Whom would the people obey? God and the Church, or the State?... As it is evident that the Church assembled in Council can only repeat, and that more strongly than ever, that as between God and men, as between the Church and the State, obedience is to be rendered to God and the Church instead of to man and the State, and as it is evident that in Catholic and civilized countries, in spite of all the efforts of sects, respect for the Church endures, and increases, while all respect for States and governments diminishes, it is clear that the Liberals, who are dominant almost everywhere, tremble at the Council, which is bound to proclaim more loudly than ever, We must obey God rather than men.
Even the little review at the Villa Borghese set M. Veuillot reflecting on the restoration of that "Christian order" which consists in the due submission of the natural to the supernatural order—
If we only think that the Council has to re-establish the Christian order without restoring the ancient aristocracy, irremediably fallen, and has to replace the social laws in a position where property and liberty shall be freed from the grasp of democracy, which is no more than an administrative aristocracy, we shall conclude that the task is not a trifle, and that the seed to be sown is not of a kind to ripen in a day.
In most Papal countries, indeed, the ancient aristocracy has fallen, and, much as priests like titles and stars in their train, they like broad acres still better, and legislative power even better still. Even when barons held lands in fief under prince-bishops and abbots, they were frequently tempted to insubordination. And in the Model State, the career open to a lord was as nearly as possible that which in our chaotic state is open to a lady. So, the aristocracy were not to be restored. But in the new Christian order both freedom and property were to be taken out of the hands of the democracy. This had been well done in the states of the Church, and partly done elsewhere, in the middle ages. In the formula, "The Pope and the People," people does not, we repeat, mean democracy, but subject populace, with a ruling priesthood and nobody to come between priest and mob. Matters would be greatly simplified if both an aristocracy and an administrative democracy were removed out of the way. But, true to the far-aiming plans of the school, M. Veuillot was thinking of the seed-time, knowing that the harvest was as yet far off. When the prize is no less than the supremacy of the world, a year may well be counted for a day.
M. Veuillot, alluding to those profane creatures the correspondents of worldly newspapers, said he had had to do with government spies, but Press spies made him respect the former. The Press spies detested respectable men, seeming to think that they spoiled the profession, and prevented it from enjoying all the hatred and contempt it merited (i. 33). M. Veuillot could afford to assume this attitude. The Univers was sanctified by the Pope's blessing, and certified by his brief. This high-caste scribe had not, however, said a word about the device by which the election of committees had been carried, though he gloried in the choice of men. He had not mentioned the electoral tickets, nor alluded to the prohibition of collective meetings of the French bishops, nor to the petition sent in by some of their number for a few morsels of liberty. He had, however, told the faithful that none of the bishops had any desire to be put on the committees, and that a prelate from South America, on finding himself elected, wept and said, "What do you mean? I am not fit. I know nothing." Writing on January 20, after the division of parties had become clearly defined, M. Veuillot said that should an Opposition group be formed, as some feared would be the case, it would only be small, and would be rather outside of the Council than in it. "Outside," said a bishop to me yesterday, "there is some room for the spirit of man; inside there will be no room for anything but the Spirit of God; and though unanimity is by no means necessary, it will nevertheless seldom fail." It was, at this time, still hoped that the "pontifical secret" would leave no chink by which the tenor of the debates could leak out. "How," exclaims M. Veuillot, "will this assembly be able to distribute its incalculable labours, and carry them to an end? Immense questions arise on all sides. It is the human species that has to be set in march. Nature feels its infirmity." Still, it will prove, he asserts, that the Council can more easily make decrees for centuries, than modern governments can make constitutions to last a few months.
An address to the Holy Father, from the Society of Catholic Italian youth having its headquarters in Bologna, declared that in answer to the infernal fury of the enemies of the sacred Council, they protested their resolution to obey its Decrees as the holy gospel, as the decrees of God Himself, and to defend its disciplinary acts as the acts of God Himself. In conclusion, they call the Pope, among other titles, the living Peter, the infallible mouth of the Church and of Christ Himself, the Vicar of God, "whose word for us and the Catholic universe is the truth of God which endureth for ever."[247] A strong force of equally well-trained youths in every country would do something to give substance to the dream of universal empire, by a Crusade of St. Peter.
