Strossmayer's speech gave to modern Rome a sensation strange to her, though familiar to ancient Rome—the feeling caused by the echoes of impassioned reasoning in favour of freedom. And this time it was freedom commended by the voice of a bishop! The degree of freedom advocated was, indeed, only such as anywhere else would have been a minimum. The reports given of the eloquence of the speaker were exciting, and it would appear that even those of opponents were often laudatory. Lord Acton gives the following passage—
What do we gain by condemning what has been already condemned? What end is promoted by proscribing errors which we know to have been already proscribed? The false doctrines of sophists have vanished like ashes before the wind. They have corrupted many, I confess, and infected the spirit of the age. But can we believe that the contagion of corruption would not have taken effect had errors of this sort been smitten down with anathema, by Decree? We have no means given to us beyond cries and prayers to God, whereby to defend and conserve the Catholic religion, but those of Catholic science in complete agreement with the faith. The heretics assiduously cultivate science unfriendly to the faith, and therefore true science friendly to it should be cultivated among Catholics, and advanced by every effort. Let us stop the mouth of opponents, who cease not falsely to impute to us that the Catholic Church represses science, and restrains all free thought, so that within her bounds neither science nor any liberty of intellect can flourish or exist. Further, it has to be shown, and that both by words and deeds, that in the Catholic Church there exist true liberty for the nations, true progress, true light, and true prosperity.[254]
This proposal to fight thought only with thought, and to allow institutions to be tested by their fruits, was well fitted for any soil where the Bible was the statute-book, but was untenable ground in Rome. The excitement was great.
Ketteler embraced Strossmayer as he came down. Senestrey, on the other hand, stated that he had said things for which he must have been called to order in any assembly. Dinkle said he had spoken on his own account, and showed no inclination to share risks with him.
The first French prelate who came to the desk was Ginoulhiac, of Grenoble, who also spoke against the Draft. What he then said we know not. What he had just previously published under his own hand we do know. Resisting the idea of an acclamation, he said—
To insist upon dispensing with previous examination, because of the immense importance of the question, or because the subject of the question was that which in the Church is greatest, would be not merely to depart from the practice of all ages, but it would also be to commit a most serious error, and to awaken in all grave minds just suspicions of the decision which might be arrived at. In past times nothing was so feared as the appearance of not devoting to important decisions sufficient time, and of not giving sufficient satisfaction even to the minds of the prejudiced (p. 43).
Speaking of the liberty essential to a real Council, he had said (p. 46)—
Little does it matter whether the liberty of deliberation and of vote be violated in one way or another, whether by fear or by guile, whether the violence exerted is physical or moral; so soon as liberty is gravely hampered, the Church no longer recognizes herself as truly represented.
Friedrich tells how Strossmayer, the day before, had said that he would write out his speech and send it in; for the reporters were so unskilful that their manuscripts were of little use. But we do not see how he could do more than guess what their reports were. At the same time (it was in the house of Cardinal Hohenlohe), he said that now, since he had been in Rome, he could understand how both the Reformation and the Greek Schism had originated. It was in his view a real crime for the Pope to claim to be the successor of Christ instead of the successor of Peter; the way in which bishops were driven was, he added, inconceivable, when one remembered that it was they that kept up the dignity of the Pope, and prepared the minds of the people to acknowledge it.