[212] "Les portes-lumiéres et les portes-Dieu."
First Proceedings—Unimportant Committees and All-Important Commissions—No Council if Pope dies—Theologians discover their Disfranchisement—Father Ambrose—Parties and Party Tactics—Were the Bishops Free Legislators?—Plans of Reconstruction—Plan of the German Bishops—Segesser's Plan—New Bull of Excommunications.
The day following the wonderful Wednesday, of which the proceedings filled up the last chapter, was not too much for rest, and probably, indeed, was too little for the bishops to tell how effective the function had been. On the Friday, however, they had again to meet for the first General Congregation, or deliberative sitting. This was presided over by the Cardinals appointed, whereas the Pope in person presided over the Public Sessions, or solemnities, for formally promulging Decrees. Cardinal De Reisach, Chief President, was not in his chair, but upon his death-bed. As we have seen, he had superintended the drawing up (it is believed that with his own hand he had drawn up) the first code of laws to regulate the relations of the Church to civil society; but his code has never met the public eye.
From this first General Congregation, writes Friedrich, even the theologians were shut out.
The occupation of the day for nearly eight hundred bishops was to elect two committees of five each: one to examine applications for leave of absence; and the other to settle contests as to precedence, and similar matters, which contests at Trent often proved to be serious, indeed ere now the streets of Rome have witnessed bloodshed arising out of disputes of this sort between bishops. The members of these committees were called respectively Judges of Excuses and Judges of Complaints and Disputes. The mode of election was simple; every one wrote five names on a card. It proved that Fallibilists must not expect the smallest share of office. Cardinal De Luca took the chief place, and opened the Congregation with a few simple sentences. These were translated by interpreters for the Orientals who did not understand Latin. The prelate who on this occasion celebrated Mass at the opening of the sitting was the Bishop of Osimo, afterwards Cardinal Vitelleschi, to whom some have ascribed the authorship of the work of his brother, which we often quote.[213]
The real business of the day, too important to be left to the episcopate, had been done without them. It consisted in appointing the Commission of Proposals. Twelve Cardinals, twelve archbishops, and two bishops were announced as the men whom the Pontiff had put in charge of the rights of their brethren. Prelates with titles from Antioch, Jerusalem, Thessalonica, and Sardis; one from Chili and one from Baltimore; one from Spain, one from Westminster, two Italians, and a few others, were empowered to say whether the men who ruled the sees of Paris, Lyons, Munich, Cologne, and Milan, and those of Hungary and Portugal, were or were not to be recommended to the Pope for permission to bring forward any proposal. The Commission could not grant them leave to do so, but it could report to the Pontiff, who alone could determine.
As some seven hundred and fifty bishops found all their hopes of proposing anything placed at the discretion of these twenty-six men, it was not for them to reason why: it was for them simply to read in the names now announced the record of past services and the fate of future suggestions.[214] They had not stayed the proceedings when they found that the Pro-synodal Congregation had been used to fasten upon them an edict which took away their right of self-organization, and it was now hopeless to attempt to recover that right. The three youngest archbishops on the list were Giannelli, Manning, and Deschamps; the secretary of the Nine, and the two hottest Infallibilists—all three on the way to the purple, which they have since received at one and the same time.