The Catholic World, Vol. 11, April, 1870 to September, 1870

by Various

It thus appears that nothing will be put forth by the council without the fullest study and examination.

1. The schemata, or draughts, as presented to the council, are the result of the studies and conferences of able theologians of Rome, and of every Catholic country.

2. The schema is subjected to a thorough debate before the general congregation or, committee of the whole, or under the by-laws, it is placed in the hands of each one of the bishops, and every one who thinks it proper gives in writing his remarks on it, and proposes his emendations.

3. The schema, and these remarks and proposed amendments, are carefully considered by the deputation or committee to whom they are referred, whose office it is to prepare for the council a revised and amended draught. The twenty-four members of the deputation are picked men, and the examination and discussion of the subjects by them has proved to be all that the fathers looked for—most thorough and searching.

4. Again, on their revised report, the matter is a second time brought before the general committee, and is again discussed by the fathers, who are at liberty still to propose further changes and amendments. As a matter of fact, these turn mostly on minute details and on forms of expression.

5. Again, in the light of those proposed amendments, it is examined and discussed by the committee, who make their final report, accepting or not accepting the several amendments, and assigning to the congregation the reasons for their decision on each point. They thus enjoy the privilege of closing the debate.

6. Then follows the voting. One portion of the schema is taken up. The amendments touching it, so reported on by the committee, are one by one either adopted or rejected, and then the whole portion is passed on. One after the other the remaining portions are taken up, and acted on in the same manner. The amendments are first disposed of one by one, and then each portion is separately voted on. Finally, all the parts as separately adopted are put together, and on the whole schema so composed a more solemn vote is taken by ayes and noes.

This concludes the, so to speak, consultative action of the council on that schema. It is now ready for a solemn enactment and promulgation in the next public session of the council. (This session was held on Low-Sunday.—Ed. C. W.)

The time is approaching when the first portion of the decisions and decrees of the Vatican Council will be given to the world in the third public session, to be held on Low-Sunday. Already enough has come to light, in the better informed presses of Europe, to let us know the general tenor of what we shall soon hear. As it has become a matter of notoriety, we may speak of the subjects so said to be treated of.

The state of the world, and the errors and evils to be met and condemned in this nineteenth century by the Vatican Council, are very different from those which all previous councils were assembled to resist. The heresies then to be encountered denied this or that doctrine in particular, and erred on one or another point. But they all admitted the existence of God, the reality and truth, at least in a general way, of a revelation from heaven through Christ our Lord, and the obligation of man to receive it, and to be guided by it in belief and practice. Now, the world sees but too many who go far beyond that. Then, so to speak, the outposts were assailed. Now the very citadel of revelation is attacked. Schools of a falsely called philosophy have arisen which, with a pretended show of reasoning, deny the existence of God, of spiritual beings, of the soul of man, and recognize only the existence of physical matter. Or if they speak of God, it is by an abuse of terms, and in a pantheistic sense, holding him to be only the totality of all existing things, a personification of universal nature; or else, if they wish to be more abstruse or more unintelligible, God is, according to them, the primal being, a vague and indefinite first substance, by the changes, evolutions, emanations, and modifications of which all existing things have come to be as they are. Many are the phases of materialism, pantheism, and theopantism in which German metaphysicians revel, and call it high intellectual culture. The pith of all of them is atheism, the denial of the real existence of God.