Forty-Seventh Letter.
Rome, May 16, 1870.—The Bishops of the minority want to bind themselves by subscribing an agreement to vote for no formula which contains the personal infallibility of the Pope. A calculation emanating from them has been shown me, according to which the strength of the Opposition is undiminished, or rather increased. It enumerates 43 Germans and Hungarians, 40 North Americans, 29 French, 4 Portuguese, and 10 Italians. The number of Bishops from the United States who are considered to be trustworthy is especially worthy of notice. They have been greatly influenced by the recent publications of the Bishops, and particularly by the excellent work of Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis. When they first came to Rome they were nearly all inclined to the new dogma, but here their eyes have been gradually opened. The insolent and [pg 539] despotic treatment of the Bishops, the spectacle of adulation exhibited by persons who call themselves successors of the Apostles, and the lamentable sophistry employed in torturing historical facts—as e.g. the case of Honorius—all this has gradually filled these Republicans with disgust and aversion, and driven them to the opposite side. But clearly what has chiefly influenced them has been the conviction produced by the controversy that, if they take home with them the new dogma of the Pope's political supremacy over all States, they will be exposed to the contempt and hatred of all educated America. And as many of them are Irishmen by birth, they have been reminded that, as Alexander vi. gave the American peoples to Spain, so Adrian iv. gave Ireland to the King of England and thereby brought misery on the emerald isle.
The Bishops of the Opposition know how to appreciate the strength and numerical preponderance of their rivals; they know too that, besides a cool calculation and passive subjection to the commands of their “lord,” a certain enthusiasm and confidence also prevail among their ranks. There are first the numerous missionary Bishops and Vicars-Apostolic, who must certainly vote as they are told, for they are entirely in [pg 540] the power of the Propaganda, and Cardinal Barnabo is an inexorably strict master: the Orientals have experienced that. And moreover the Bishops engaged in converting the heathen say, “How conveniently the new dogma will simplify and facilitate our work with Negroes, Kaffirs, New-Zealanders, etc.! We have hitherto had to refer them to the Church, of whose nature and authority we could only impress a dim conception on their minds with much time and trouble. Henceforth we shall tell them that God inspires one man in Rome with all truth, from whom all others receive it. That is short, simple, and what a child can understand.”
But the main strength of the papal army consists in the 120 Bishops from the kingdom of Italy with the the exception of 10, the 143 from the States of the Church, and the 120 titular Bishops without subjects or dioceses, most of them created by the present Pope, who represent nobody but themselves, or rather him who has raised them from the dust and set mitres on their heads. That makes altogether 373 Italians. This chosen band will remain here patiently through the heat so unendurable to the Northern Bishops, and the question has been already mooted in the Vatican, as I hear [pg 541] from the mouth of one who is in its confidence, whether it would not be best to protract the affair and defer the final voting till these recalcitrant Northerners have obtained the permission which will be readily accorded them to flee from the heat and fevers, after which the Italian and Spanish prelates would vote the darling dogma with conspicuous unanimity. The idea deserves to be preferred to another, which is also under consideration. The Pope might issue a Bull defining that the moral unanimity, which has been so much talked of, is not necessary for Councils in voting articles of faith, and that a simple majority is sufficient. For it is thought that most of the minority Bishops, especially the inopportunists, would not dare to resist the new papal definition, and would thus be compelled at last to succumb to the infallibilist decree. We shall soon see. You may gather what the leaders of the minority think of the situation from a remark of Cardinal Mathieu's, “On veut jeter l'Église dans l'abîme, nous y jeterons plutôt nos cadavres.”
The two Bavarian Bishops, Stahl and Leonrod, have thought fit after two months to make a public demonstration of their assent to Bishop Räss's condemnation of Gratry. The explanation accepted here is that, after [pg 542] the Bavarian note had been presented, the authorities wished the Bavarian Bishops to make an adverse move on the conciliar chess-board; and as these two prelates would not openly contradict their King, the expedient of a very late adhesion to the effusions of the Bishop of Strasburg was chosen.
It is commonly assumed that all the Cardinals are infallibilists as a matter of course, and the more so as this is at bottom the only doctrine which may be said to have been exclusively invented and built up by men who either were already or were soon about to become Cardinals. Still this is not quite the case. Apart from the non-resident Cardinals, Rauscher, Schwarzenberg and Mathieu, there are some among the residents who would gladly be dispensed from voting for the new foundation article of faith on which the whole edifice is henceforth to rest. But one of them said to-day, “We shall ruin our position, lose all influence, and become the mark of endless attacks. And as every one here has some weak and vulnerable point in his past life, he dare not expose himself to these fatal assaults on his character and honour from which there would be no escape.” At the same time the Cardinal admitted that the whole College has so lost its influence and become [pg 543] so insignificant, that for six months the Pope has not once assembled them. Antonelli and a few favourites, with the Jesuits of the Civiltà, are the people who now construct the history of the world and the Church.