(1.) “Si quis dixerit Romanum Pontificem habere quidem in Ecclesia primatum jurisdictionis, non vero etiam supremam potestatem docendi, regendi et gubernandi Ecclesiam, perinde ac si primatus jurisdictionis ab illâ supremâ, potestate distingui posset—anathema sit.
(2.) “Si quis dixerit talem potestatem Romani Pontificis non esse plenam, sed divisam inter S. Pontificem et episcopos, quasi episcopi a Spiritu S. positi ad [pg 670] Ecclesiam Dei docendam et regendam sub unico summo pastore etiam divinitus vocati fuerint, ut in supremâ potestate totius Ecclesiæ capitis participent—anathema sit.
(3.) “Si quis dixerit supremam in Ecclesia potestatem non residere in universæ Ecclesiæ capite, sed in episcoporum pluralitate—anathema sit.
(4.) “Si quis dixerit Romano Pontifici datam quidem esse plenam potestatem regendi et gubernandi, non autem etiam plenam potestatem docendi universalem Ecclesiam, fideles et pastores—anathema sit.”
Fifty-Eighth Letter.
Rome, June 21, 1870.—What I have to communicate in this letter is so important, that I find it desirable to take it out of the historical order of events and let it precede the detailed account of what occurred between June 8 and 17.
A circumstance occurred on Saturday, which has kept all who are interested about the Council in breathless suspense ever since. Nothing in fact could be more unexpected than that, at the moment when the Opposition, though still maintaining the contest from a sense of conscientious duty, almost despairs of success, a fresh ally should join its ranks in the person of a Roman Cardinal, whose accession is the more valuable because he does not only speak in his own name, but has concerted his speech with the fifteen Bishops of his Order. In fact I hear his speech spoken of in many quarters as the most important and unexpected [pg 672] event in the Council. It must not of course be supposed that Guidi's spirited speech represents adequately the tendencies of the Opposition, but still it must be affirmed that it involves a complete, and as we believe irreconcilable, breach with the majority. In order to enable people to appreciate the full weight of the speech it is of some importance to premise a brief account of the speaker.
Cardinal Guidi has belonged, almost ever since his entering the Dominican Order, to the convent of the Minerva. For a long time he belonged to the theological professoriate connected with the convent, and enjoyed, as such, the well-earned reputation of great learning and strict orthodoxy. When eleven years ago Pius ix. wished to send thoroughly trustworthy and learned Roman theologians to the University of Vienna, to inculcate genuine Roman science and views on the young clergy, his eye fell on Father Guidi. After working there for some years he returned to Rome, having been meanwhile appointed Cardinal, and was soon afterwards made Archbishop of Bologna; and as the Italian Government promised to place no impediment in the way of his residing there, he actually betook himself to his See. But he soon found that it [pg 673] was not the place for him. The Dominican Order had seriously compromised itself in the notorious Mortara affair, and accordingly the Bolognese rabble broke out repeatedly into the most deplorable demonstrations against the new Archbishop as a member of the hated Order. He therefore returned to Rome, and administered his diocese from hence. And here he was one of the Pope's favourites, only during the last year he has lost favour through his freedom of speech. Since then he has been prosecuting his theological studies in retirement, and it was pretty well known what he thought about the personal infallibility of the Pope. Several months ago he had assembled the Dominican Bishops at the Minerva about this affair. His view prevailed, and when Father Jandel, the General imposed on the Order by the Pope and reluctantly accepted, tried to put a pressure on them, they replied that they were Bishops, and were bound, as such, to consult their consciences when called to act as judges of faith. Then began a notable agitation in the Order, which was already divided into two camps. One arbitrary act followed another. A so-called academy of St. Thomas was opened, and hardly had the President taken his seat, when he made a long speech, expounding the [pg 674] doctrine of St. Thomas and the Order on papal infallibility in the most tactless and violent manner to his episcopal audience. A Dominican Bishop delighted the Pope by getting up an infallibilist address among his episcopal colleagues. Then followed a series of writings defending St. Thomas against Janus. A member of the Order was forbidden by the General, Jandel, “to speak either publicly or privately about infallibility,” and the Civiltà Cattolica of June 18 praised the General for prefixing to the infallibilist writing of a Dominican the approbation that in the Dominican Order papal infallibility has always been held as a Catholic truth.