On the most important point of all, the subjects with which the Council should deal, the summary of the notes given by Cecconi is so meagre as to suggest the idea either that the views of their Eminences must have been crude, or that they did not care to put on paper such views as were matured; always supposing that the summary really represents the whole of the contents. After a few generalities, the first particular subject named for condemnation is the liberty of the Press, after which are named civil marriages, impediments to marriage, mixed marriages, and such like, with questions of ecclesiastical property, and the observance of fasts and feasts.
Only two of the Cardinals mentioned the subject of Papal infallibility. A third named Gallicanism and the necessity of the temporal sovereignty. Only one mentioned the Syllabus.
The omission to name the Syllabus in this instance is one of a series of acts of reticence in respect of that document which are at least curious. It is not mentioned in the Encyclical which accompanied it. It is not mentioned by the official historian at the time of its issue; and when, as we shall hereafter see, the Pope solemnly confirmed it in the presence of five hundred bishops, the act was not mentioned by the Court organs. Further, the Syllabus was not mentioned even in the very document by which the collective hierarchy expressed their solemn adhesion to it. Nor was the adhesion to it by letter of the prelates then absent mentioned till, as our tale will show, all this was brought out by the friction of events.
Points in these notes to be borne in mind, as throwing light on the future of our history, are, that those who desired a Council hoped it would be a short one, and were of opinion that the powers of bishops were too great; and that the relations of the supernatural order and the natural order must be regulated, i.e. reduced to rule. These two commonwealths, commonly called the Church and State, had hitherto adjusted their relations, at least wherever Rome represented the supernatural order, by the rough method of trials of strength and skill. The object of reducing their relations to rule would be to restore that harmony of action which, according to the Curia, formerly existed in happy ages, but had been lost in the changes of time. Naturally, this desired harmony could only be restored by each abiding, according to rule, in its own place—the lower under the higher, and the higher above the lower.
FOOTNOTES:
[51] Zur Geschichte, etc., p. 3.
A Secret Commission to prepare for the Council, March 1865—First Summons—Points determined—Reasons why Princes are not consulted—Plan for the Future Council.