly disseminated—the Government naturally wants to suppress it—and it is eagerly read. I have learnt from a Frenchman that Pius himself has read some pages, on which [pg 535] he observed, “C'est mal, c'est très-mal, excessivement mal.” It is clear that the author has himself collected his notices in Rome. If its revelations show how every usage of former Councils has been reversed and all true freedom carefully destroyed, a further evidence of this is supplied by the statement of the official Giornale di Roma about the departure of the Americans, where the Bishops are plainly reminded that they are liable to arrest, and that any of them who quit Rome without leave incur heavy censures. A German Archbishop, who had an audience of the Pope to-day, took the opportunity of speaking to him about the universal aversion and resistance of the Germans to the infallibilist dogma. It made not the slightest impression. Pius answered: “I know these Germans of old, who choose to know best about everything; every one wants to be Bishop and Pope.” Yet it is notorious that he does not understand a word of German, and has never been in Germany or read a German book, even in a translation. But he reads Veuillot and Margotti, and hears the Jesuits at least three times a week. Meanwhile the Protest drawn up by Ketteler against the arbitrary change of the order of business was presented on the 12th of March with 72 signatures. It [pg 536] contains, as I said before, the words: “We know well that we shall receive no answer to this any more than to our former memorials.”
All German Catholics count here for half Protestants. A German must here give special evidence of his orthodoxy, I do not say before he is trusted, but before he is reckoned a Catholic at all by the side of Spaniards and Italians. Above all is German theology in ill repute, and the mere word “history” in the mouth of a German acts like a red handkerchief on certain animals. The good times are gone by when Germany was considered the classical land of obedience in comparison with France, so copious was the influx of Peter's pence, the Jesuits, on whom the chief hopes are centred, have effected very little here except in Westphalia and the Tyrol.
It is hard for the Bishops, even after a five months' experience, to comprehend the rôle assigned them, and to understand that they have only been summoned to receive commands, to obey, and to do service. It is a saying current among the Monsignori that the Bishops are nothing but servants of the Pope. “Just consider the monstrosity,” said one of the youngest but most actively employed of the Cardinals to a French priest, [pg 537] when the famous letter of censure addressed by the Pope to the Archbishop of Paris appeared in the newspapers, “this Archbishop dares to speak of rights which belong to him! What would you say if one of your lackeys were to talk of his rights, when you gave him your orders?”