Letters From Rome on the Council

by Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger

Rome, July 5, 1870.—Rome is an excellent school for Bishops; a course of seven months at the Council produces wonderful results. One illusion after another is laid aside and an insight gained into the working of the huge machine and the forces that put it in motion, and the Bishops learn at last, though it be laboriously and not without tears, why they were summoned and what services alone are demanded of them. The historian Pachymeres relates that, when the people of Constantinople demanded a Council in 1282 in order to judge the unionist Patriarch, Bekkus, Bishop Theoktistus of Adrianople said that they treated Bishops like wooden spits on which Bekkus might be roasted, and which might then be thrown into the fire.[151] A very similar feeling has come over many Bishops here; they know that if they say Non placet at last, they will be cast into the fire, after they have helped by their [pg 750] reluctant practical recognition of both the first and second order of business—destructive as both are to all real freedom—to forge the new spiritual yoke. And then they find their schoolroom a very narrow and uncomfortable one, and have at last discovered that it looks very like a prison cell.

It is but a game of moves and counter-moves as on a chessboard, only that no one dares to incur the penalty of high treason by saying “Check to the king,” or lifting a finger for such an audacious move. The minority were so confounded and irritated by the abrupt closing of the general debate, because they hoped to prolong it till prorogation became inevitable. For nobody doubted in April and May that this would follow at the end of June, and the notion was sedulously fostered by the official staff of the Council—the Legates and Secretary Fessler—and by the Pope himself. It is not long since Pius said to a French Bishop, “It would be barbarity on my part to want to keep the Bishops here in July.” And thus the Opposition, whenever they were shaken and disturbed by some violent act, let matters be hushed up and never gave any practical effect to their protests and complaints. But now the Court party say that it would indeed be tyrannical cruelty to keep us [pg 751] here, under ordinary circumstances, imprisoned in this furnace full of fevers, but it is justified by the abnormal situation. The grand and saving act of the infallibilist definition, which is to quicken the whole Church with new powers of life and introduce the golden age of absolute ecclesiastical dominion, cannot any longer be held in suspense. “You surely will not wish,” said Cardinal de Angelis to a Bishop who was urging the necessity of a prorogation, “that the Pope, after spending so many thousand scudi on the Bishops, should now be left alone in the Vatican without any recompense.” And Antonelli thinks the Bishops have only themselves to blame for their present suffering condition; why have they wasted so much time in speeches?

Since that shocking saying of the Pope's, which I referred to in my last letter, has became known here, the Bishops have abandoned as hopeless the design of making a direct appeal to him for the prorogation of the Council on the score of the health and lives of its members. And this conviction has been further strengthened by the insolence of the Court theologian, Louis Veuillot. “Let yourselves be roasted, since it is only through this fiery ordeal that the precious wine of infallibility can be matured,” he exclaims to them, [pg 752] and they know now that they are inside a door over which the inscription is written

“Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch' intrate.”

And now there is a new cause of alarm. It is said—perhaps the report is spread on purpose—that at last no Bishop will be allowed to depart till he has signed a bond laid before him declaring his entire and unconditional submission. We actually hear that, by a recent decision, leave of absence is only to be given to the Bishops in case of serious illness, that is, when they are no longer equal to the journey. Several prelates therefore have already inquired of the ambassadors of their Governments, what means of protection they could afford them in case of such violence being exercised. The ambassadors will be obliged to write home for further instructions, as it seems no such case had been foreseen as possible to occur. But so many astonishing and seemingly impossible things have happened during the last seven months that such an act would no longer excite even any particular surprise.

