This Roman noble accounts for the strange vehemence of Manning on the ground that he had been a Protestant:—
He had seen his own religion from within, and not from without; and had seen the Catholic religion from without, and not from within. In Protestantism he had seen only the infinite internal divisions and subdivisions; and in Catholicism he had admired only the magnificent effect of its unity. He had not appreciated the good results produced by the former, through moderate liberty and the constant exercise of private reason and conscience; and he had not felt the dangers which, in the latter, flow from excessive authority. He is enamoured of authority, as much as the slave is of liberty. This want of equilibrium, and of a just Catholic feeling in his dealings respecting the Council, was charged against him, even by the most faithful and devoted of the clergy in Rome (p. 89; Eng. ver., 60).
A counter Address was sent in from German and Hungarian prelates; one from French, one from Italians, one from Americans, and one from Orientals. But these, not being in the interest of the Court could not be printed without a licence, and could not hope to obtain one. Even Cardinal Rauscher had failed to attain leave to print a short treatise on the Papal infallibility in Latin, and had to send it to Vienna.[282] So the Opposition had to dispense with type. Then, what were they to do with their Address, when complete? The course of their opponents was clear—they had only to send in theirs to the Commission on Proposals; and some, in their bitterness, said that that Commission had been formed for no other purpose than that of receiving and forwarding it. But these Opposition addresses did not propose anything to be done, but simply requested the Pope not to have a certain thing proposed. The bishops had no power to move in the House that the subject should not be considered, or to move that it should be deferred till the meeting of the next General Council. Care had been taken that they should not have "the negative right of proposition" any more than the positive. Then, what could they do? Nothing whatever, but what they had done already, namely, petition the Pope. Their former petition, indeed, had received no answer. Still, that was a request for the recalling of a fait accompli, or, at least, for its modification. This, on the other hand, was only a request that a thing suggested should not be done. "Can any more singular relative position be imagined," says Vitelleschi,[283] "than that of a man who receives a number of people into his house, with a design of proclaiming his apotheosis, and at the same time receives from them a pressing supplication to renounce that honour?"
None of these various Addresses stated that the signers opposed the new dogma only on the ground of opportuneness. This ought to be carefully noted. The opposite is now almost always either asserted or assumed; but the documents have not perished.[284] Such a position was skilfully avoided. It is quite true that the only grounds, formally stated in all the Addresses but one, are grounds which might be concurred in by men who objected to making the opinion of Papal infallibility into a dogma, though they did not object to it as an opinion. But the German Address was clearly distinguished from the others. It plainly and forcibly demurred to the principle, though couching its objections in terms of great courtesy. After alluding to questions of opportuneness, the German and Hungarian bishops proceed:—
We cannot pass in silence over the fact that other grave difficulties exist, arising out of the dicta and the acts of the Fathers of the Church, out of genuine historical documents, and out of Catholic doctrine itself, which, unless they can be entirely removed, it would be impossible that the doctrine commended in the above named address should be propounded to the Christian people as being revealed of God. Our spirit recoils from the discussion of these difficulties; and, confiding in Thy benevolence, we implore that the necessity of such deliberations may not be imposed upon us.
