M. Veuillot also was becoming a little impatient. He apparently wanted to see the beginning of the "clearing away" of which he had spoken in 1867. The following passage, tracing out the policy that might save the Second Empire, is a specimen of skilled writing, clear to his clerical readers, dim to heedless Parisians. The new minister (Ollivier) must accept this program:—
To break with the Gallican, revolutionary, and Cæsarian prejudice (which are all one) by frankly recognizing the liberty of the Church; to assure all liberty by and through the assertion of this liberty, as mother and mistress; to prepare the accessions necessary to the honour and the conservation of peace; to permit men to be made against this perpetual plague of revolution which exudes only courtiers of the mob, or courtiers of Cæsar; this is the grand game he has to play. In the interest of the Emperor and the dynasty, I wish he may win it. Alas! during the last twenty years the game has been lost, more than once, by the fault of the chief player! But Providence is pleased to be obstinate, and to leave the game open, with favourable cards in the same hands (vol. i. p. 98).
In the gloaming of these January evenings, two men, might be seen walking somewhere between the Ripetta and the Via Condotti, and the tall figure of one of them was that of Count Harry von Arnim. A letter which he on one such occasion handed to the other was published, in 1874, by the Presse, of Vienna,[273] and bore the date of the day before the impatient speech of the Pope. To whom the letter was addressed is not stated. Alluding to the petition of the bishops, Count Arnim says: "You see they are modest, and organization is as defective as courage." He feels the want of practical tact in the bishops. If they had meant to succeed in their opposition, they ought to have impugned the composition of the Council, and the Rules imposed upon it. Had they first of all rent the net which the Vatican and the Gesu [the Jesuit establishment] had cast over the wise but timid heads of the bishops, infallibility would have fallen through the meshes. The Count is not sure that the Curia will persevere with the dogma of infallibility; and does not see of what advantage it would be to them, when they can at any time call a Council and prescribe to it how and what it is to speak. Some of the Fathers feel as if they were in some sort the Pope's prisoners since they have entered on the course into which they had been drawn. They had allowed themselves to be led so far in a certain direction during the last twenty years, that it was only when they saw that it was to be turned to earnest, that they began to ask how they could make black white at home, and how the Catholic people would take it. That was the feeling that produced "Fulda." People belonging to the Curia say that the bishops need a couple of months in the air of Rome to inspire them with the grand conceptions of the place; and after that all will be of one mind. He cannot understand how the German Catholics are going to let five hundred Italians, and among them three hundred boarders of the Pope, dictate laws to them in spite of their own bishops. Under the pretence of Catholicity, exclusive Romish-Italian formulæ are imposed on the Catholic mind of all nations.
If Rome resented the obstinacy of the provincials, some of the provincials began to open their eyes at what they found in Rome. Friedrich quotes one well acquainted with the Curia, whose words may be matched out of Liverani. "The Cardinals," said this authority, "are red-stockinged ... not fit, with the exception of four or five, to be curates in a village church." Friedrich himself had begun to think that their principal function was "parading." But at that Court did not everything depend upon parading? Many of the Cardinals might be no better men than the tongue of Rome (not a scrupulous one) made them, and no greater theologians than Liverani and Friedrich said that they were, but some of them assuredly had great abilities, and all had shown themselves to be blessed with the faculty of getting on, which is generally some qualification for ruling. Disgusted by the low appearance of the monks and their mendicity, Friedrich yet confessed that, in present circumstances, such swarms of them had an advantage, as keeping a certain sort of population out of mischief. How different the view of M. Veuillot! To him the monks were the ideal of Christ's benefit to mankind. Free from the world, from the care even of a name or a tomb, the world "must allow their crushing sandals to pass over the poisons which its pride has sown" (i. p. 223). It remains to be seen whether the plants springing from seeds that quickly fall from a free Bible, a free soul, a free pulpit, and a free press, will die crushed as poison plants under the sandals of the monk, or whether they will yet flourish like grass of the earth, and the fruit of them shall shake like Lebanon, when fakir and monk shall together be remembered among the things that fatally decay in the shade of a growth which, though at first the least of herbs, becomes afterwards the greatest of all trees.