To say that the Civiltá and the Unitá Cattolica contradicted nearly all the facts reported by the journals of Europe, would be a tame statement of the case. They not only gave the lie, but did so with all sorts of aggravating epithets. The Italian papers were most belied, because they, feeling no respect for the men of the Curia, did not care to put on any, but tore off false covers relentlessly, and even with mockery. According to an ordinary Italian saying, respect for the Curia begins outside the walls of Rome, and increases in proportion to distance. Still, the French, German, and English papers, though more respectful—the last, in comparison, deferential—were denounced as lying and lying again. This went smoothly till the lie-givers descended to particulars. Even then it answered, to some extent, till time brought facts to the test. Now, it is sad to look at these contradictions, and compare them with documents registered in the same pages, or with facts which even there are no longer disputed. Any one who wants a lesson in the art of giving the lie may go to an article in the Civiltá (VII. ix. p. 327), and succeeding ones. After studying them an Englishman would be more charitable to Romans when they say that if the Jesuits contradict a thing well, they begin to think it must be true. But he would discover that, under an apparent contradiction, there is often preserved a possibility of saying that there was no real one. A statement has been made containing one main fact, which was perfectly true, but with two or three accidental appendages, some one of which was not true, and the whole is treated as false. For instance, the whole tale of Nardi dismissing the German prelates is to appearance ridiculed, because one journal says that Nardi had made a secret door, at which he played the eavesdropper. Of course it was an Italian journal—La Nazione—which thought that a probable action for a monsignore of the Curia.
The Nuova Antologia, a review of high standing in Italy, published articles on the Council, which formed the basis of Vitelleschi's book. The Civiltá assigned them to Salvatore de Renzi, spoke of them as being not more inaccurate than others, and after general charges came to particulars. The author's "want of reflection" appeared in his supposing that though abbots and generals of orders both had seats, only the former had votes. Moreover, he had said that in the sessions the Fathers always wore the read pluvial and mitre; whereas in the first two sessions they had worn the white ones, and the statement as to the mitre was falsissimo, as false as could be, for in Rome, and in the presence of the Pope, they always wore one of white silk or cloth. When all Catholics were in serious excitement, when they knew that hands were laid on their creed to alter it for them and their children, it was such matters as the above which weighed upon the minds of the Jesuits, and justified outcry against men who strove to get and give some little information.
The first article of professed intelligence in the Civiltá after the Council had really got to work, spoke of giving only the external news, which was what all the "good Press" professed to give. What it gave was indeed external. A person turning to these official pages in hope of learning what he would have to believe by-and-by, found paragraphs about "clothes" (VII. ix. 99). "We have told our readers of the vestments worn by the Fathers in the public session. They will be pleased to have a translation of the notice appointing the ceremony to be observed in the Congregations"—the ceremony meaning the ceremonial garments. The men who were undertaking to change for the priests and people the conditions of their membership in the Church, to revolutionize their relations with their neighbours and even with their nations, were yet persuaded that while all this was going on, priests and people must be thinking of how the gowns of the Fates were dyed, and not of what threads they were spinning. So, with conscientious exactness, the faithful were informed that the Most Reverend and Most Eminent Lords the Cardinals would wear the red and violet mozzetta and mantelletta over the rochet; and the Most Reverend Patriarchs the violet mozzetta and rochet, etc., etc., etc.
A touching incident of private life came to soften the feelings of the Fathers on the eve of the struggle. The son of De Maistre, the champion of the pen, and the daughter of Lamoricière, the champion of the sword, had, four months previously, been married. "Two such fair names," exclaims M. Veuillot—yes, two stately figures, bending in vain to stay a falling oak. The young wife was smitten with death, and the widow of the hero could only reach Rome in time to close her daughter's eyes. The whole city united in sorrowing over the mingled tears of the houses of De Maistre and Lamoricière. Noble Lamoricière! During the four dreadful days of June, 1848, in Paris, his chivalrous sword formed a shield behind which thousands sat in safety. None who were of the number, as we were, can ever without gratitude think of him, or of the stainless Cavaignac.