"It is necessary for us to use every exertion that, by God's help, we may separate every evil from the church and from society; to lead back into the straight way of truth, justice, and salvation, those unfortunate people who have wandered from it; to repress vice and refute error, so that our august religion and its salutary doctrine may acquire a new vigor throughout the world, that it may be extended further every day, that it regain its empire, and thus that piety, honesty, justice, charity, and all Christian virtues maybe strengthened and flourish for the greatest good of humanity."
The entire programme, all the work of the future council, is in these words. There are, then, two great objects, the good of the church and the good of human society. This is its object and its only object.
But especially does the church assemble her bishops that her interior life may be reanimated, and, as the apostle says, "To stir up the grace of God which is within us." The reason of this is because the church has the wonderful privilege that I have already mentioned—she is the only body which possesses the power of perpetually renewing her youth in the course of a perpetual life. It is in virtue of this divine constitution that none of the truths which she has preserved can change, can be lost, can be increased—that not even a syllable can be altered or an iota destroyed! "One jot or one tittle of the law shall not pass away until all be fulfilled," said Jesus Christ. The church is a living institution composed of men, borrowing its head and its members from every nation and from all ranks, always open to receive those who wish to come to her, and unceasingly increased by the addition of new races of men among her children. A river which has received many streams into its current reflects the objects along its banks and adapts its course to the climate, and to the country with its irregularities; so the Catholic Church has the gift of accommodating herself to the times, to the institutions, and to the requirements of the generations through which she passes and the centuries which she civilizes.
And more than this is true, because in the world she labors perpetually in order that she may ever become more worthy to speak of God to men, and in a way to be heard and understood by them. She is continually examining, with respect, and at the same time with sovereign authority, her disciplinary books, her laws, her institutions, her works, and especially her members, distributed in the different grades of the hierarchy. Indeed, we do not believe that we are without faults or blemishes. "Ah! should we be astonished," Fénélon used to say, "to find in man the relics of humanity!" But, eternal thanks be given to God, we find in the imperishable treasury of truth, and of the divine laws which we are called to guard, the means of recognizing our faults and reforming our manners.
Thus it is especially against ourselves, or rather for ourselves, that this council is going to assemble. There will not be one among us to take his seat in this august assembly, who has not in the early morning bent his knee upon the lowest step of the altar, bowed his head, struck his breast, and said, "If God is not better known, if he is not better served than by me, if the truth suffers violence, if the poor are not assisted, if justice is in peril, O God! it is my fault, it is my fault, it is my most grievous fault!" Monarchs of the earth, who settle the fate of nations with such a frightful boldness, an examination like this would be good even for you, if you could only endure it! O human assemblies, parliaments, tribunals, popular conventions, do you think that this rigid self-examination, these confessions, these scruples, and these courageous habits of discipline and reform, will be useless in appeasing blind agitation and arrogant passion, or in rousing up sleepy routine?
When each of us has thus examined, questioned, and accused himself, we shall ask ourselves, What are the obstacles which to-day prevent the propagation of the faith among those who have not yet received it, and its reestablishment among those who have lost it? We shall revise regulations, we shall reform abuses, we shall reestablish forgotten laws, we shall modify whatever requires modification. Under the supreme authority of a common father, of the bishop of bishops, the experience of old men, the zeal of the young, the inspiration of the holy and the wisdom of the wise, will all concur in declaring the present condition of the church, its mission upon the earth, and its duties in the future. This examination will be made in the most unconstrained and fraternal discussion, which will soon be followed by solid resolutions, which will become, then, and for centuries, the rule of the church's life.
Such will be the first object of the assembly of bishops. An object at once sublime and humble, one which fills the children of the church with respectful admiration, and which strikes her enemies with an astonishment that they seek in vain to disguise. Yes, our ministry is so noble, our assemblies so elevated above other assemblies, that the language of man contains the involuntary admission of its superiority. If they desire to designate a noble office, a superior mission, they call it, often even with exaggeration, a priesthood. If they wish to speak of some unusually imposing and solemn gathering, which will have a place in history, they say it was a council of kings or legislators. Human language has no more lofty words than these: not that we should pride ourselves upon them, for our hands have not done these things. They come from God, and the dignity of the words which express them recalls to our humility at once the majesty of our vocation and the formidable extent of our duties.
But what is the cause, in our day and at this hour, of the retreat of the entire catholic episcopate into the breast of a new cenacle? If I may presume to put it thus, what does this vigil of arms mean? [Footnote 286] Why these preparations, this work of a great council? Why has the Sovereign Pontiff, under the eye of God, and from his inspiration, judged it proper to call the church together in this second half of the nineteenth century?
[Footnote 286: The Bishop of Orleans is here referring to the pious custom of the days of chivalry, which compelled the knight who was to receive his armor for the first time on the following morning to pass the vigil watching in the chapel, where his future arms were placed upon the altar.]