In the street Friedrich met Graf A., doubtless one who then proudly filled a proud post, but who now unhappily lies under a heavy cloud. The Count told him that a petition in favour of bringing forward the question of infallibility, drawn up in Manning's sense was already signed by five hundred bishops. Another of Friedrich's touches is, that Janus always lay on Darboy's table, and Hergenröther's Anti-Janus on that of Ketteler. After calling the latter work very dishonest, he says "The upshot of this book is, that the Pope alone is invested with divine authority, and before this Baal of the Jesuits, the majority of the Council means to bow the knee. Will not that amount to decreeing the death of the Church? She may lay herself down crying, 'Jesuits, you have conquered me.'" As a specimen of what bishops even in Council assembled had come to, he quotes the memorable words of Hergenröther, "The bishops have nothing to do but to set the conciliar seal to a work which the Jesuit Schrader has prepared."
"Happy bishops," cries the poor theologian, himself tormented by opinions, and unable to let others believe for him. "Happy bishops! you may give dinners, see works of art, take your siestas, parade in pluvial and mitre, for the Jesuit Father has taken care of all the rest; and, then, setting to the conciliar seal is not hard work! There is nothing to do but to say Placet, and all is over." Much depended on the interpretation men gave to their oath. Canon Pelletier (Frond, vii. p. 170) says, not unnaturally, that at the moment when the Fathers prostrated themselves at the feet of the Pope, the majority was formed. All who understood "obey" in the sense of the Court, would vote what the Pope told them to vote. But Ginoulhiac, of Grenoble, soon to be Primate of France, had taken care, beforehand, to protest against such an interpretation. Though expressing some fear in citing it, he did cite the language of Bellarmine, to the effect that so free must a Council be that the bishops, their oath notwithstanding, must not only say what they think, but must even proceed against the Pope should he be convicted of heresy.[274] Such language, in the mouth of Bellarmine, as contrasted with that of Deschamps, Manning, and the other zealots of infallibility, marks the progress made by the Papal claims in our day.
The General Congregations were resumed on January 8, when two new Drafts on discipline were distributed. The Congregation of the 10th was remarkable for striking speeches, and for an unforeseen turn of the debate. Haynald, Archbishop of Colocza, replied to the few who had defended the Draft, especially to Martin, and Räss of Strasburg. He charged them with having attempted to deprive the Fathers even of the liberty left to them by the Rules, for they had reproached them for discussing what was laid before them. Did not even the formula at the head of the Decree, for speaking on which Strossmayer had been called to order, say, "the Council approving"? which surely implied that it was open to it to disapprove. Martin had said, We shall say "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us;" But, rejoined Haynald, though Martin may know that we are to say so, we do not know it. This speech was described as one of remarkable power, second in that respect only to the speech of Strossmayer. Cardinal Capalti, one of the Presidents, listened with outstretched neck, and both hands behind his ears; but so skilfully was the discourse constructed, that Haynald escaped being called to order. He was often applauded, especially at the conclusion. It is said that Cardinal Bilio, who was responsible for the Draft, being, for a Cardinal, strong in German, knew three words of it,—Deutsche (German), and freie Wissenschaft (free science). He leaned back, often repeating, with an inward shudder, Deutsche, freie Wissenschaft.
Bishop Maignan, of Chalons, who followed Haynald, did not mount the pulpit, but stood before the Presidents. His speech was also spoken of as having been very striking. He attacked the Draft, especially its phraseology. What, he asked, was meant by anima est forma corporis (the soul is the form of the body)? The Greek Bishop of Grosswardein defended the Draft, saying that at first he had doubts, but that the more he studied it the more he was satisfied. As he had previously said, in the meeting of German and Hungarian prelates, "I do not like many dogmas,"[275] when he next appeared among them some one said, "Greek faith is no faith," and he appeared among them no more. A Chaldean prelate, Kajat, speaking with a fine, clear voice, said, "It was scarcely becoming for a General Council to be occupied with matters so local as the opinions of this or that German professor"; and repeated the unwelcome words, "Free science," as Haynald and Maignan had done. The debate now seemed as if it might prove very searching. The minority had strong, if ill-grounded, hopes, but a new proof of the way in which the Rules played with deliberation was now sprung upon them. If a free assembly can close a discussion when it deems it already ample, it can also continue it so long as the conscience of its members cries out for a hearing. After the speech of the Bishop of Grosswardein, up rose the President, and said that, in pursuance of power given in the Rules, of Withdrawing a Draft Decree when disputed, the Draft should now be withdrawn from the Council, and should be remitted to the Committee, to be moulded by it. What! could not the Council go on with its investigation? Had it not control over a proposition once laid before it? No; the Twenty-four, with the theologians of the Court, were now in sole possession of the proposed measure!
