“La tradizione son' io”—it would be impossible to give a briefer, more pregnant or more epigrammatic description of the whole system which is now to be made dominant than is contained in those few words. All [pg 715] the members of the Civiltà, the thick volumes of Schrader, Weninger and the Jesuits of Laach are outdone by this clear and simple utterance. Pius will take rank in history with the men who have known how by a happy inspiration to throw a great thought into the most adequate form of words, which impresses it for ever indelibly on the memory. The formula is worthy to be classed with the equally pregnant saying of Boniface viii., “The Pope holds all rights locked up in his breast.” It is bruited about here from mouth to mouth, and the analogy of Louis xiv., which inevitably occurs to everybody, reaches even further. Every day since I have witnessed the drama being enacted here, has the saying suggested itself to me, “L'Église, c'est moi.” Any one who would form a judgment of the state of things here should be recommended above all to read a work like, e.g., Lemontey's Essai sur l'établissement monarchique de Louis xiv., or the instructions of the King for the Dauphin. One sees there how absolute sovereignty, the intoxicating sense of irresponsible power—and spiritual absolutism is far more overpowering than political—leads almost of necessity to the notion of infallibility and divine enlightenment. Louis xiv. says seriously and drily to his son, “As God's representative [pg 716] we have part in the divine knowledge as well as the divine authority.”[149] And he warns him that all his own errors had arisen from his too great modesty in giving ear to extraneous advisers. For eight hundred years the question has been disputed, why the Popes are so short-lived, and the phenomenon has been ascribed to a special divine dispensation which removes them betimes, that they may not be morally poisoned by too long enjoyment of their dignity—“ne malitia mutaret intellectum.”
The minority perceive, on a calmer consideration, that the two canons proposed by Guidi would not provide sufficient security for the episcopate taking part in the teaching office of the Church according to the integrity of her constitution. The second indeed, like a well-aimed arrow, hits the mark. It calls the thing by its right name, and anathematizes the purely personal infallibility of the Pope, independent of the consent of the Church and resting on direct divine inspiration, as a heresy, which it unquestionably is in the eyes of every theologian who knows anything of the Church and her tradition; but then, after the Pope has so [pg 717] openly and expressly committed himself to precisely this view of the Church, it is thought impossible here in Rome, and close to the Vatican, to throw an anathema in his face. And besides the expression in the first canon, that the consentient “consilium Ecclesiæ” is requisite for an infallible papal utterance, is open to the same charge of vagueness as the notorious and much-abused ex cathedrâ, and could as easily be explained away into the mere arbitrary caprice of the Pope. It would always rest with him in the last resort to maintain “ex certâ scientiâ” that the “consilium Ecclesiæ” agreed with his own judgment.
A remodelling of the fourth canon has been undertaken, but the new formula is not known. It is however much talked of among the Bishops, and the general view is that it remains substantially unchanged, and still contains the personal infallibility of the Pope independently of the Church. Manning had said that the utmost regard that was possible should be paid to the views of the Opposition in the alteration of the chapter. And so those Bishops still hope for the accomplishment of their desires who, like Ketteler and Melchers, entreat that only one, however sterile, verbal concession may be made, so as to give them a bridge [pg 718] on which to pass over the gulf safely into the camp of the majority.
I lately heard a Roman layman say that what most surprised him among the many wonderful things he had seen here was the contempt for the Catholic Church which prevails here. For that contempt could not be more emphatically expressed than by the Pope appropriating to himself what according to the ancient doctrine belongs to her, and declaring himself the sole and exclusive organ of the Holy Ghost. It is the same here universally; when one talks with a Roman, the Curia, the Pope, is everything, and the Church nothing but the “contribuens plebs.” My informant thought it was easy enough to understand the view of born Romans, but difficult to give any rational account of the attitude of the episcopal majority, for it must be clear to every one of them that the promulgation of the new dogma would destroy irrevocably all episcopal independence of Rome, and strip the nimbus from the brow of the Bishop who is a successor of the Apostles. I observed to him that in Romance countries this primitive idea of the episcopate had long since vanished, as he might easily convince himself by asking the next Italian peasant or shopkeeper he met what was his notion [pg 719] of a Bishop. And five-sixths of the majority belong to these countries,
In the Congregation of June 20 the Deputation put up one of its members, Bishop d'Avanzo of Calvi and Teano, to speak. For there was urgent need of promptly meeting the great scandal given by Guidi, and deterring any Cardinal who might be so disposed from following his example. The speaker allowed that in dogmatic decrees the tradition of the Church must be consulted and the Holy Ghost invoked, but how this was to be done was left to the judgment of the Pope, By his second canon Guidi passed over “ad aliena non Catholica castra,” exceeded all Gallicans and wanted—he, an Italian, a Dominican and a Cardinal—to canonize Gallicanism. A shudder ran through the ranks of all the Italians who live between Ferrara and Malta, but they remembered for their comfort that the unworthy son of the peninsula had been for some years professor at Vienna, and it was obvious that the German malaria he had caught there was the cause of this matricidal heresy.
