Comparisons have been drawn between the Council of the Vatican and the United States Congress. Perhaps it would be easier to point out the lines of divergence than those of resemblance between these two deliberative bodies.
As to the relative ages of the members of the Council and the members of Congress, the former are decidedly in advance of the latter. I have taken the pains to refer to the Annuario Pontificio for 1870, which gives the age of nearly all the bishops of the Catholic world. From this book I learn that the oldest bishop in the council is in his eighty-fifth year, while the youngest bishop, the Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina, is thirty-five. The Archbishop of Lima, who was prevented by infirmities from coming to Rome, is the dean of the entire episcopacy, being now in his ninety-sixth year. Thus we see that both extremes of age meet on the American continent; North America having the youngest, and South America the oldest representative of the episcopal hierarchy.
Of the thousand bishops now in the church, fully three fourths are between the ages of fifty-five and ninety-six. The ages of the other fourth range between thirty-five and fifty-five. Scarcely half a dozen of these prelates are more advanced in years than the Holy Father, who yet exhibits more physical endurance and mental activity than any bishop ten years his junior.
So much for a comparison as to age. Next as to the speeches in both assemblies. The bishops embrace a wider field in their discourses than our senators. They are circumscribed by no limits of country. They make laws which bind the consciences of two hundred millions of souls—Europeans, Americans, Australians, Asiatics, and Africans; while Congress legislates for scarcely one fifth that number, and these confined within a portion of a single continent. Hence, in this single aspect of the case, the great ecclesiastical synod as far excels the Federal Congress of the United States as Congress itself surpasses the New York Legislature, or this latter the city council.
The speeches of the Vatican Council are usually much shorter than those delivered in Congress. The addresses of the fathers seldom exceed half an hour,[284] except those of the members of the deputations, whose remarks generally embrace a critical analysis of the questions before the council and a review of the amendments proposed by the bishops, usually occupying about the space of an hour. The reason for this brevity is obvious. No prelate would wish to be guilty of the bad taste of occupying unnecessarily the precious time of his brother bishops. He is fully convinced, on ascending the pulpit, that every word he says will be carefully weighed in the balance by a discriminating body of judges, who are influenced only by sound logic, and not by plausible rhetoric.
Besides their brevity, perhaps I might also add that the speeches of the fathers are characterized by more personal independence, sincerity, and earnestness of tone, than those of our legislators in Washington, while it must be admitted that public opinion commonly attributes to the episcopal character a higher order of virtue. Yet, apart from this consideration, we may find a reason for this difference in the fact that our national representatives have more temptations to sin against singleness of purpose than the prelates of the council. Besides the members on the floor of the House and Senate, there are often well-filled galleries ready to hiss or to applaud, according to the prejudices of the day, and we know how human nature dreads the finger of scorn and loves the popular plaudits. There is a political party which must be sustained per fas et nefas, and though last, not least, there are dear constituents to be pleased.
The fathers of the council have no such temptations to withdraw them from the strict line of duty which conscience dictates. All their general congregations are so many secret sessions. There are no frowning or fawning galleries to allure or to intimidate. There is no party lash hanging over the bishops' heads; for they have no private measures to propose in behalf of their "constituents." Indeed, one of the rules of the council requires that every bill brought before it must necessarily affect the general interests of the church, and not the special wants of any particular diocese or country.
The consoling unanimity which marked the public session held on Low-Sunday, seems to have put an effectual quietus on the erratic correspondent of the London Times; for he no longer, like another Cassandra, utters his prophetic warnings to the council, since the fathers, on the occasion alluded to, by a single breath demolished all his previous predictions about the threatened rupture of the assemblage.
Directed, no doubt, to view every thing in Rome with distorted vision, this writer literally fulfilled his instructions. If he met bishops walking to St. Peter's, he would despise them as a contemptible set. Should they prefer to ride, they were, in his estimation, pampered prelates crushing poor pedestrians under their Juggernaut. Should a schema be approved by the bishops after a brief discussion, they were pronounced by our seer a packed jury, the obsequious slaves of the pope. If the discussion happened to be prolonged, he would solemnly announce to his readers the existence of an incipient schism among the fathers. The truth is, the gentleman could never ascend high enough to comprehend the true character of the bishops. He could not associate in his mind independence of thought and the fullest freedom of debate with a profound reverence for the Holy Father.
Upon every question, from the beginning of the council, there has been prolonged and animated discussion. A council necessarily supposes discussion ever since that of Jerusalem. Deprive an œcumenical synod of the privilege of debate, and you strip it at once of its true character and the bishops of their manhood. No stone was left unturned that the whole truth might be brought to light.