The Congregation of April 29 was occupied in discussing the Decree on the Catechism. Hefele read a speech of Rauscher. The Cardinal affirmed that, according to the Concordat, the Catechism in Austria could not be changed without the consent of the government. He demanded therefore that the new Catechism should not be declared obligatory. The majority burst out into loud laughter. Hefele looked firmly and indignantly at the disturbers. The noise ceased, and he proceeded. A second time the laughter occurred. At the conclusion, he went to the Presidents and complained. One of them observed that as a historian he must know that even at Trent there had been interruptions. Yes, he said, but he did not know that interruptions were essential to a Council; and he would call attention to the fact that such proceedings would cause the freedom of the Council to be called in question, and possibly its œcumenicity.[391]
On May 2, as afterwards appeared by a letter found among papers in the Tuileries, Darboy was writing to Napoleon III stating that the minority was compact, would do its utmost, and did not despair of victory. On May 4 the Council came to a vote on the Catechism, when as many as a hundred voted Non placet. Then occurred a recess of several days; but twenty-four French bishops put in that day a protest against arbitrary violations of those very Rules which had been imposed upon the Council by the Pope himself. In the late public session the Rule that non-members should be excluded during the legislative acts had been departed from without the Council being consulted. Further, this day, they add, when the votes on various amendments to the Decree on the Catechism had been taken, the Rule required that the vote on the whole should be deferred to another day. But, against the Rule, it was taken on the spot. Several Fathers, who had counted that the Rule would be kept, were absent. It is further alleged that no opportunity of pointing out these irregularities was given; because, say they, contrary to the rule of all deliberative bodies, it is not allowed in the Council to speak even to order, unless the name of the speaker has been inscribed the day before, which of course is impossible in unforeseen circumstances.[392]
During the recess the Fathers could study the contents of the notes on infallibility. The Synopsis of them, as we have already mentioned, had been put into their hands. Some of these notes are printed entire, some are abridged; but there does not appear to have been much complaint that this was unfairly done. The two sides were represented by about an equal number of memoranda. The Synopsis contained two hundred and forty-two pages, consisting of one hundred and thirty-nine memoranda. Sixty-five of these were adverse to the definition. Of these, again, only thirteen advanced merely the plea of inopportuneness, and fifty-two opposed the doctrine itself. Yet Cardinal Manning never heard of five bishops who denied the doctrine of Papal infallibility![393]
Adepts readily traced many of the anonymous memoranda to their authors, and, of course, the authors frequently acknowledged their handiwork. The first memorandum was by Rauscher, the last by Kenrick—two men who showed as much capacity as any of the minority. In these notes, the student will find a real source of light on the thoughts and principles which were then common to all men convened to reconstitute human society, as well as on those in which they disagreed.[394] They are almost the only portion of the proceedings which have real interest for the pure theologian. Attempts have been made since the Council, by many bishops, to represent the whole amount of difference of opinion as having been a trifle, touching only the question of opportuneness. The character of those statements is sealed by these notes. We shall not attempt to give a general outline of them; but the very first memorandum, that of Rauscher, is perfectly explicit. He immediately handles the doctrine, not the prudence or expedience of proclaiming it. It was fair to treat an objector like Dr. Newman as opposing on grounds not either theological or moral, but from subtle expediency. Such men were simply afraid of hurting the credit of their Church, though admitting that the claims she advanced were warranted. They counselled a reserve which would have been thought natural for Italians, but impossible for Englishmen, before the time when Dr. Newman's power of making the flow of our mother tongue smooth and winning began to be used, in order to rob it of its good name for straightforwardness. But Rauscher showed cause. He declared that it had never yet been proved that the alleged authority which the new claims professed to formulate, had any existence. He declared that the attempts made to prove it were partly artifices and partly fallacies. Two positions so distinct as this simple one of Rauscher and the double one of Newman could not be confounded, even by men much less apt at splitting hairs than Roman Catholic bishops.
"The subterfuges," indignantly writes Rauscher in his first paragraph, after alluding to the necessity, under which he lay in Germany, of showing reasons, and tacitly contrasting such a position with the facility of demanding submission in Rome,—"The subterfuges employed by not a few theologians in the matter of Honorius, would expose me to derision. To employ sophisms seems to me unworthy both of the dignity of a bishop and of the nature of the subject, which ought to be treated in the fear of God; but prudence itself would put me on my guard against artifices." What a testimony! delivered in the face of Rome at that moment, it showed the effect of free enquiry in compelling men to be truthful, as compared with the effect of what Rome calls "authority" in making them first supple and then deceitful. It is a testimony of permanent value in the three spheres of history, morals, and theology.
His next blow is at a logical trick, which, however, is one employed by Roman Catholic theologians at almost every step in their attempt to prove Romanist as distinguished from Christian doctrine—the trick of begging the question. It is inferred that the Decrees of the Pope, in matters of faith and morals, must be infallible, because the power of legislation in faith and morals for the whole Church having been conferred on Peter and his successors, it is clear that what was false could not be allowed to enter into such Decrees. Very good says Rauscher; but this is calling the thing to be proved to give evidence for the thing to be proved. The question turns on the very point whether any such power of universal legislation, in faith or morals, without appeal or revision, ever was conferred on Peter and his successors. Even here Rauscher assumes as proved what is altogether incapable of proof, that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of Peter. That Peter ever was in Rome is not proven; that he ever was Pontiff is absurd; that he ever was the Christian bishop of the city admits of scarcely a show of proof, except on those principles of evidence which have been naturalized in Romish theology by the necessity of supporting fables and forgeries.
Not only do men like Rauscher show that they dispute the doctrine itself, but the memoranda of many who commence by alleging inopportuneness, end by attacking the substance of the doctrine. For instance, No. 136 says, "Finally, I cannot find this infallibility in the acts of the General Councils. On the other hand, it is certain that three General Councils condemned Honorius for heresy." Yet this prelate seemed, in his first sentences, only to oppose the opportuneness of the definition. Kenrick takes the opposite course. He begins by saying that the doctrine is not so certain that it can be defined as an article of faith, and then takes up lower ground, that, even if it were certain, it would not be expedient that it should be defined by the present Council. We do not wonder at any man who could put upon paper the last principle, submitting to anything, or concealing anything, or professing anything, if it is expedient. What, it may be true that, on earth, God has set up a man as His representative who, whenever he puts on his full official character, utters the Word of God without error or possibility of erring, and yet it may not be expedient to tell this most pregnant of truths by any and every organ possible! How can any moral foundations exist in men whose whole substance is honeycombed by principles like these? When they submit, their submission has not the grace of any real sacrifice. When they affirm, their affirmation has not the authority of any real conviction.
This moral obscurity does not prevent Kenrick from clearly seeing theological points. He boldly says that the doctrine expressed in the proposed definition is wanting in authority both from Scripture and from ecclesiastical tradition. We shall not enter into his examination of the alleged scriptural proofs, but it is well worth the attention of theologians. He clearly puts the retrospective and prospective aspects of the new dogma, when contrasting it with an ordinary point of doctrine like that of the Immaculate Conception—
The new dogma not only impairs the rights of bishops, but imposes on the faithful the necessity of believing that the Roman Pontiffs never did err in faith, which indubitable monuments of history seem to disprove; and that they never will err in the future, which we hope, but are not able to believe with the certitude of divine faith.[395]