Letters From Rome on the Council

by Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger

Fifty-Seventh Letter.

Rome, June 18, 1870.—The great merits of Cardoni are at length to receive their fitting reward. He has hitherto been only Archbishop of Nisibis, a city that has long ceased to exist; he has now become keeper of the archives of the Roman Church. He was the principal person intrusted last year with the grand mystery of the fabrication of the new dogma, which required for its success the strictest secrecy; the Bishops, with the exception of course of the initiated, were to be drawn to Rome unprepared and innocent of the design and then to be taken by surprise. Had the real object of the Council become known in the spring of 1869, it might easily have proved a complete failure. It was therefore intrusted to Cardoni's experienced hands, who managed matters so well in the Commission that the Bishops were kept in the dark, and his lucubrations on infallibility were first printed in April,—it [pg 655] is said after being considerably altered by the Jesuits. The reward of Cardoni is a punishment for Theiner, who has to suffer for his Life of Clement xiv. and for communicating to some of the Bishops a paper on the order of business at Trent. The archives are now closed to him, and he has had to surrender the keys to Cardoni, though he nominally retains his office. Every German scholar knows that Theiner, after coming to Rome, became extremely reserved in his communications and very cautious in his own publications, always suppressing whatever might excite displeasure there, and throw a slur on the Roman authorities. It was much easier under his predecessor Marini—as German and French scholars, such as Pertz, Raumer and Cherrier, and the British Museum can testify—to get a sight of documents or even transcripts, of course for a good remuneration. Theiner, who was inaccessible to bribery, knew that he had an abundance of enemies and jealous rivals watching him, and carefully guarded against giving them any handle against him. But the original sin of his German origin clung to him; he was not a Reisach and could not Italianize himself. There is great joy in the Gesù, the German College, and the offices of the Civiltà!

Theiner's great offence is his letting certain Bishops, viz., Hefele and Strossmayer, see the account of the order of business at the Council of Trent, showing the striking difference between that and the present regulations and the greater freedom of the Tridentine synod. But Hefele had seen the Tridentine Acts in the spring of 1869, and knew about it without Theiner's help.

Meanwhile there is no abatement of the bitter exasperation in the highest circles. The three chief organs of the Court—the Civiltà, the Unità and the Univers—have evidently received orders to vie with each other in their descriptions of the “Liberal Catholics” as the most abandoned and dangerous of men. For the moment nobody is more abominated than a Catholic who is opposed to infallibility and unwilling to see the teaching of the Church brought into contradiction with the laws of his country, which is what they mean by a Liberal Catholic; such persons are worse than Freemasons. The Civiltà says they are more dangerous to “the cause of God” than atheists, and have already proved so. We know how his confessors, La Chaise and Le Tellier, explained to Louis xiv. that a Jansenist is worse and more dangerous than an atheist.

In convents and girls' schools the new article of faith is already strong enough to work miracles. The Univers relates “a miraculous cure wrought through an act of faith in the infallibility of the Vicar of Christ,” at Vienna on May 24. But that is little in comparison with the greater and more difficult miracles which the dogma will have to accomplish. If the English proverb is true, there is nothing more stubborn than facts; to remove them from history or change their nature will be harder than to move mountains. Here in Rome we are daily assured that the dogma has conquered history, but these anticipated conquests will have to be fought out, at least everywhere north of the Alps, and cannot be won without great miracles. But the Jesuits have never of course been without their thaumaturgists, and they have been able to accomplish the impossible even in the historical domain.

The Pope seems peculiarly annoyed at some of the English Bishops opposing infallibility, probably because Manning had told him that the English above all others reverenced him as the organ of the Holy Ghost. He lately broke out into most bitter reproaches against Bishop Clifford of Clifton, before an assemblage of Frenchmen, most of whom did not even know him by [pg 658] name, and accused him of low ambition, saying that he knew “ex certâ scientiâ” the only reason why Clifford would not believe in his infallibility was because he had not made him Archbishop of Westminster. Yet there is perhaps no member of the Council whom every one credits with so entire an absence of any ambitious thought. The spectacle of such conduct on the part of the man, who for twenty-four years has held the highest earthly dignity, produces a painful feeling in some, and contempt in others.

It is indeed disgusting to see the Court party compelling men, most of them aged, to remain here to the great injury of their health at a season when all who are able to do so leave Rome, although many of them are accustomed to a different climate and feel sick and exhausted. They are treated like prisoners, and not even allowed a holiday without special leave. No such egotistic and unscrupulous absolutism, as what now prevails here, has been seen in the Christian world since the days of the first Napoleon. If there were any persons here besides courtiers who could advise the Pope, as friends, they would have to tell him that his credit before the world demanded that an end should be put to this state of torture, and the Bishops be allowed to depart, many [pg 659] of whom are already dead. But, as was observed before, even Antonelli does not conceal his impotence as regards the Council, and as to others, it may suffice to acquaint Transalpine readers with one detail of Roman Court etiquette. If the Pope sneezes, the attendant prelate must immediately fall on his knees, and cry “Evviva!” in that position. Every man is at last what his entourage has made him, and Pius has for twenty-four years had every one kneeling before him, and has been daily overwhelmed with adorations and acts of homage, the effect of which may be read in Suetonius' biographies of the Emperors.

The affair of the Prince Bishop of Breslau, who was not allowed to leave Rome, has been arranged, by Cardinal Antonelli ordering an apology to be made. The regulations about refusing visas were only meant for the Orientals, who are certainly detained in Rome against their will, but in extending the same treatment to German prelates the police had exceeded their instructions and must be severely punished. Förster answered that he did not wish this, and that Cardinal de Angelis in his note had fully approved their conduct. Meanwhile the same thing has been repeated: the visa was refused to the suffragan Bishop of Erlau in Hungary, [pg 660] who wanted to go to Naples, because he had received no permission from the Secretary, Bishop Fessler.

The Franciscan, Hötzl, has made an explanation satisfactory to the authorities, and is now again received into favour, but he is to stay here for the festival of June 29, on which day, as Pius was at least convinced a week ago, the proclamation of the new dogma with all imaginable pomp will take place. We live in very humane times, and so the good Father from Munich has suffered no worse martyrdom than the heat. He has been instructed, the genius loci has done its work, his Spanish General has simply reminded him of certain rules of the Order—and so his conversion has been very quickly, easily and happily accomplished. He was not even threatened, I believe, with the Inquisition, and even there he would not have fared as ill as Galileo in 1633.

You must allow me, before relating the events of the last few days in the Council Hall, to recur to the occurrences of June 3, which I am now better acquainted with, and which have proved to be sufficiently important and eventful to deserve more detailed mention.