A prelate of different views was he to whom Friedrich had said that, in order to understand the events of the Council, one must read the Civiltá, further adding that had he been Prince Hohenlohe in Bavaria, he would have answered the Civiltá by expelling the Jesuits from Regensburg. "They are innocent people," said the Bishop. "Individually," replied the Professor, "they may be innocent people, but they represent an order which propagates doctrine dangerous to the State." He tells also how it was found that the French, German, Austro-Hungarian, and American bishops had an International Committee of three; but that the Pope, regarding this as savouring of Nationalism, and of a revolutionary spirit, forbade it. Lord Acton (p. 52) mentions another prohibition scarcely less significant, namely, that the printed Rules of Procedure of the Council of Trent were, with the utmost strictness, withheld from the members of the Vatican Council. These rules, and the real minutes of that Council, had at that time never been published, and only saw the light in 1874, by the private efforts of Theiner. Of course, the Decrees and Canons had long been before the world. Among the many denials we do not remember any attempt to deny this specific allegation. An argument could be easily constructed, on the principle now accepted, to prove that it was no interference with liberty to deprive the bishops of the physical possibility of informing themselves of the extent of rights which they had inherited from their predecessors at the latest General Council.
Lord Acton says that one effect of the determination to keep the discussions secret was that it led the bishops to express themselves more strongly than they would have done had they expected their words to be read at home and conned over by Protestants. At the same time, much leaked out. All agree that the inhabitants of Rome took little interest in the discussions, while, in the religious aspect of the question, the Italians generally took scarcely any; and this indifference reacted on the interest they might have taken in its political aspects. They committed the error of despising their enemy. Knowing the men and their communications, they allowed their own estimate of the worth of priests to affect their calculation as to their influence.
There is a well accredited story of Lord Acton going to Florence, full of the burning questions which were to affect the future of every Roman Catholic. Dining with a relation in the very centre of the political circle, and meeting several members of the Cabinet, he naturally expected to find them taking some interest in the cosmopolitan politics then under treatment by the Senate of Humanity, the Supreme Legislature of the Human Species. But the Italians were buried in some passing question of grist, or the like, and had no ear for the principles which were to shape the future of nations. They saw little in the proceedings more than that the Pundits of an expiring caste were passing resolutions to adjourn the nineteenth century and to conserve the eleventh.
German and English Catholics were not capable of thus treating principles as husks. Whether Fallibilists or Infallibilists, they knew that the destiny of that Society, which both agreed to call "The Church," was now at stake, and that, at least, the repose of nations, if not their destiny, was also implicated. The Liberal Catholics, holding that the attempt to restore a theocracy would only lead to wars, and that humanity would avenge itself on the Papacy for again fomenting bloodshed, hoped that somehow God would save the Church from the blindness of the Curia. The Catholics, on the other hand, equally aiming at ultimate peace, and even regaling their imaginations with a vision of millennial repose, so soon as all nations should have accepted the Vicegerent of God as the representative of Christ Himself, were in the meantime profoundly convinced that the only way to obtain that repose was through the very conflict from which their faint-hearted brethren shrank.
The Infallibilists could not harbour the idea of the Church failing in the struggle. That was to them like supposing that the gates of hell should prevail. To the Liberal Catholics the Jesuits were conspiring against humanity and all its franchises. To the Jesuits, on the other hand, the Liberal Catholics seemed to be risking the loss of such an opportunity as might never recur, of putting the Church in a position to constrain governments to accept the principles by which alone nations could be saved. Therefore did they look upon any shrinking from the struggle as indicating worldly fear rather than foreseeing care for the Church. If Liberal Catholics looked upon the Jesuits as conspiring against humanity, the Jesuits looked upon the Liberal Catholics as agitators against divine authority. No wonder that in such a state of feeling, what Lord Acton describes took place, "The word-war of the hall was always fought over and over again outside, with the addition of anecdotes, epigrams, and inventions."
It was on Sunday, January 2, that two petitions were sent in to the Pope. The first was signed by forty-three prelates, headed by Cardinals Schwarzenberg and Rauscher, and the Primate of Hungary.[255] This was no Bill of Rights, not containing even a challenge of that exercise of prerogative which it sought partially to relax. The privileges for which two princes and forty-one magnates petitioned, "prostrate at thy feet," were—
(1) That the Fathers might be distributed into, say, six groups, in which Draft Decrees could be considered in the principal living languages before being brought on for discussion in Latin, in the General Congregation. (2) That speeches delivered in the General Congregation might be printed for the exclusive use of the members of the Council, and under the same bond of secrecy as that under which the Draft Decrees were communicated to them. (3) That the Draft Decrees on faith and discipline might all as soon as possible be laid in a connected form before the Fathers, and should not any longer be presented, as hitherto, piecemeal. (4) That the Fathers, after having in the vernacular meetings considered the Draft Decrees, might be allowed to send a couple of delegates from each group to the committee to represent their views. (5) That the Fathers might be allowed to print, in addition to speeches delivered in the General Congregation, writings in which questions could be treated more thoroughly; these however to be printed subject to the same bond of secrecy as the Draft Decrees. (6) "Prostrate at thy feet, we crave the apostolic benediction for ourselves and the faithful committed to us."
We do not know that even the last of the six things here prayed for was granted, for the petition never received an answer. These dignitaries clearly state to their royal master the grounds on which they petitioned for some of the elementary rights of human creatures. They say that Decrees cannot be really sifted by speaking a dead language in an assembly of seven hundred persons from all parts of the world, unless, first, in companies speaking living languages, the Fathers have had the opportunity of examining their contents. And further, that however well acquainted with Latin all might be, there were many prelates who did not speak it. Moreover, the petitioners, admitting that the Council Hall was admirable as being so near the tomb of St. Peter, state that in the first General Congregation, though some of the speakers had excellent voices, not one of them could make himself heard by all. Even since changes had been effected, the greater part of the members could not hear all the speakers. Another of their points is this: Although men well worthy of confidence—viri fide dignissimi—had assured them that the reports of the speeches should be distributed to the Fathers in print, so that they might read what they had not been able to hear, "in this hope we have been disappointed."
They appeal thus to their master, "Most Blessed Father, by thine excelling wisdom, wilt thou perceive that, as the Fathers can neither hear what is spoken, nor read it, proper consultation is not possible."[256] They go on to urge that even if the discussions were held in a place where men with the weakest voices could be heard, it would still be desirable that the members should be in a position to look over what had been advanced in successive sittings. "Matters of weightiest moment," they add, "are being treated, and frequently the addition, omission, or change of a single word may adulterate the sense." If, say they, the Fathers had the opportunity of explaining their views in writing, they could lay many things before their fellow members which could not be brought into speeches. As to obtaining an understanding of the proposals, they urged that, in questions of doctrine, one thing so connects itself with another, and discipline is so much affected by doctrine, that they are not in any position to give a judgment on Draft Decrees, obviously forming but part of a scheme, while as yet other parts of it are kept from their knowledge. The relation between the unknown parts and the parts before them is an element in any judgment to be formed.