Yet, in the light of the Catholic faith, so far from being such a very bold act, it appears like the most natural and the safest thing which he could possibly do. The Catholic faith teaches that the church founded upon the rock of Peter is infallible, by the promise and perpetual presence of Christ, the continual, inamissible indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In an œcumenical council, where the universal episcopate is gathered together under the presidency of its head, the successor of Peter, as vicar of Christ, the Catholic Church is organized for deliberation and action in the most perfect way possible. Who compose a council? The bishops of the world, to whom the right of membership belongs by divine law, and other prelates in eminent positions to whom the privilege is conceded by ecclesiastical law. Among them are men of distinct races, of different nations and languages, and governing dioceses or missions in all the different quarters and regions of the globe. The most learned and able men of the Catholic Church, the men who are most experienced in affairs and most intimately connected with the great political interests of the world, the men who have made the greatest sacrifices and performed the most important labors in the cause of God, are to be found among them. It is a world-congress of men in every intellectual and moral respect the most venerable that could possibly be collected on the earth; without comparison superior to any other deliberative or legislative assembly. An œcumenical council is, as the church teaches and every Catholic is bound to believe, infallibly directed and assisted by the Holy Spirit. Its decisions are to be received as proceeding from the mouth of God, its definitions of faith are final, unerring, and unchangeable. It is impossible, therefore, to imagine a greater absurdity, a more palpable contradiction, than that of appealing from an œcumenical council to Jesus Christ while professing to continue a member of the Catholic Church. It is appealing from the Holy Spirit to the Son; and, to carry out the absurdity to its utmost length, we have only to suppose one appealing from the Son to the Father Almighty. The god who is really appealed to in such a case is the idol of self in the bosom of the individual.
The question which is so frequently and anxiously asked, What, then, will the council do? has already been answered by anticipation in what I have just said, so far as it can be answered, at the present time, or need be answered, to reassure every good Catholic. The council will do whatsoever the Holy Ghost dictates. Further than this we cannot say any thing positively. But we can say very distinctly and certainly, what the council will not do. If it were to be an assembly of Protestant divines, guided each one by his private light, or of Swedenborgians, Spiritists, or Mormons, something piquant might be expected in the line of new doctrines or new revelations. But since it is a Catholic council, there will be no new revelations or new doctrines proclaimed. The church has no mission or authority to add any thing to the deposit of faith, committed by our Lord, orally or by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to the apostles. Her office is to guard, to teach, to protect, and explain the faith. She decides what Jesus Christ taught to the apostles, and they to their successors, according to evidence contained in Scripture and apostolic tradition, assisted by the infallible light of the Holy Spirit. Whatever she defines as pertaining to Catholic faith has always been believed in the church. The council will, therefore, so far as relates to faith, proclaim no new doctrines, but merely explain, so far as necessary, the ancient faith as it is opposed to the errors of the day, and declare in a more precise and explicit manner that which is really contained in the divine revelation, and, therefore, always implicitly believed by every Catholic.
In respect to discipline, the church has no power to alter any divine laws; but she has power over her own laws, to add to them, to amend, modify, or abrogate them. In matters of variable discipline, the council will, therefore, consider how far any new legislation is necessary and expedient, will make such enactments as it shall deem best, and these will become part of the supreme, universal law of the church, binding on the conscience of all its members.
But it is objected, and even some ill-informed or disaffected Catholics are found to join in the cry, the Roman court will prevail in the council, the bishops will not be free to discuss or decide any thing; for every thing has already been determined by the pope, who will impose his will as law upon the council. Be it so! All I have to say, then, is that, if the Roman court prevail, it is the Holy Ghost who prevails through the Roman court. Those who use such language know but little of the real state of things at the Roman court, or of the character of the prelates who will compose the council. In regard to the Roman court, I can speak from my own personal knowledge and experience. There is no sovereign on earth toward whom so much freedom of speech is used, by those whose position and character qualify them to give him advice, as the sovereign pontiff. There is no place where there is so much freedom of opinion and discussion as Rome. The former councils, and especially that of Trent, show how great is the freedom of debate, and how thorough the discussion of topics which prevails in these august assemblies. I will speak of but one instance, that of the Archbishop of Braga, at Trent, who insisted in the most pointed manner on the obligation which rested on the most illustrious cardinals to set the example to the rest of the faithful, of "a most illustrious reform." So far from giving offence at Rome, the freedom of this holy prelate caused him to be treated by the pope with the most distinguished consideration, and honored by marks of the warmest friendship. The prelates who will compose the council of the Vatican are not men who can be either allured or terrified by any human or worldly motives into any action contrary to their consciences or their convictions.