Had the Council been free to form itself into a committee, or to select one from among its own members after this discussion, doubtless some of the men who had shown that they were capable of sifting the clauses would have been put upon the committee, beside the few who had defended the Draft. But that was the very danger which the Nine had foreseen, and against which they had provided by a permanent committee, elected before the question was argued. This provision was effective for its end, reducing the part left to the bishops to that of making Latin speeches in rows, according to rank and seniority. One other liberty they had—the momentous one of saying Ay or No. Had not the Council been weighted with creatures of the Court, that single liberty might have sufficed to stay the great organic change necessary to the scheme of reconstruction. We do not know whether the sitting we have just described[276] is the one of which Quirinus stated that Cardinal Antonelli withdrew from it much disgusted, saying to a diplomatist that if the Council went on so it would never have done.
While, therefore, the Curia, disgusted with the bishops, had seen their perfect work torn to pieces day by day, now the bishops, astounded at the Curia, saw the future creed shut up in secret even from them! In its absence, they began on the fourteenth to discuss discipline. That was a notable day. It witnessed the creation of a new mortal sin. The Acta do not contain the document by which this was done.[277] In Councils that were really general, a Christian bishop would have considered it a duty to tell his clergy and people what he said, and what he heard others say, about the faith of Christ. But on this day, Pope Pius IX turned this sacred duty of the bishop into a mortal sin. Secrecy, the genius of the Papacy, and publicity, the child of light, now closed for a life and death grapple. Any man of that assembly who should hereafter tell out of it what passed within it was to be guilty of mortal sin. The oath imposed before the opening upon the officers, and the injunctions of secrecy upon the bishops, had not availed. The step taken by the Pope was a loud acknowledgment that truth had leaked out. In a surly way this is admitted by the Acta Sanctæ Sedis. Shameless journals—effrontes ephemerides—had reported, as having been spoken and done in the Council, things partly true and partly false. "This had probably arisen from some one or another, who lightly held the pontifical secret, having given information, so taking upon himself to ignore the dignity of the Apostolic See in treating ecclesiastical questions."[278] Vitelleschi, Roman as he is, asks,—If the Council is a supreme assembly, who is entitled to impose this penalty of mortal sin? Men of the Curia, accustomed to the making of innocent acts into sins, and of sins into licensed actions, would not scruple to read such a document in the face of such an assembly. Such is their state of conscience, that, far from feeling any shame, probably they would enjoy the idea of the shame and confusion of conscience which they were inflicting on the bishops. But men brought up in England and America could sit there, while this new yoke was fastened upon them, and say not a word! The bishops were really to be pitied. They were entangled in the creed. Their oath had shut them in. There is no hint of a protest having been raised by any one. To speak of these gentlemen in one aspect as citizens of free nations, and in another aspect as prefects of the Pope, is scarcely any longer accurate. It is but by a fiction of the frailest sort that men so tied and bound by the chain of the foreign potentate can be called citizens. We have seen that the Civiltá holds it as-beneath their dignity as ambassadors to the citizens elsewhere than in Rome. Still, professing to be citizens, they were to be pitied. And if they were to be pitied, still more was human society to be pitied that had to bear the influence of seven hundred masters of a multitude whose consciences had come to such a pass. "A bishop," says Quirinus, "who should show a theologian, whose advice he wanted, a passage from the schema under discussion, or who should repeat an expression used in one of the speeches, incurs everlasting damnation.... A Papal theologian whom I questioned on the subject appealed simply to the statement of Boniface VIII, that the Pope holds all rights in the shrine of his breast" (p. 164).