Friedrich had spent an evening and morning in writing to Lord Acton on the Papal system as developed in the Draft Decree on the Church, and in expressing his fears that the bishops would not see through it, when a piece of news reached him, which though at ordinary times it would scarcely have been talked of in Rome, just then caused some excitement (p. 143). It was, as he relates, to the effect that Audu, Patriarch of Babylon, after having spoken in opposition to the Curia, had, as we have seen (page 107 of this edition), been sent for at night by the Pope, who allowed no witness of the interview but Valerga, the so-called Patriarch of Jerusalem, who, however, as Vitelleschi says, was, previous to his elevation, simply a Roman ecclesiastic. Valerga acted as interpreter. The Pope raged, commanded the weak old man to resign his patriarchate, forced a pen into his hand, and ceased not storming till it was done. Then, to give practical effect to the resignation, two bishops, not chosen by Audu, were appointed, and he must consecrate them.[323] Such was the tale. Friedrich took it as a sample of infallibility in practice even before the Council had sanctioned it in theory. In itself, the story would seem very improbable in London, but not at all so in Constantinople or Rome. In the latter city the reputation of Pius IX is high for fits of rage, in which his best friends are treated like lackeys. Liverani, who over and over again calls him an angel, tells nevertheless several stories of conduct to those about him which, if they could be told of an English squire, would not get him the name of angel from his stewards and bailiffs. Even the all but adoring editor of the Speeches gives a specimen which evidently hammered a deep dint into his Neapolitan sensibilities. If the tales are true, the rage passes away, giving place to habitual jocoseness.
Vitelleschi says that an alternative was set before the Chaldean Patriarch—either he must submit to the Pope's authority as to certain appointments, or resign. Being reduced to this extremity by his imperious brother, the poor old man did resign, and the event "created a great sensation." To the Roman nobleman the scene presented no improbability. He does not even hint that it is a rare specimen of the tranquil waters which lie behind St. Peter's Rock. The noise made by the rumours forced even so great a person as M. Veuillot to take notice of them. His usual style of contradiction is very striking, and perhaps instructive. He will spend, it may be, pages in making somebody, who has said something, look extremely ridiculous; but, at the end, you wonder what he has contradicted. On the present occasion, however, M. Veuillot did stoop to particulars. First, he says that the Patriarch had himself chosen two bishops, but after the Pope had approved of them, he refused to consecrate them. This is in direct contradiction of a statement, on the other side, that the Propaganda had chosen the two bishops in question and that the Patriarch refused to consecrate them. The latter version gives a clear cause of dispute, whereas that of M. Veuillot leaves the resistance of the Patriarch, as he himself says, inexplicable. But as to what took place, his account is this:—
The Pope called the Patriarch into his cabinet, and told him to consecrate the two suffragans in twenty-four hours, or to sign his resignation. The Patriarch asked for a delay of three days, then of two days. The Pope was inflexible; he required that the Patriarch should forthwith sign the engagement to obey. The Patriarch took a pen, and began to write; but he stopped, saying that the pen would not go. The Pope presented him with a penknife. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, who acted as interpreter, mended the pen. The Chaldean Patriarch resisted no further. He wrote the engagement to consecrate the two bishops, or to abdicate in twenty-four hours, and pushed his precision so far as to affix the date—half-past seven in the evening. The next morning he performed the consecration.
M. Veuillot vehemently denies that the Pope was in a rage, or that he broke pens with his fist, or that he played the part of a tyrant. He seems to take it for granted that good Catholics ought to be edified with his own account of this rehearsal of a scene in the forthcoming drama of "ordinary and immediate jurisdiction" in all dioceses of the world.
We have hinted that Vitelleschi expresses no feeling of improbability as to the tale of the Chaldean Patriarch. On the contrary, he immediately follows it up by alluding to rumours of proceedings contemplated by the Propaganda against certain bishops under its jurisdiction, who had manifested a want of docility in seconding its projects (p. 82). These rumours, he says, revived uncomfortable recollections of the Inquisition, adding that events of this nature are of common occurrence, and might happen a thousand times without attracting much notice. But the moment was exceptional.
