Joy of Don Margotti—New Feelers for an Acclamation—Suggested Model of the Scene—Its Political Import—A Pause—Case of the Jesuit Kleutgen—Schwarzenberg out of Favour—Politics of Poland—Döllinger on the New Rules—Last Protest of Montalembert—His Death—Consequent Proceedings in Rome.
"The Vicar of Jesus Christ for ever" was the title of the article in which Don Margotti announced the fact that the Pope had sent in the proposal of infallibility. Ollivier, said Don Margotti, once stated that he loved strong powers with confidence in themselves, and as the Pope always wished to be loved by ministers of Napoleon III, he had showed them that he was strong.[338] "It is a great spectacle, but it will be a still greater one when infallibility is proclaimed, and the Syllabus is proclaimed, in spite of the opposition of governments, of revolutions, and of all hell."
But the speedy closing of the question, now formally opened, was indispensable. The suggestion of an acclamation on the day of Mary in December had proved vain; but the day of Joseph was now approaching. The term allowed for sending in written observations on the Draft would expire on March 17, and the Unitá, in its number of the 11th, put up the following prayer: "O Blessed St. Joseph, grant us the grace that on the 18th of March may be discussed, and on the 19th, the day of thy Festival, may be proclaimed, the most pleasant and most wise doctrine of the infallibility of the Vicar of Jesus Christ." The correspondent of the Unitá from Rome said, "We hope for the definition on the 19th, St. Joseph's Day"; and its correspondent at Paris stated that no doubt existed that the dogma would be proclaimed on that day. Two days before the one so anticipated, the Unitá published suggestive accounts of the scenes in 1854, when the Immaculate Conception was acclaimed. It quoted Canon Audisio, a well-known writer, and one sometimes called a Liberal Catholic. Just after the noontide bell, when the two hundred bishops had knelt to repeat the Angelus, as soon as they resumed their seats, a cry speedily broke out from among them, Petre, doce nos: confirma fratres tuos: (Peter, teach us! strengthen thy brethren!) The teaching desired was a definition of the Immaculate Conception. The whole assembly wept. "It was a weeping so cordial and sublime that you cannot imagine it, and pen cannot describe it."
After this hint, as to what the scene—always a chief point—on the 19th should be, the principles of polity involved in the scene are indicated; for in Rome all acting is for the purpose of ruling. Some prelates, said the Araldo di Lucca, as quoted by the Unitá, had thought that the Bull announcing the dogma of the Immaculate Conception should make mention of the assembly of the bishops; but a prelate from France, rising in the spirit of Athanasius, said, "No; the episcopate should not decide, but only the chief Pontiff; he alone must speak." He went on to argue that, by showing obedience to the Pontiff, they would secure the obedience of the people, and strengthen the principle of authority. The Unitá significantly adds, "It appears to us, and it will appear to all, that not only the dogma of the Immaculate was defined on that memorable sitting of the 24th of November, 1854, but also that of Papal infallibility."
While the party of movement was full of hope, the minority were in dismay. Their chosen ground of inopportuneness had been cut from under their feet. The Pope and five hundred bishops had decided that the question was opportune. They now felt that if the dogma should be suddenly defined, they must either submit or be outside of the Church. The new Rules permitted the discussion to be closed at the will of the majority. It was notorious that any discussion whatever, on a point so immediately affecting the authority of the Pope, not only in the Church, but also in the world, was hateful to every right-minded Curialist, and, in fact, that as taking place hard by the tomb of St. Peter, such a discussion was regarded as a thing all but intolerable. The suggestions in the Unitá from Rome, Paris, and Turin had not been put out without high sanction. Was it possible that, on St. Joseph's Day, all would be ended by an irresistible acclamation?
Some think that so deep a feeling was now produced in the minority, and that so clear did they make it that they would not acquiesce in an acclamation, that they impressed the Vatican for a time. Friedrich repeats, on the authority of one who was intimate with the Pope, a saying of the latter, "The Jesuits have set me on this road, and now I shall go on in it, and they must bear the responsibility." The personal position of members of the minority became more and more trying, owing to the increasingly active part taken by the Pontiff in the discussion. A second brief to the Jesuit Ramière[339] followed the one which ridiculed Maret, commending another publication of the same author, in which, alluding to the possibility that some now opposing the infallibility of the Pope would secede from the Church, Ramière said, "These form the secret enemy who impedes our march, and, in driving him from our ranks, the sacred army will obtain the most precious guarantee of its future success."[340] Friedrich adds, what agrees with much that is said, or hinted, by other Liberal Catholics, strange as it sounds in our ears, "Any one who knows the Jesuits can explain the closing words of the pamphlet, 'Then, truly will the Council have realized the most ardent desire of the Saviour, and established the conditions on which this divine Master makes the submission of the entire world to the yoke of the faith depend.'"
"That is," explains Friedrich, "the yoke of the Society of Jesus; for even under the name Jesus, 'we are only to understand the Society of Jesu.' At the Festival of St. Ignatius Loyola, priests must repeat the words, with great emphasis, 'At the name of Jesu every knee shall bow.' The former Confessor of the Pope, now replaced by a Jesuit, always felt scandalized by this, on the eve of the Festival, and earnestly wished to have those words removed from the Mass for Loyola's Day."
Archbishop Cardoni, being asked what had become of the Draft Decrees on Faith, said that the committee first examined them, after which Deschamps, Pie, and Martin, as a sub-committee, partly prepared a revised form, and finally the recasting of them was completed by Kleutgen, the Jesuit. What, it was asked, the Kleutgen who was condemned by the Inquisition? Yes, replied the Archbishop faintly. This Kleutgen had been a German political refugee, but joined the Jesuits, and became confessor to a nunnery. One of the nuns, a German princess, was dying. Her relations, through interest with the Pope, succeeded in procuring her release. It proved to be a case of poisoning. The Inquisitors took proceedings, and Kleutgen was somehow incriminated. The convent was closed, the nuns were dispersed into other establishments, and the confessor was sentenced to prison for six years. The imprisonment was changed into reclusion in one of the Jesuit houses, in a delightful neighbourhood near Rome. Kleutgen found means to regain favour, and was now remoulding the faith for the benefit of reconstituted society.[341]
Cardoni told how he, an Archbishop, had been received the preceding day by the Pope before Schwarzenberg, a Cardinal and a prince, and it was added that Schwarzenberg had been obliged to wait a fortnight for his audience, whereas a Cardinal was entitled to have one after two days. Cardinal De Angelis alleged that the Pope had seen Schwarzenberg behind the Vatican smoking a cigar, with a "small hat" on his head. To this the Germans replied that it was well known that Schwarzenberg did not smoke.[342] We cannot state what would be the penalty for a Cardinal convicted of wearing a small hat, but they are a class of "creatures" whose eternal salvation may, by the will of their lord, be declared to depend on matters the connexion of which with the Christian religion it takes a Pontiff to find out. Sixtus V decreed the penalty of excommunication against any Cardinal who should open a letter bearing the plain address "Cardinal," without the title "Most Illustrious and Most Reverend." They were to burn such letters. (Frond, ii., p. xiii.)