Speech of the Pope against the Opposition—Future Policy set before France—Count Arnim's Views—Resumed Debate—Haynald—A New Mortal Sin—Count Daru and French Policy—Address calling for the New Dogma—Counter Petitions against the Principle as well as the Opportuneness.
On the Sunday following this disappointing session, the Pope received fifteen hundred persons in a public audience. Even the language of M. Veuillot does not exaggerate the effect of his speech upon that occasion. "What he said on the Council will loudly resound through the Catholic universe." What he said cut the bishops of the Opposition, and Liberal Catholics generally, to the heart. We quote from the version of M. Veuillot:—
Would-be wise men would have us treat certain questions charily, and not march against the ideas of the age, but I say that we must speak the truth, in order to establish liberty. We must never fear to proclaim the truth or to condemn error. I want to be free, and want the truth to be free. Pray then, weep, force the Holy Spirit, by your supplications, to support and enlighten the Fathers of the Council, that the truth may triumph and error may be condemned.
After his first version of the speech, M. Veuillot said that a word had been "unfortunately omitted." The Pope had said that those who opposed certain measures were
blind leaders of the blind. Well, if the leaders want not to lead any but the blind, and cannot see their game, the Church, preserving her own liberty, will know how to win without them or against them, the game which they obstinately set themselves to lose (i. pp. 86 and 100).
This was treated, not as a mere gust of temper, but as a calculated appeal through the press to the clergy, and to the devout generally, against the bishops of the Opposition. Yet the longing of the Pope for his liberty was natural. He had always believed himself to be infallible. The Jesuits told him that the full recognition of that attribute, and the free use of it, were the only remedies for the misfortunes of the Papacy, and for the troubles of mankind. He read in the Civiltá how all nations were at this moment looking to him as the one saviour, capable of lifting them out of the Slough of Despond into which the Reformation first and the Revolution next had plunged them. He heard of faithful bishops, learned authors, able journalists, one after another, intimating in prophetic strains an era of glory to follow the recognition of his rights. All asked, how could the world do otherwise than stumble and fall so long as the divinely appointed guide was not recognized? All asserted that nothing could prevent the world from rising up, healed and created anew, when the Vicar of God, acknowledged by the Church, in the plentitude of this authority, should speak the word, Let there be light, at which chaos would flee away, and when he should follow it up with the supreme word to kings and nations alike, which all must learn to obey. Heretics would resist, but the faithful, under the banner of the Vicar of God, would certainly prevail. Nothing stood in the way of all this blessing and glory but a few bishops.
These bishops were represented as being partly calculating men, unwilling to get into trouble with their governments; partly cowards, who actually feared that the standard of his Holiness might fall in the struggle. Some were represented as jealous priests, paltering about the little prerogatives of their Sees, instead of merging all in the glories of the Holy See. If, in a matter so great, the Pope chafed at delay caused by such inconsiderable men, it was not more than might be expected from human nature so incensed, and so persuaded, even in the case of one less vehemently suspected of vanity and self-will than is Pius IX. He said that some thought that the Council was to set everything to rights, and some that it would accomplish nothing. "I am but a poor man, a poor feeble man, but I am Pope, Vicar of Jesus Christ, and head of the Catholic Church, and I have assembled the Council, which will do its work."[272]