The interest of the General Congregations, from the time when the movement for the definition of infallibility declared itself, centred in that impending question, and but faintly, and intermittently, swayed towards any other. The particular matter now on hand was a proposal to do away with the diocesan Catechisms throughout the world, and to adopt a uniform one for all. Outside the Church of Rome this would probably have seemed a natural point of uniformity, but, inside of it, the determination of the municipal coterie to drive roughshod over all that was homely or ancient, all that was national or local, roused the spirit of opposition. It was clearly felt that taking away from the bishops the right of approving their own Catechisms was a further blow at their authority. For many years past the Jesuits had been altering Catechisms, and so gradually naturalizing the doctrine of infallibility on soil hostile to it, especially through schools conducted by nuns.[324] They had made the Catechism a great financial success. A new one for the whole world would be an estate for the Curia.
The book of the Abbé Michaud, De la Falsification du Catéchism, is a curious study. He expresses the sum of his researches by saying that Catholicism has been replaced by Popery. The old Paris Catechism did not use the expression "the Roman Church." It always said, "the Catholic Church"; and in some Catechisms, in France, the word "Roman" first came in as late as 1839, and that only in a profession of faith at the end: "I acknowledge the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church." Noting the progressive change in definitions of the Church, Michaud gives examples, showing that the earliest do not even mention the Pope, and that the latest speak of nothing but the Pope (p. 23). The early Catechisms call Christ the Foundation of the Church; succeeding ones give this title to the Confession of St. Peter; next to the Apostles, then to Peter, and, finally, to the Pope; and some recent ones even say that the Church is founded on the Papacy (p. 34). The designation the "Head of the Church," is gradually withdrawn from Christ, to be bestowed upon the Pope. One Catechism, as early as 1756, said that the visible Head of the Church, being subordinate to the Invisible one, made only one Head with Him. On the question of the seat of authority in the Church, a precisely similar process has taken place; and infallibility has followed in the same track. Formerly, says the Abbé it was believed that the Pope had no authority or infallibility but through the Church. Now, it is declared that the Church has no authority or infallibility but through the Pope. We may remark that the terms of the Vatican Decrees do not go so far as the last assertion. The framers meant to do so, but their logic failed them, and they have left a dualism full of future perplexity. The Abbé shows that the Catechisms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and many down to the year 1843, always speak of the infallibility of the Church. Later, the term, "the infallibility of the Teaching Church," is introduced. That means, of the Pope and the bishops. Michaud does not quote any with this terminology earlier than 1786. But that could not suffice for the Romanists. The Abbé says that, at the present time they teach, not only that the Pope is infallible, but that he is the source of infallibility. "As the Church was replaced by the Teaching Church, the Teaching Church has been replaced by the Pope." A religious and political system shifting in this fashion does not well bear even that kind of check which is afforded by the existence of different Catechisms in neighbouring dioceses. It was not quite so easy to teach at Rouen that the Pope singly is infallible, when at Paris the Catechism said that the Church was infallible, and at Cologne it said plainly that the Pope was not infallible. And the fact of this tendency to change doctrine downward, and further downward, was a reason for a feeling against one Catechism stronger than could be understood in any community with a fixed rule of faith.
The changes made in the application to the Church of the word "believe," are equally curious. The old form of words as to believing in one Catholic Church was first changed into believing in the Teaching Church. Then "respect and obedience to the Pope" began to be inserted, from the end of the seventeenth century onward. In 1819 an Arras Catechism claimed "sovereign respect"; but so far there is no mention of belief in decisions of the Pope. It was in 1834 that the Catechisms of Avignon and Amiens prepared for the transition from "respect" to "belief," by teaching the necessity of inviolable attachment to all that the Pope teaches. The consummation so prepared for was not far off The St. Brieuc Catechism of 1835, and that of the Abbé Guillois of 1851, taught that it is necessary and Catholic to believe in the Pope as well as in the Church.
The transition from "belief" to "the faith" is very easy. Originally, the dépôt of the faith, which the Church had to guard, and to which no man could add, and from which no man could take away, was called The Doctrine of Christ. Then it began to be called The Doctrine of the Apostles; later, The Doctrine of the Successors of the Apostles; and, after that, The Doctrine of the Prince of the Successors of the Apostles; and, finally, of course, The Doctrine of the Pope (p. 76). The new and uniform shorter Catechism (De Parvo Catechismo) was to be modelled on that of Bellarmine, others being consulted. No hint was given as to how it was to be prepared, and the bishops raised many doubts. Should it not be submitted to the Council? Or, if that was not done, surely it would not be made obligatory, but only recommended. Others would have twelve bishops elected by the Council itself to prepare it. Some wished that, when prepared, three years should be given for the bishops to examine and test it; and then that only after having been approved by them should it be made binding. None of these guards against centralization found any favour.