The Jesuits said, "Surely those non-Catholics who witnessed this action must have perceived that Catholicity, like unity, is found only where Christ lives, speaks, and reigns—in Peter; that is, in the Roman Church, of which Pius IX is now Peter." But we may quietly ask, Could even those writers fancy Peter, at the only Apostolic Council, seated upon a throne somewhere on Mount Zion, while John, James, and Paul came up in the presence of the assembled Church and kissed his knee, and Philip, Barnabas, and others knelt and kissed his foot? Far as the aesthetics of those Jesuits had descended, by a long materializing process, they must surely have read enough of the Holy Scriptures to feel that the scene enacted in St. Peter's, though a fine edition of a Durbar, was a sad fall from an Apostolic Council. You promise the pupils of Plato a higher wisdom than they ever knew in the Academy, and they find for wisdom the gewgaws of Freemasons. Such a scene was bad in manners, bad in politics, and bad in religion. In manners, it tended to make men servile in a lower position and arrogant in a higher; in politics, it tended to make them either slaves or despots; in religion, it tended to make them either unbelieving or superstitious. Is it part of the penalty of Rome that barbaric forms should linger at its Court, when the spirit of Christianity has banished them from the Courts of Christian kings? Our own monarch, at the head of her two hundred and eighty millions, is too good a Christian to make her subject Rajahs, as a spectacle for her commons and her troops, come and fall down and kiss her foot. The words which commanded the followers of Christ not to exercise over one another the kind of lordship which the kings of the Gentiles exercised over them were, with pompous action, publicly trampled upon in this scene of "the obedience," and that both in the spirit and in the letter. He who complacently sat and acted out that scene in the house of God for an hour and a quarter, might better claim to represent many known in the history of ambition, than the lowly Lord of Peter.
Up to this time only sixty-seven articles of the program had been performed. Thirty more were exhausted by postures, manipulations, and devotions. The officiating cardinal-priest then came forward, bearing the reeking censer. He waved it before the enthroned priest, around whom swelled up the clouds till subject eyes looked up to him through a sacred haze, and till he looked down on his subject creatures from a sky of fragrant mist. This ceremony fulfilled, all took their seats with their mitres on, and the Pontiff, rising, delivered his allocution. It overflowed with joy and hope. It clearly pointed out the enemy to be destroyed. "A conspiracy of the wicked, mighty by combination, rich in resources, fortified with institutions, and using liberty for a cloak of maliciousness." Obviously this enemy was not a theological but a political one. Vitelleschi, who naturally heard with Italian ears, says that the language, though using a cloak, was plain enough to show what enemy was meant.
As the Pontiff drew to the close of his allocution, he, with a burst of feeling, put up two invocations, one to the Holy Spirit, the other to the Blessed Virgin. After this, with contagious intensity of emotion, he threw up both hands to heaven. At a bound, the whole assembly stood up. Then he poured forth the final invocation with the fullest resonance of his wonderful tones—tones which might have served in chanting from Gerizim to Ebal. He invoked angels and archangels, Peter, Paul, and all the saints, more particularly those whose ashes were venerated on that spot. This speech from the apostolic throne, exclaims Monsignor Guérin, beginning with the liveliest joy, afterwards expressing divine agonies, concluded with firm and tranquil confidence!
Now followed another round of ceremonies, at the close of which the master of the ceremonies proclaimed, "Let those who are not members of the Council withdraw." The royal and noble spectators left the scene; the doors were closed. The Knights of Malta and the noble guard stood sentry between the faithful, who were to receive the creed as it might be shaped, and the Fathers, who were to decide for them what their creed should be. What would take place before those doors should be opened again? Persistent rumour had said that the extreme party meant to attempt an acclamation. Therefore many believed it possible that in one brief sitting the basis of infallibility might be shifted from that of an infallible Church to that of an infallible man.
Other rumours asserted that some French prelates had let it be known that if any attempt at getting up an acclamation should be made, they would leave the Council. But what might take place behind those charmed walls, who could tell? All that could be said with certainty was that now, for the first time in the history of man, one hundred and seventy millions, perhaps two hundred millions, were standing idle spectators of the process of altering their creed. They had not a single representative; not one channel of expression, not one possible resort in appeal. What used to be a general council was now a conclave; sitting behind a guard of armed men. King and priest, councillor of state and doctor of divinity, were equally shut out. The Catholic multitude appeared indifferent. The few who were not indifferent were powerless. They had all been parties to narrowing the idea of the Church to that of the clergy. That idea was now, without the consent of any one being asked, formally narrowed from that of the clergy to that of the bishops and Court prelates. It might further be narrowed from that of the Episcopate to that of the Pope. It appears to us not very easy to call men fanatics who have done so much with mankind, when they propose and expect to do still more!
The point at which we now stand in the program of the day is the 109th Article, which is the first of several prescribing a ceremony with a substance. Bishop Fessler, Secretary of the Council, and Bishop Valenziani of Fabriano, approached the throne. The Secretary handed a document to the Pontiff. The Pope handed the document to Valenziani, who thereupon, ascending the pulpit, turned towards the throne, made a profound obeisance, took off his mitre, and read out as follows—"Pius, the Bishop-Servant of the Servants of God, with the approbation of the Holy Council." Having now pronounced the title of the decree, he again put on his mitre, seated himself, and proceeded to read the substance of the Decree. This consisted of one sentence, declaring the Council opened. In that ill-constructed hall few heard what was read; and many were wicked enough to hint that, if ill-constructed, the hall was not ill-contrived. Once more laying aside the mitre, Bishop Valenziani rose and asked, "Is the Decree now read agreed to?" The bishops were seated in their mitres, the abbots standing bareheaded. There was no formal vote. Those who understood what was said, cried Placet, and others repeated the cry. No one dissented. This result was communicated to the sovereign, and he from the throne proclaimed—"The Decree now read is agreed to by the Fathers, none dissenting; and we decree, enact, and sanction it, as read."
These forms were exactly repeated, and a second Decree was passed. Like the first, it consisted of a single sentence, which fixed the next public session for January 6. The two Promoters of the Council, as they were called, now advancing, first knelt on the lowest step of the throne, and then addressed the notaries, saying, "We pray you, Protonotaries here present, to draw up an authentic document, recording all and singular the acts done in this public session of the all-holy Œcumenical Vatican Council." The senior protonotary then appealing to the Majordomo and the High Chamberlain, who stood on the right hand of the throne, said, "We shall draw it up, ye being witnesses" (Frond, vii. p. 119).
The constitutional crisis had come and gone, and very few were aware of it. Those who had thought of the program as anything more than the order of a pageant, must have observed that the signification of those acts amounted to no less than putting aside the conciliar form of Decree, and adopting in its stead that of the Papal Bulls. We have already seen that Friedrich, as a Church historian, saw this at a glance. It need not be said that the ancient Councils, representing the whole Church, spoke in their own name, themselves decreeing and enacting. As to the only Council "over" which Pontiff Peter I "presided," it would not do to cite it as an example.[207] As late as Trent, every Decree bore upon the face of it the words, "This holy Council enacts and decrees." All the statutes of the Council of Trent, without alteration of a word, were immediately confirmed by the Pope, he having beforehand promised, in writing, to do so. The formula then used was, of course, liable to the interpretation that it indicated the superiority of the Council to the Pope. That interpretation had been actually put upon it by schools in the Church, at one time, including whole nations.
The Decrees now passed had never been before the Council for deliberation, but were handed from the throne ready made. The Pope, according to the formula, did not merely sanction, but decreed, enacted, and sanctioned—that is, he took the part of both parliament and crown.