The Great Debate—Bishop Pie—The Virgin Mary on Infallibility—Cullen claims Ireland and MacHale—Kenrick's Reply, and his Account of the First Introduction of the Doctrine into Maynooth—MacHale speaks—Full Report of Darboy's Speech—The Pope gives Signs of Pleasure at Saldanha's Assault on the King of Portugal—New Date fixed for the Great Definition—Manning's Great Speech—Remarkable Reply of Kenrick—McEvilly ascribes Catholic Emancipation not to the Effect of Oaths, but to that of the Fear of Civil War—Kenrick's Retort—Clifford against Manning—Verot's Scene—Spalding's Attack on Kenrick—Kenrick's Refutation—Speeches of Valerga, Purcell, Conolly, and Maret—Sudden Close of the Debate.
On May 13, began the great debate, if anything that took place in the Vatican Council may be called by that name. This conflict was to be the death of real parliamentary debating in all countries. It ranged over the whole Draft of the proposed Decrees. The scope of them is well indicated by M. Veuillot, when he calls the Draft the Schema of the Pontiff. It treats only of primacy and infallibility. The first chapter treats of the institution of primacy in the person of Peter; the second treats of its descent through the Roman Pontiffs; the third, of its nature and scope; the fourth, of Papal infallibility.
Bishop Pie, of Poitiers, opened this famous field by a discourse much praised and much ridiculed. He argued for infallibility on the ground that Providence permitted St. Paul to be beheaded, and not St. Peter,[402] and on the further ground that Peter was crucified with the head downwards, to show that the body was to be supported by the head; but he who supports is infallible, and not he who is supported.[403] This truly Romish argument evoked, as Vitelleschi intimates, from the majority enthusiasm, and from the Opposition sarcastic smiles. We do not know whether any divine put before Bishop Pie the difficulty thrown in the way of his argument, by the fact that Providence must have permitted Peter to be beheaded after death, seeing that his head was with that of Paul in the Lateran, and only his trunk in St. Peter's.
On the next day, no less a person than the Cardinal Vicar ascended the tribune to plead for the glory of his chief. By a leap from centre to circumference, he was followed by the Archbishop of St. Francisco. The Archbishop of Messina relieved the gravity of the debate by relating how Peter had preached in Sicily; but when he told the people that he was infallible they doubted. They, however, sent an embassy to the Virgin Mary, to ask if she had heard of the infallibility of Peter. The Virgin replied that she certainly remembered being present when her Son conferred this prerogative upon him.[404] This speech has caused some correspondence in the Italian papers, especially touching the letter of the Virgin, which is still in existence, and has an annual feast all to itself. Somehow we are not ourselves clear as to the history of the embassy and of the letter. It is said that the letter was let down from heaven by the Virgin; but if that be so, where did the ambassadors go to with their message? But as the events took place before the age of reconstruction, we shall not digress further.
The discussion proceeded from day to day, a long and increasing list of names promising endless speeches. Three Cardinals spoke on May 18—Schwarzenberg, Rauscher, and Donnet, Vitelleschi reports Schwarzenberg as having said (p. 159), "It is said that you really believe in this dogma; but, if that be true, you cannot insist that I and my companions ought to acknowledge what seems to us absurd; and if you do insist, be sure that schisms will arise, and abjurations will follow within the Church of Rome." On May 19 the pulpit was ascended by Cardinal Cullen, carrying with him the confidence of power in Ireland, and of favour with the Curia. Coming of "a right noble Irish family," as the official history says,[405] and trained after the heart of the Curia, he had well justified their expectations in carrying out the centralizing system, to which he owed his mitre. He addressed himself particularly to the task of refuting Hefele's pamphlet on the heresy of Pope Honorius, contending that it could not be reconciled with what that prelate had written in his history of Councils.[406] But he also attacked Kenrick for his memorandum already spoken of. He charged the latter with impairing the argument for the primacy of the Pope, by asserting that the other apostles were also called foundations as well as Peter. Furthermore, Kenrick had asserted that the words "lambs" and "sheep" in the Vulgate (John xxi. 16, 17) both stood for one and the same Greek word, and hence he had contended that the stock Curialistic argument, that the bishops, "sheep," are placed under the Pope as well as the people, "lambs," had actually not even the show of a foundation in the passage. This was a sore point, for what would the Papal system have done before infallibility was proclaimed without this passage? It was as important as "Obey God rather than man," or as "Teach all nations." It is not true, asserted Cullen, that the two Latin words in those verses represent one and the same Greek word in the original. He quoted Oriental versions. It is not true, he repeated, with emphasis.