Guidi had said that the admonition to Peter to confirm his brethren pre-supposed something to be confirmed, i.e., that the Pope only confirmed the doctrine already maintained by the Bishops. To this d'Avanzo [pg 720] answered that it was utterly uncatholic, and one must rather begin from above and not from below, and ascribe the authorship and initiation of doctrine to the Pope, who was immediately inspired by the Holy Ghost; “causa princeps infallibilitatis est assistentia Spiritûs Sancti.” And here followed a statement that must be given word for word: “Supervacaneum est omne additamentum, nulla emendatio in decreto et canone schematis acceptatur; nulla conditio, nulla limitatio admittetur per deputationem; inutilis est igitur omnis labor? ‘Animalis homo non percipit quod de cœlo est.’ ”[150] To say the definition was inopportune was merely pandering to the corrupt portion of society, and especially to the tribe of Government officials. The speaker added emphatically: “Satis fit servis Satanæ, qui sunt gubernantes, negantes ordinem supernaturalem—ergo Decretum est opportunum. In Pontifice Spiritus Domini vivit et agit, Pontifex ergo hôc Spiritu agente errare non potest.” It became known at once in the Council that this declaration, which annihilated so many hopes, had been made in the name and by special command of the Pope, and that “the animal man” meant the Opposition.
The two next speakers were the titular Patriarchs Ballerini and Valerga. The first said with notable frankness, “Were we to let personal infallibility drop, we should destroy the obedience due to the Pope and exalt ourselves against God Himself.” In other words, the Vice-God orders us to declare him infallible, and of course we obey implicitly.
Valerga's appearance was the beginning of a comedy, which was repeated in subsequent sittings. He wanted to prove papal infallibility by inferences from the Florentine decree, which was received by all; but he was twice interrupted by the Presidents for not keeping to the question. He thereupon left the tribune, not without remarks being made by Opposition Bishops that they saw this treatment was not reserved for them only. The same thing happened on June 22 to Bishop Apuzzo of Sorrento and Archbishop Spaccapietra. On the 20th, towards the end of the debate, Archbishop MacHale of Tuam in Ireland spoke with great severity against the decree, the fatal consequences of which he seems to appreciate better than most of his Irish colleagues. Bishop Apuzzo reminded the Hungarians that they once had a primate (Szelepcsenyi, a pupil of the Jesuits) who had summoned a synod to condemn the [pg 722] Gallican Articles of 1682, and that quite recently a Provincial Synod at Colocza had used language of very infallibilist sound. Haynald took part in that Synod, and he, as well as Rauscher, to whom the same reproach was addressed, had already observed that it would not do to put a strictly logical interpretation on mere complimentary phrases. In the course of his speech Apuzzo became still more abusive. “Those are the sons of Satan,” he exclaimed at last, “who say the Bishops are judges in the Church. No! we are but poor sinners.” At the same time he proposed a supplement still more peremptory than the chapter. Spaccapietra came to grief in Church history, which is more grossly mishandled at Rome and in the Council Hall, when it is appealed to at all, than anywhere else. This time St. Polycarp's yielding to the Pope about the observance of Easter—he notoriously did just the reverse—was to serve as an example to the Opposition. When the speaker went on to utter fierce invectives against Cardinal Guidi, he was interrupted. He declared he had only something to say against the schismatics, but the President closed his mouth in theatrical fashion saying, “Cedat verbum tintinnabulo.” So he left the rostrum.
Men breathed more freely when, after these hollow declamations, two British Bishops brought the clear practical sense of their race and country to bear on the question and the previous discussion of it. The first of them, Archbishop Errington, who was formerly Cardinal Wiseman's coadjutor but soon got out of favour at Rome, pointedly characterized the vicious nature of the whole transaction; there were speeches on both sides, one affirming, another denying, and no one could feel that he had refuted anything or advanced his cause the least by his words. The Deputation alone had the privilege of referring to the speeches and examining them, and it belonged to the majority, not to the Council; “how it was formed, we know.” As a tribunal the Council was bound to institute a calm and searching investigation of facts, tradition and testimonies, and for this only one means was available, which was employed at the former great Councils including the Tridentine, to form deputations from both parties for earnest conference, where scientific examination might take the place of rhetorical harangues—from both parties, for it was idle with Bilio to bid them ignore the existence of two parties. “Modo in hôc Concilio fit aliter et illud ineptissime,” he concluded, [pg 724] and he proposed the formula, “Magisterium universalis Ecclesiæ est infallibile.”
The next speech, of Vitelleschi, who is Archbishop of Osimo but has never been in his diocese, though it is so near, left no impression; it was an exhortation to vote infallibility unanimously. And then followed Archbishop Conolly of Halifax with a speech such as has seldom been heard here. “Thrice,” he said, “have I asked for proof from Scripture according to its authentic interpretation, from Tradition and from Councils, that the Bishops of the Catholic Church ought to be excluded from the definition of dogmas; but my request has not been complied with, and now I adjure you, like the blind man on the way to Jericho, to give us sight that we may believe. Hitherto we have recognised the strongest motive for the credibility of Catholic doctrine in the general consent of the Church notified through the collective episcopate; this has been our shield against all external assailants, and by this powerful magnet we have drawn hundreds of thousands into the Church. Is this our invincible weapon of attack and defence now to be broken and trampled under foot, and the thousand-headed episcopate with the millions of faithful at its back to shrink into the [pg 725] voice and witness of a single man? Let the Deputation prove to us that it has really been always the belief of the Church that the Pope is everything and the Bishops nothing. The Council of Jerusalem did not adopt the formula of Peter but of John, who spoke before him, and in the Apostles' Creed we do not say ‘Credo in Petrum et successores ejus,’ but ‘Credo in unam Ecclesiam Catholicam.’ We Bishops have no right to renounce for ourselves and our successors the hereditary and original rights of the episcopate, to renounce the promise of Christ, ‘I am with you to the end of the world.’ But now they want to reduce us to nullities, to tear the noblest jewel from our pontifical breastplate, to deprive us of the highest prerogative of our office, and to transform the whole Church and the Bishops with it into a rabble of blind men, among whom is one alone who sees, so that they must shut their eyes and believe whatever he tells them.”