But the pope has already in his recent encyclical and syllabus, with the acquiescence of the great body of Catholic bishops, condemned science, progress, civilization, and liberty.
What is the authority on which this assertion is made? The newspapers. The newspapers! Who would not be ashamed to cite such an authority on such a subject. Newspaper articles written, as some of them openly confess, chiefly with a view of making a sensation, by persons destitute of the proper information for speaking intelligently on ecclesiastical matters, and too frequently not of a disposition to tell the truth if they knew it. To place faith in opposition to science is a patent absurdity, for it is the same as opposing truth to truth. And there is no person upon whom the charge of maintaining such an absurdity can be fastened with less justice than Pius IX. There is no pontiff who has appeared to take such an especial pride and delight in maintaining by his decisions and by the magnificent language of his pontifical letters the dignity and the rights of human reason as he has, a fact which I could easily prove by citations, if the time permitted. But let us know what those persons who charge the syllabus with opposing science, signify by that term. If they mean by it the theories of sophists like Humboldt, Huxley, Comte, Mill, Spencer, and certain philosophers of Boston, who dethrone God, deify matter, degrade the rational and spiritual nature of man, and reduce all knowledge to a chaos of scepticism, the pope and the church are opposed to all such science as that. Whoever upholds it is certainly fully authorized to apply to himself the definition which his favorite philosophy gives of man; to wit, that he is nothing more than a finely organized ape.
What do they mean by progress and civilization? Is it the supremacy of material interests, the dictatorial control of the state over education, the doctrine that the chief end of man is to establish railways and telegraphic lines? Then the church is opposed to them. But to call her the enemy of civilization in the true, genuine sense of the word, is not only false, but the basest ingratitude on the part of those to whom she has given that inheritance of civilization on which all the nations of Christendom are at this moment living.
What do they mean by liberty? Freedom from all religion, from all moral restraints, from the bonds and obligations of marriage, the subjection of the church to the power of civil rulers, and the atheistic constitution of the political and social state? To all these the church is opposed, and these she will resist to the last drop of her blood. And so are you opposed to them, if you have the sentiments of a man or make any pretension to the name of a Christian. So are the wisest and most virtuous of those who are out of the communion of the church, by whatever name they may choose to be designated. Such false liberalism as this we all alike detest, and must oppose with all our strength; for it is destructive of that only true liberty which we prize above all things—the "liberty of the children of God."
I have thought it necessary, my dear brethren—I may say my beloved children in Christ, for I am your pastor—to present before you these considerations on the eve of my departure to attend the Œcumenical Council.
It is not that you have need to be taught these things—for you are believing and instructed Catholics—that I have presented them before you; but that you may better understand what great benefits and blessings we may expect to flow from the deliberations and acts of that great council which is about to assemble, the most numerous and the most important which has been seen in the church for centuries. I desire you to look forward, as I do, to a new and glorious era in the church's history, an era of the triumph of faith and holiness, in which I trust our own country is destined to become the theatre of a brilliant development of the Catholic religion. I earnestly recommend to your prayers the success of the great work which is before the council, and my own prosperous return to you after its close. As I kneel at the sepulchre of the holy apostles SS. Peter and Paul, and before the holy shrines of the saints, I will remember you; and in now taking my leave of you for a short time, I pray God to give you his blessing, and to keep us all in peace and safety until we shall meet again.