The Pope, on June 25, calling governments before "his tribunal," and sitting in judgment, pronounced censure on the governments of Italy, Austria, Spain, and Russia. Italy was discussing a law to subject students even for the priesthood to the conscription. Austria was miserably wronging and injuring the Church. Spain was doing likewise, or worse. And Russia was persecuting the Polish bishops and sending them into exile. The high spirits of the Court at this moment appear in the comments on these sentences. We give a few specimens from the Civiltá (VII. vii. p. 135, etc.)—
From no other lips could those words burst forth, save from those of him who is set by God as ruler of His Church, with divine power, above all human powers.... Only the Pope can thus menace, reprove, and instruct, because he only is set in a region above all human greatness between heaven and earth.... When science gloried in being Catholic, and authority in being derived from God, both were, when they spoke, echoes of the word of the Pope. But science and authority have become unchristianized. The Pope has remained what he was—the herald, the oracle of the Lord.
The article proceeded to show that the Pope had menaced in the same breath one republic, Spain; two constitutional monarchies, Italy and Austria; and one absolute monarchy, Russia. This could not be done unless the Pope was king. Then follows a specimen of history as it flourishes under Pius IX. The Roman Emperors used to imprison the Popes, in order to reign in Rome; and Constantine, not wishing to imprison the Pope, abandoned Rome. But a king not Pope, and a Pope not king, never were able to live here together, and never will be able to do so. (Civiltá, VII. vii. p. 131 ff.)
Great attention was awakened by the prominence given by the Civiltá (p. 210) to a publication of Bishop Plantier, of Nimes. It was "splendid and profound." Plantier spoke of the suggestion that the two doctrines of Papal infallibility and the assumption of the Virgin should be defined by acclamation. He alleged that such a mode of definition could be conveniently and infallibly adopted, and asked if the Council should adopt it, what would be the harm? He ridiculed the idea that the assistance of the Holy Spirit would be given to a decision by vote and not to one by acclamation. The appearance of this in the Civiltá, after all that had passed, quickened the fears of the anti-infallibilists and also of the anti-opportunists lest the Pope should be determined to carry through the definition by acclamation.
Early in September the bishops of Germany met at Fulda, and issued a collective pastoral. They solemnly deprecated the rumours spread abroad as to the intentions of the Council. The bishops went on to asseverate that the Council would never define any new doctrine which was not contained in holy writ or in tradition, but would define only principles which were written "on all your hearts by faith and conscience" (Friedberg, p. 276). The Catholics of Germany took this solemn language in its apparent meaning; and the persuasion that their bishops would stand fast, and that the Curia would not ride roughshod over such a body, tranquillized most men. Only ecclesiastics appear to have suspected that the assurance might amount to little more than carefully dovetailed words.
The German bishops, in giving the assurance that nothing but what the faithful believed would be defined, probably hoped that the fact of their having to give such an assurance would weigh at Rome, as a hindrance to the plans in contemplation. If so, they only furnished one more proof of the truth which we in England have been told by Dr. Newman, that no pledge from Catholics is of any value to which Rome is not a party.[158]
If the German bishops read as little as Dr. Friedrich says they do, they perhaps do not read the Unitá Cattolica. There is no doubt that it, at least, speaks language agreeable in the highest quarters. In its number for the preceding 1st of May, it commented on the same assurance as having been flung before the French people. "If the Council," says this real echo, "should only define what all believe, the Council would be useless, for in points which all believe all are agreed." To say, it proceeds, that an Œcumenical Council should express what all the faithful think, is to confound the Teaching Church with the Learning Church. "The pen falls from our hands, and we have not courage to contend against such nonsense."
After having put this assurance before their nation, certain of the bishops felt it necessary to address a private appeal to the Pope, drawn up by Dinkel, Bishop of Augsburg, representing the great danger to the Church in Germany which the proposed alterations would involve, and praying him to abandon "the far-reaching projects which were ascribed to him."[159] A similar appeal was sent to his Holiness by the prelates of Hungary, in which country a notable commencement had been made in restoring the laity to a part in the management of Church affairs.[160]
In June 1869 a remarkable meeting of Catholic notables was held in Berlin; with an account of which Sepp opens his book. The chair was filled by Peter Reichensperger, since noted for his Ultramontane zeal, and Herr Windhorst, now the Ultramontane leader in the Reichstag, was present, with even Dr. Jörg, of Bavaria, whose allusion, in the winter of 1874, to the attempt of Kullman on the life of Bismarck called forth a remarkable speech from that statesman. These gentlemen, thinking, or professing to think, that their bishops would defeat what the Curia had planned, adopted an address expressive of confidence in them, and of their hope that the threatened collision between the Church and their governments and nation might be averted.