As to the word "faith," a word which Rome has, like so many others, killed, disembowelled, and embalmed, Kenrick had asserted that our Lord never employed it as meaning a body of doctrine, and that He employed it not more than once or twice as meaning the act by which we believe in God as revealing Himself; but that He generally employed it as meaning trust or confidence. This, Kenrick had asserted, was the sense of the word in the passage on which the attempt was made to build the infallibility of all dogmas found in the Decrees of the Roman Pontiff. The words are, "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." That is, our Lord had prayed that the trust and confidence of Peter should not entirely fail; and Rome argued that He thereby promised that everything in the Decrees of the Roman Pontiffs, affecting doctrine or morals, should be for evermore free from error. Kenrick's exposition of what our Lord really did say made this argument appear not only futile but unfair. Cullen met him by declaring that his views savoured of the Calvinian heresy. The Cardinal proceeded to deny that bishops, as successors of the apostles, possessed that universal jurisdiction in the Church which the apostles themselves had received from Christ. He quoted a work of a deceased brother of Kenrick, formerly Archbishop of Baltimore, on the Primacy of the Apostolic See. Cullen, moreover, claimed Ireland and the Irish for infallibility in the teeth of oaths, catechisms, records, and living memories. In doing so, he was indiscreet enough to name, as on his side, MacHale, the lion of St. Jarlath, who had sat silent under the weight of his nearly fourscore years.
Kenrick, feeling that Cullen had said things which touched his honour,[407] prayed for leave to reply, either at once or at the end of the sitting. This was refused. Archbishops must wait till all the Cardinals who chose to speak had spoken, and Kenrick must wait till all archbishops senior to himself had been heard. He prepared a speech, but the debate was cut short before he had the opportunity of delivering it. Thereupon he resorted to the expedient of printing. To this document we are indebted for some of our most trustworthy information as to the real position taken up by different speakers.[408]
Kenrick said that Cullen had, in very severe language, charged him with impairing the argument for the primacy of the Pontiff, by alleging that the other apostles were called foundations as well as Peter. That, however, was not his language, but must be laid at the door of the "divine" Paul and John. Kenrick admitted primacy, but denied infallibility. He also denied that Christ had made the stability of the Church dependent on Peter as the foundation. He had provided for her stability otherwise, by saying. "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." Cullen had further said, and that repeatedly and with much energy of expression, It is false, because Kenrick asserted that one and the same Greek word was translated both "sheep" and "lambs" in the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of John xxi. But, in so doing, replied Kenrick, the Cardinal had betrayed a little infirmity.[409] The fact remained, that in those two verses the Vulgate did translate one and the same Greek word by two Latin ones. Moreover, in the reading adopted by Tischendorf, there was no word in any of the three utterances of our Lord which properly represented the word "sheep"; and the reading adopted by Tischendorf was confirmed by that which they might see inscribed on the arch of the Vatican Church, over the throne of the Pontiff.[410] In answer to the assertion of the Cardinal, that his exposition of the meaning of the word "faith" savoured of the Calvinian heresy, Kenrick said that perhaps his Eminence had not weighed the full significance of such language. He showed that out of twenty-nine places in the Gospels where the word occurred, in all but two it clearly meant confidence, or else the faith that works miracles; and that in only two could it be taken for the theological virtue of believing in God's revelation of Himself. He was still fully persuaded that its real meaning, in the words addressed by our Lord to Peter, was that of trust or confidence.
But Kenrick contended that Cullen had, by his own method of reasoning, taken away all the force usually ascribed by theologians to the words, "Thou art Peter." He had said that the privileges given to the other apostles by our Lord did not descend to their successors. If that was the case with the other apostles, surely it would be also the case with Peter. Kenrick, however, firmly contended that apostolic authority did not emanate from the Pontiff, but was given to the bishops by Christ Himself, and that the restriction of it to certain localities was merely by appointment of the Church.
After showing that the interpretation of the words "Upon this rock," which was supported by the greatest number of the Fathers, was that which regards the faith declared in the Confession of Peter as the foundation on which the Church was to be built, he pointed out that the word "foundation" has two clearly distinguished and well-defined meanings. First, the natural foundation, or that to which a wise builder clears his way before laying a stone—the living rock. Secondly, the architectural foundation, namely, the first course of stones laid on this rock. He contended that attention to this simple fact made the language of both classes of passages perfectly clear; those in which our Lord alone is called the Foundation, and those in which the apostles are so called. At the same time it cut away all the ground on which an argument in favour of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff is built, because he is the foundation of the Church.