"Vitæ summa brevis"
which the Roman poet warns us is not to be counted on.
THE VATICAN COUNCIL.
NUMBER FOUR.
Another month of the Vatican Council has passed by without any public session. There has not been a general congregation since February 22d, when the twenty-ninth was held. This absence of grand public ceremonials has driven some of the newspaper correspondents to turn elsewhere in search of sensational items. We are no longer inundated, and at times amused, by column after column of newspaper accounts narrating speeches and events in the council that had scarcely any existence, except in the fertile imaginations of the writers. The outward calm in Rome has produced its effect in no small extent in the newspaper world.
This calm, however, is by no means the calm of inaction. Quite the contrary. At no time were the fathers so assiduously engaged in the deep study of the matters before them, or more earnestly occupied with their conciliar labors.
We stated in our last number that they were then engaged in the discussion of the subjects of discipline, on which several schemata, or draughts, had been drawn up by preparatory committees of theologians, in anticipation of the council. The discussion was continued, on February 19th, with six speakers, on the 21st with seven speakers, and was closed on the 22d with seven other speakers, when the fourth schema, or draught, on discipline, was referred, as the preceding ones had been, to the appropriate committee or deputation on matters of discipline.
Thus, within two months, since the congregation of December 28th, when the discussion began, one schema on faith and four on discipline had come up before the bishops; and there had been in all one hundred and forty-five speeches delivered on them. The experience of those two months had made several points very clear:
First, the schemata, or draughts, as prepared by the theologians, did not prove as acceptable to the bishops as perhaps their authors had expected. On the contrary, the bishops subjected them to a very searching examination and discussion, criticising and weighing every point and every expression; and seemed disposed, in measure, to recast some of them entirely.
Secondly, the mode in which this examination had so far been conducted might, it was thought, be improved, both in its thoroughness and in the length of time it occupied. So far, all the prelates who wished had spoken one after another. The sittings of the congregations usually lasted from nine A.M. to one P.M., and became a great trial of the physical endurance of many of these aged men. The prelates could not refrain from asking each other, What progress are we making? How long will this series of speeches last?