How that argument to prove that the proper constitution of a Council was violated at the Vatican is to be met, it is not easy to see. The point next touched by Kenrick is one that has been less dwelt upon in public, but which would probably have some weight in a legal argument. In the Bull of Convocation it was enjoined upon bishops who should not be able to attend, to send their deputies furnished with proper credentials. Forty such deputies actually presented themselves; they were refused admittance, not by the Council, but by the Pope acting alone! Now, insists Kenrick, diocesan bishops would appear to have a strict right to send deputies to the Council when themselves unable to attend, which right was recognised by the ancient Councils. The exclusion, therefore, of those deputies from the Vatican Council by the sole authority of the Pontiff, would seem to raise a doubt of its œcumenicity. Had there been any question as to their title, it belonged to the Council itself to determine, but permission was not given to take the opinion of the Council on the point!
Kenrick further specifies, as a blot upon the authority and œcumenicity of the Council, the withdrawal from the bishops of the right of proposition by a mere Papal constitution. He adds the important fact that, owing to the privation of this right, many Fathers who wished to take the opinion of the Council on the admission of the deputies of absent prelates were unable to do so, although they left no means untried. Yet one at least who was born an Englishman can say that this Council was as free as our Parliament—a Council that had not even the right of verifying the titles of its own members! Kenrick concludes by expressing his persuasion that if the definition of Papal infallibility should go out in the name of this Council, it would rather increase dissension than promote peace, and would lead to a diminution of the rights of bishops and to the dishonour of the Pontiff himself.
The Liberal Catholics began, about this time, to notice the frequent expressions in Curialistic circles anticipating a war, in 1871, between France and Prussia.[396] The Univers now fixed a new date for the settlement of the great question—Ascension Day. All that could be said pro or con had been said, according to this journal, in the memoranda written by the prelates; and so in the Council there would be only an exposition of the Decree prepared by the committee, after which the Fathers would at once proceed to the vote. No doubt the avoidance of further discussion was a matter of great account with those who were looking to the future. The effect of the new constitution, at least its immediate effect, would greatly depend upon the éclat with which it should be promulged, and on the state of preparation to which the Catholic populations might be brought. If a tale of Friedrich, at the expense of Cardinal Capalti, be anything more than a joke, the question might have been settled by leaving it open. The Cardinal declared that he should be content with a definition of the infallibility of the Pope, whether it was infallibility with the bishops or without them.[397] The circulation of such a tale illustrates an impression prevailing, that even many of those in high places had not mastered the bearings of the question in dispute.
It was on May 10 that the proposed Decrees of Infallibility were distributed. "I shook all over my body," says Friedrich; "my senses seemed to forsake me as I read on." What was the amazement of the Professor to find not only all the mediæval pretensions taken up again, but the cool assertion made in notes, that all monuments of antiquity showed that the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff had been held as a truth divinely revealed. Another assertion which he noted, is that infallibility could never be disproved by history; but if any historical facts did appear to conflict with it, in so far as they did so they must be taken to be false. Again, the conclusions of any science, even those of ecclesiastical history, if opposed to the infallibility of the Pontiff, must be held to be errors. This is a very practical way of carrying out the principle announced by Cardinal Manning as to the dogma conquering history.
After reading this sort of matter, the indignant Professor cries, "Will our bishops dare to return home with such a verdict against all science, and against all sound reason? Does not this amount to saying—I believe it because it is absurd?" The Archbishop of Bamberg gave Friedrich some light on the way in which history was to be kept right. He said that the Pope was irritated at Hefele's pamphlet on the case of Honorius, and said, "There must be falsification of documents. The documents must be in the archives. Let them seek and they will find them; I am persuaded of it." It was publicly announced that the Pope had appointed two men to perform this duty. The Archbishop thought that the Curia would shrink from facing the judgment of the world. He placed his finger on his forehead, and said, "I cannot understand how a man in his senses can think of a personal infallible Pope." Archbishop Scherr having joined them, Deinlein added, "The world must rescue us. Had it not rescued us, we were already lost, and the Council over."[398] To this Friedrich adds that Bishops Krementz and Namszanowski are already thinking of the coming excommunication; and that Hefele had said gladly would he lay down the mitre and crozier, but what would become of his diocese?
Friedrich, wearied out in spirit, now spoke of going home. "You must stay," said Bishop Namszanowski, "for the historians must sit in judgment over this perfidious proceeding. It is impossible any longer to speak of a General Council. I only wonder that the German bishops have not already jumped out of their skin."[399]
One of Friedrich's notes is to the effect that the Nuncio in Munich having reported that Archbishop Scherr in opposing infallibility commanded no sympathy among his people, the Pope sent for the Archbishop, and asked him why he took the side of the minority when he was isolated in his own diocese. The Archbishop asked Friedrich to tell Döllinger that even at this peculiar audience he had stood by him. Still he wished Döllinger not to do anything more; it would only increase the difficulties.[400]
The proposed Decrees on the Church were wonderfully changed. The celebrated twenty-one Canons were now omitted. The whole Draft was compressed into four chapters, with three Canons. Vitelleschi, as we have seen, cannot understand how governments, especially the government of France, should attach so much importance to the Canons, and so little to the dogma of infallibility. The latter, as he well says, virtually includes them all, and as many more besides as may spring from the sole and irresponsible will of an individual. John Lemoinne had hastily said that Infallibility affected France no more than the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; but Prévost Paradol had, with better insight, shown that, on the contrary, it gave the Pope everything in theory, and left him in the position, step by step, first to assume and next to acquire everything in practice. The Immaculate Conception seriously affected France; not the doctrine, but the proceeding which set up a single master over the faith of France. That proceeding paved the way for Infallibility, which in its turn was to confirm for ever and render ordinary a despotic procedure which otherwise might have been treated as exceptional.
The Univers of April 29, after asking whether objectors meant to remain Catholics after the definition, and saying that if they answered No they were judged already, went on to remark, If they answer Yes they are preparing themselves for a kind of faith and obedience that is hardly reasonable; preparing to believe that what was black has become white through a Council invested with power to make true that which was false. Poor Montalembert did not live to read that taunt and menace both in one. Mrs. Oliphant mentions someone who said that the Count had expressed his intention to submit at last, for he must do so. That is one thing, and expressing an intention to believe is another. But those who know how such statements as that quoted by Mrs. Oliphant are made, would not give much for it if it came only from a female or a priest.