Guidi still appears in Council and shows himself in his votes an independent thinker and by no means a humiliated or broken man, but in his convent he is guarded like a prisoner and constantly urged by threats [pg 753] and persuasions to recant. When a remark was made to the Pope about his harsh treatment of this man, who still as Cardinal shares the numerous privileges of his order, he is reported to have said, “I summoned him, not as Cardinal, but as brother Guidi, whom I lifted out of the dust.” Guidi had drawn great displeasure on himself before by joining Cardinals Corsi and Riario Sforza in making representations to the Pope against the alteration introduced by his order in the sequence of the subjects for discussion, by which means the infallibilist Schema was interpolated before its time. He lived in the Minerva with certain Bishops of his Order, Milella, Pastero, Alcazar and Manucillo, and their mutual conferences led to the matured conviction that the personal infallibility of the Pope is a novel doctrine, of late invention and unknown even to the great Thomas and the Thomist school, chiefly introduced in substance by the Jesuits. Guidi appeals to the fact that years ago he has taught this at Vienna, as was or easily might have been known. If he keeps firm, and Cardinal Silvestri, who often votes with the Opposition, joins their side in good earnest—five dissentient Cardinals, including Mathieu, Rauscher and Schwarzenberg—more Italian Bishops than the Court would like, may [pg 754] say Non placet. It is already remarked that they earnestly inquire among themselves whether the German and French minority are likely to remain firm at the decisive moment and not melt away, in which case they would be ready to vote with them. You may imagine how intensely Guidi is hated here. For the moment he might make O'Connell's boast his own when he said he was “the best abused man in the British Empire.” What Persius said is equally true of the clerical “turba Remi” now,—“sequitur fortunam ut semper, et odit damnatos.” I may mention in illustration of the view prevalent among the majority, that Manning the other day told one of the most illustrious Bishops of the minority he had no further business in the Catholic Church and had better leave it. Even in the Council Hall Bishop Gastaldi of Saluzzo exclaimed to the minority that they were already blotted out of the book of life.

The internal history of the minority since the end of June consists mainly of their endeavours to avert the departure of the timid and home-sick and those attacked by fever. Hitherto leave has been given them readily enough when asked, but it is said this will not be so for the future. The Prince Bishop of Breslau, Förster, [pg 755] was urgently entreated to remain, and he seemed to be persuaded, but now he is gone,[152] and so are Purcell of Cincinnati, Vancsa, Archbishop of Fogaras, Greith of St. Gall, and others—a serious loss under present circumstances. The feeling of self-preservation at last overpowers every other; and what answer can be given to a man who says, when required to stay and help to save the truth, “If I am ill in bed with fever on the critical day, my vote is lost”? Moreover the burning atmosphere peculiar to Rome, impregnated with exhalations from the Pontine marshes, oppresses and enervates mind as well as body and cripples the energy of the will.

So on the 1st July an understanding was arrived at among the Opposition Bishops. It was felt more and more clearly that to go on with the speeches was a sterile and dreary business. For one solid and thoughtful speech from, e.g., Darboy, Strossmayer, Haynald, Guidi, Dupanloup, Ginoulhiac, Ketteler or Maret, one had to listen for long hours to the effusions of Spanish, Sicilian and Calabrian infallibilists, and the speeches of this party sound as if their authors had first studied [pg 756] the dedicatory epistles to the Popes which the Jesuits prefix to their works, and strung together the sonorous phrases contained in them. Moreover the conduct of the Legates had become palpable partisanship. For several days they offered demonstrative thanks to every speaker who gave up his turn; the bitterest attacks of the majority on their opponents passed unrebuked, and the murmurs and signs of impatience whenever infallibility was called in question grew more and more pronounced. It became evident that there was nothing really to be gained by prolonging the speeches, when all hope of getting the Council prorogued had to be abandoned.

At the sitting of July 2 the affair was to have been brought to a settlement. The minority had sketched out a notice in the Council Hall, stating that all speakers on their side withdrew, and handed it to Cardinal Mathieu to communicate to the French, but they declined to accept it, saying every one should be free to decide for himself. And so, on that day, out of twenty-two Fathers only four spoke, including Meignan of Chalons and Ramadie of Perpignan.

But it soon became irresistibly evident to both parties that it was advisable for them to put an end to [pg 757] the oratorical exercises. The Legates had frequently used the formula of the Index when a speaker gave up his turn, saying, “laudabiliter orationi renunciavit,” or “magnas ipsi agimus gratias.” The majority had two reasons for wanting the speeches to go on—first the wish of particular individuals to signalize themselves and lay up a stock of merits deserving reward; and secondly, that the Northern Bishops might succumb to the rays of the July sun, as Homer's Achæans sunk under the arrows of Apollo. But they were made to understand that the Pope would account their simple “Placet, sans phrase” a sufficient service, and reward it according to their wish.