The Rheinischer Merkur quotes a Catholic journal which in admiration of this masterpiece says that when adopted by the Council it would form a text-book. Yet this mass of divinity, any phrase, almost any word of which might affect the vital truths of religion, was put before the bishops with only a few days to study it, and they were expected to vote it as an irreformable creed, to be ready for promulgation, as bound on earth and bound in heaven, on January 6, the day decreed in the first session! Friedrich, looking at this bulky pamphlet, cries, All through we have the language of the schools; any one familiar with the Jesuit writings sees at once by whom it has been prepared.
Graf W., a Roman prelate, paid Friedrich a visit arrayed in all his vestments and decorations. Surprised at such a display by a stranger, Friedrich asked himself, Does he want to make an impression upon me, or to excite a longing for similar clothes? The conversation turned upon infallibility, and the Count Monsignore said that it would be carried through; for when the Curia had committed itself to anything, it was not to be balked. Friedrich, saying that for his part he had nothing to do but to speak according to his conscience, and that as a priest he knew well what must be his course when once the point was decided, went on to state that, not having his eye on a canonry or a bishopric, and being happy in his independent position as a professor in the university, he felt free. This surprised the Curialist, but Friedrich in turn was still more surprised when the man in soft raiment and living in kings' houses said that it was otherwise with him. He belonged to the Roman prelacy, and if he meant to continue in it, he must do what he was bid.
The German doctor was struck by hearing people assure him that life was tolerably safe in Rome if you were sure of your cook, your doctor, and your chemist (p. 30).
The German bishops had not, like the French, asked permission to meet among themselves, but their place of meeting had been cared for. Monsignor Nardi, a slashing writer, and a conspicuous member of the Curia, spared no pains to secure them for his own house. Cardinal Hohenlohe offered his for the purpose, but he scarcely received a civil answer. Even German bishops said as much as that they should compromise themselves by being identified with him. They began to feel their position very delicate. As they were assembled on December 22, with Cardinal Schwarzenberg in the chair, they were joined for the first time by three favourites of the Curia—Senestrey, Martin, and Leonrod. But when Senestrey found that they were discussing the propriety of petitioning the Pope for a relaxation of the Rules, he remembered that business required his presence elsewhere. We may be ready to smile at men, holding professedly the position of members of a Council, who durst not rise in their places and insist on having liberty to propose what their consciences dictated; and who, when refused that liberty, instead of declining to take part in the mock Council, went into a caucus, and drew up a petition to the autocrat who had snatched away their rights.
But their position was very difficult. If they attempted in their places to speak on the matter, the fatal sentence fell upon them that what the Holy Father had decreed could not be discussed. What then could they do but decline to take part in the Council? This would be coming into direct collision with the Pope. The moral education of their lives had aimed at fixing in their own minds, and they, in their action upon others, had aimed at fixing in their minds, one conviction—that the crime exceeding and comprehending all others was to break with the Pope. They were so placed as to have no alternative but either "disobedience" or the surrender of their individual and collective rights. They seem, indeed, to have thought that it was rather a spirited proceeding to send in a petition.
Archbishop Haynald of Hungary proposed that they should request the Pope to divide the Fathers into eight national groups. This was suggested with some idea of counter-balancing the fictitious majority made up by titular bishops and vicars apostolic. Had one nation been allowed to balance another, the effect no doubt would have been considerable; but how these venerable men could imagine that this scheme had any chance with the Pope, we cannot tell. The bishops in partibus, and the missionary bishops, being mostly Italians, would have been well nigh lost in such an arrangement. The Curia well knew that it had been tried at Constance, and was not to be caught.
What Friedrich heard of the opinions of the prelates as to the Draft Decrees, was unfavourable. Cardinal Rauscher was reported to have said that he would allow the paper to be read in his seminaries as the work of a student, but that to propose it to a German Council was too bad (p. 35). Many of the bishops said that its condemnations were untimely, and that it was unworthy of the dignity of a General Council. It was said to be the work of the Jesuit Fathers Schrader and Franzelin; but instead of the latter, Kleutgen was often named. The Dominicans spoke slightingly of it. The Bishop of Ascoli, a Carmelite, said he had only patience to get through half of it, and then he threw it away. Strossmayer said to Friedrich, Why must the Council at this time of day pronounce condemnations as to squabbles heard of only in the schools, and worn out even there? (p. 37). Kagerer told Friedrich that the bishops had agreed not to tell their theologians what passed at their private meetings; on which Friedrich remarks that the bishops were right, for the chaplains and secretaries by whom they were served could not be properly described as theologians. He then gave a sigh for Hefele. Meanwhile, he said, it was hard to listen to the talk of men, like Kagerer, who had come up without preparation, who were not furnished with books, and who drove a trade in theology by guesswork.
Monsignor Nardi's hospitality to the German bishops had not a smooth course. After having met at his house for the greater part of December, when they alighted one night in the Piazza Campitelli, they found the servant of Cardinal Schwarzenberg posted there to send them back again. The Cardinal had received from Nardi a request to be relieved of their further presence, giving so short notice that there was no means of meeting the case but that of setting the servant to turn the bishops away from the door. Thenceforth they found a German host, Cardinal Rauscher.[245]
The General Congregation of December 20, after learning the names chosen for the Permanent Committee on Faith, had been occupied with the election of the Permanent Committee on Discipline; but as the Acta contain no records of any transactions of the Congregations, beyond the bare lists of the committees elected by them, the strictly official means of ascertaining what passed are all but nil. The Acta Sanctae Sedis may be fairly considered as official in a looser sense; and it is strange how the brief but clear occasional notes of particulars which they contain, almost invariably confirm the profane writers in statements denied, or apparently denied, at the time by faithful ones. Deputations, including among others Strossmayer, went hither and thither in search of a hall to meet in. Quirinus thought that the one in the Vatican by the Sistine Chapel would not be of good omen, on account of the picture of St. Bartholomew's massacre. Had any real wish existed to find a place in which seven hundred gentlemen might sit and speak, it could easily have been done; but the wholesome exhalations from the tomb of St. Peter would not have been so potent anywhere else, even in Rome, as in the Vatican. One-third of the space in the hall was now curtained off. The debates were to open on December 28, that is, after twenty days had been lost.