“Si quis dixerit, Romanum Pontificem habere tantummodo officium inspectionis vel directionis, non autem plenam et supremam potestatem jurisdictionis in universam Ecclesiam, tum in rebus, quæ ad fidem et mores, tum quæ ad disciplinam et regimen Ecclesiæ per totum orbem diffusæ pertinent; aut eum habere tantum potiores partes, non vero totam plenitudinem hujus supremæ potestatis; aut hanc ejus potestatem non esse ordinariam et immediatam sive in omnes ac singulas Ecclesias, sive in omnes et singulos pastores et fideles—anathema sit.”
A more shameless outwitting of a Council has never been attempted. Archbishop Darboy at once rose and protested against this juggling manœuvre, and the [pg 765] Legates were obliged, humiliating as it was for them, to let the matter drop for the present; but the addition will be brought forward again in a few days.
A proof has lately forced itself on my attention of the confusion of mind habitual to many of the Bishops of the majority. I asked one of them, who had expressed his surprise that so much fuss was made about this one dogma, whether he had formed any clear conception of its retrospective force and examined all the papal decisions, from Siricius in 385 to the Syllabus of 1864, which would be made by the infallibilist dogma into articles of faith. And it came out that this pastor of above a hundred thousand souls imagined that every Pope would be declared infallible, not for the past but for the future only![153] But he was somewhat perplexed when I mentioned to him on the spur of the moment merely a couple of papal maxims on moral theology, which were now to be stamped with the seal of divinely inspired truths.
On Saturday the 9th the special voting is to take place on the emendation just mentioned of the third chapter of the third canon in the interests of papal [pg 766] absolutism, and on the same day or Monday the whole of the third chapter and the amendments on the fourth are to be voted on; on Wednesday, the 13th, the votes are to be taken on the whole Schema “en bloc.” As yet the Opposition can still be reckoned at 97, exclusive of Guidi and the Dominican Bishops, who may not improbably come to its aid at the critical moment.
One of the witticisms circulating here, for which the Council affords matter to genuine Romans, is the following, that in the sitting of July 4 there was a great uproar among the Bishops, they were all set by the ears and the Pope himself ran away, and why all this? “E perchè tutta questa cagniara? perchè il Papa vuole esser impeccabile, e i vescovi non lo vogliono.”
Sixty-Sixth Letter.
Rome, July 14, 1870.—I must again interrupt my narrative of the occurrences and speeches between June 5 and 10 to communicate the details of the great event of the session of July 13—an event which has falsified all expectations on both sides, and created a sensation and astonishment in Rome which it will take people some time to recover from. Even beyond the Alps, in spite of the all-absorbing question of the war, it will rouse interest and joyful surprise. In the last few days before the critical morning of the 13th there was much discussion among the Bishops of the various nations as to whether they should vote a simple “No” or a conditional “Yes,”—a Non placet or a Placet juxta modum. It was not merely the fourth chapter that was in question, which deals with infallibility, but the whole Schema on the Papacy, which contains also the [pg 768] much-decried third canon of the third chapter, establishing for the first time the theory of the universal episcopate of the Pope, the very theory Pope Gregory the Great characterized as an abomination and a blasphemy. It was known that the Bishops who are mere dilettantis in theology—and their number is legion, as is natural under the present system of episcopal appointments—would greatly prefer voting juxta modum, i.e., with a conditioned “Yes.” That would always leave them free to reserve their further decision till the public voting “coram Sanctissimo” (as the Pope is here called), when only a direct “Yes” or “No” can be voted. Each of them could present in writing the conditions or wishes on which he desired to make his Placet dependent, and then say “Yes” or “No” according to his pleasure in the Solemn Session, if his suggestions were disregarded—“Yes,” if he wished to direct the lightning flashes of the angry Jupiter to other heads than his own; “No,” if he could summon manliness and courage enough at the last moment. The Court party and the majority had neglected no means of impressing on the recalcitrants the uselessness of their negative votes and the personal disadvantages to themselves. Every one was told, “It is determined irrevocably to take no account [pg 769] of your ‘No,’ and to go on to the promulgation of the dogma. Supported by at least 500 favourable votes, and throwing the surplus weight of his own vote into the scale, the Pope, on the 17th or 24th July, will walk over your heads amid the presumed acclamations of the whole Catholic world; and how lamentable and hopeless a situation will yours be then! You are then heretics, who have incurred the terrible penalties of the canon law; you have surrendered at discretion, bound hand and foot, to the mercy of the deeply injured Pope. Consider, ‘Quid sum miser tunc dicturus, quem patronum rogaturus?’ ”
Thus they were worked on individually. And more drastic methods were employed as well. It was asserted that two documents had already been drawn up in the Vatican, which every Bishop would be compelled to sign before being allowed to leave Rome; the one a profession of faith comprising the new article of infallibility, and the other an attestation of the perfect freedom of the Council throughout its whole course. Whoever refused to sign either would thereby at once incur papal censures. “We shall thus have,” they were told, “your Non placet and your ‘free’ acknowledgment under your hand of the article of faith you denied a few days before, and [pg 770] shall show it to the world. Do you wish then morally to annihilate yourselves in public opinion?”