Proceeding to the most tender point of all, the writer says—
Above this surveillance of an institution the Jesuits have contrived another, which is shown more rarely, and is reserved for great events. This reaches the heads that are loftiest, even when they are held up, and it makes those who might feel a movement of independence tremble in spite of themselves. I mean the authority of Pius IX. Too long it has been sought to keep his action in the background, in the private history of the Council, by casting into the shade a figure which is entitled to stand in a strong light. Hitherto the writers of history have, at each new incident in the Council, been content to say, It is the work of the Roman Court. Well, the Roman Court is Pius IX, and history, when the hour comes, rending the covering of mystery, must let every one bear the responsibility which belongs to him. It will have to say that it is Pius IX who would have the Council in spite of the Cardinals, and who now will have, in spite of them, his personal infallibility. It is he who required for the Council this hall where one cannot hear; it is he who became irritated with Audu and tore from him the abdication of his rights; it is he who refused to receive the petition of the minority requesting that unhappy debates should be averted; it is he who violated all rule in bringing on the burning question; it is he who suddenly smothered discussion when it became menacing for his pretensions; it is he who from the clergy of Rome required an address which they had at first refused; it is he who dismissed Theiner to reward Cardoni; it is he who by a classification to be much regretted distressed the prelates who on the anniversary day of his election came to congratulate him; it is he who called Guidi after his speech to subdue his independent spirit; is it he who from the Council demands either his personal infallibility or else the courage to die from the heat of the sun and of the fever; it is he who will be everything, both the universal faith and tradition—La tradizione son io! Never was absolutism seen so near at hand, in an institution which Jesus Christ had founded free and independent in spite of its monarchical and indivisible unity.
The aspect of the case which most distressed the writer seemed to be that studied humiliation of the bishops which marked the whole procedure of the Pope, and especially that raising against them of their own subordinates which bishops probably thought was a measure reserved only for employment against civil rulers, not against "Venerable Brethren." Contrasting the present excesses with those of the Popes of the middle ages the writer proceeds—
At present we stand in presence of the Papacy struggling, not against princes, but against the episcopacy; as if Pius IX could find on the ruin of his brethren a more elevated throne, or in their annihilation a more impregnable fortress. O misfortune of the times and abuse of the most holy institutions! They want to have only a single real bishop in the world—the Pope; a single infallible and authorized doctor—the Pope! Let every voice be silent unless to say what he has said; let no action be performed but under his episcopal jurisdiction—universal, immediate; let those who have been appointed by God to govern, renounce their imprescriptible rights; let them tear the pages of the gospel on which those rights are graven; we do not any longer want more than one mouth, one hand, an absolute monarch; then, say they, only then, shall we have universal order.... At present the Caesars disappear everywhere and visibly; in vain do I look for a Louis XIV or a Joseph II; governments are essentially transformed and are confounded with the country which at least has no courtiers. There now remains in reality but one Caesar, who is himself everything both in spiritual matters and in temporal, dispensing his favours to those who defend him, and making those who contradict him feel his wrath; and this Caesar is not called either Francis Joseph or Napoleon III.
And while this time all temporal powers have scrupulously respected the liberty of the Council, a single one has hampered it in every way, has dreaded and destroyed it. I need not name the one. Thus the Church which had furnished to modern civil societies the model of a monarchy, in which the aristocratic and popular elements effectually tempered the excess of the supreme power, the Church which had first of all given to the modern world the example of its great assemblies, discussing in freedom the rights of truth and justice—this Church presents to us to-day the spectacle of a Council without liberty and the menace of an absolutism without control.
This will suffice to account for the displeasure of the Pope and the Jesuits; but whether it sufficed to warrant the action of the Council and its language, posterity will judge. In our climate the allusion to the cruelty of keeping the old men in Rome in what is there called "the severest season," would seem overstrained. But the danger of attending a conclave in that season will be found described by Mr. T.A. Trollope as greater than that of a soldier on the field of battle. And his details of a conclave held in July to elect the Barberini Pope, gives frightful corroboration of that serious statement.[475] As M. Veuillot, looking from the point of view of the initiated, had at once leaped to the conclusion of the Pope only; and as Vitelleschi, reasoning from the data furnished by the Canons presented to the Council, inferred that all that would remain of earthly authority would be the Pope only; so this writer, starting from the episcopal point of view, and with difficulty rising above it, at last stands face to face with the sole figure of authority left, the Pope only; and he finds that while the spirit of Christianity has been changing Caesars into mild and patriotic princes, another spirit has changed the Bishop of Rome into a Caesar, claiming all supremacy in things temporal and spiritual.
FOOTNOTES:
[464] Vol. ii. 427.
[465] Friedberg, p. 622; Quirinus, 797.