This is signed by men who speak of themselves as "prostrate at thy feet." This passage, however, stood in the German Address alone. The others wished to get as many signatures as they could, and perhaps fancied that they gained ground with the Curia by omitting plain objections to the principle. The American Address indicated the existence of differences on the point of principle, by alleging as its first reason against raising a discussion on infallibility, that such a discussion would "clearly show a want of union, and especially of unanimity among the bishops." The German, French, and Italian Addresses put forward another point, namely, that the dignitaries belonging as they did to the most important Catholic nations, and knowing the probable effects of the proposed measures, felt that those effects, even with the best men, would be damaging to the cause of the Church, and would supply unfriendly ones with occasion for new invasions of her rights.[285] The German address, as printed in the Documenta, has forty-six signatures, including two Cardinals and the Primate of Hungary; one American prelate Mrak, of Sault Sainte Marie, in Michigan, closed the list. The French Address has thirty-eight names, and among these are three Portuguese prelates and four Orientals. The Italian Address has seven names, the American twenty-seven—among which two Irish Sees, Kerry and Dromore, are represented, and a single English one, Clifton. The Oriental Address has seventeen.[286]
M. Veuillot, speaking of the Opposition Addresses as one whole, said that of all who had signed it, not two, perhaps not one, was opposed to infallibility in principle (i. p. 149). Later he had the candour to attack the bishops for having impugned not only the opportuneness of the definition, but the doctrine itself (i. p. 180). Archbishop Manning, however, even after the close of the Council, said, "I have never been able to hear of five bishops who denied the doctrine of Papal infallibility."[287] This particular statement is advanced as evidence of a general one, that the question raised among the bishops "was a question of prudence, policy, expediency; not of doctrine or truth." A question not of doctrine or of truth! Forty-six prelates in a petition expressly directed against Dr. Manning's own Address had put the question as one not only of prudence, but of revealed truth, alleging against any attempt to define the dogma three classes of obstacles—those arising out of Catholic doctrine, out of the dicta and acts of the Fathers, and out of historical documents. Perhaps we ought, with the forty-six prelates, to say genuine historical documents. But Englishmen must be forgiven if in their limited intercourse with the Papacy they have not yet found it necessary to put labels on such words. The Donations of Constantine, and the Decretals of the Pseudo-Isidore, are historical documents, and also genuine as specimens of forgeries.
The fate of the Opposition petition is wrapped in mystery. Who presented it? how was it received? what became of it? are questions to which the satisfactory answer must be left to time. Some asserted that the Pope refused to receive it. Quirinus says that he returned it (p. 174). M. Veuillot told how it was delivered at the Vatican by an ordinary messenger, and that a monsignore received it with ordinary papers. This public affront to two Cardinals and nearly a hundred and forty bishops was aggravated a few days later by the remark that it was not yet known whether the monsignore had ever thought well to deliver the Address. Still later it was said that the Pope being consulted as to what was to be done with it, said that it might go to the Commission on Proposals, he intending, personally, to ignore it (i. p. 202). At a yet later date, January 28, Friedrich learned that every one being afraid to present it. Cardinal Schwarzenberg sent it by his chamberlain, who delivered it to Monsignor Ricci, the Pope's chamberlain. The Pope was excessively angry, and ordered it to be sent to the Commission.
When M. Veuillot trumpeted forth this example of how to deal with cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, did he mean to suggest that other Courts might treat them with like neglect,—Courts to which these officials hold themselves related as citizens only in an inferior order, an order which "obliges" them only when the higher order does not contravene? The documents in question bore the signatures of the Sees of Prague, Vienna, Munich, Cologne, Mainz; those of Milan and Turin; those of Paris, Rheims, Orleans, and the principal Sees of Portugal; those of New York, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Halifax, and St. John; those of Kerry and Dromore, and of Clifton; and from ancient countries the signatures of Antioch, Babylon, Tyre, Sidon, and Seleucia. Not often in the history of manners have titles representing so many ancient claims and such considerable modern station been treated with equal discourtesy.
The Univers of January 30[288] said that when the minority thought that the majority were about to come to a decisive vote, they sent Bishop Freppel, or some one else, to propose conciliation; but when reassured, they began their opposition afresh. It further said that Cardinal Hohenlohe acted in Rome in the interests of his brother, the Minister, and that his theologian, Friedrich, who had been chosen by Döllinger, was the writer of the letters in the Augsburg Gazette; that Cardinal Hohenlohe, with Schwarzenberg and Haynald, had succeeded in making an impression at certain embassies; and that the Austrian ambassador put the petition against infallibility before bishops, and asked if they had signed it.