Among his other crimes, Bismarck stayed the preparations for the Council by the campaign of Sadowa. The most reverend Court historian evidently has no sense of any need for giving the world other reasons for the total interruption of those preparations than the political troubles. Yet one who learned Christianity at the feet of Christ would not readily see why the studies of holy men in the mysteries of divine revelation should depend upon a battle in Bohemia, or on the flitting of a French garrison. Surely, divines might go on searching into naturalism, rationalism, pantheism, somnambulism, and freemasonry, whether Germany was uniting or splitting up again. Nevertheless, studies in regalism and Caesarism in the regular subordination of the natural order to the supernatural, and in the best measures for replacing the political system of Europe on the divine basis, or, as we should say, for subordinating civil and restoring ecclesiastical jurisdiction, were liable to be influenced by the flights of the eagles. And the augurs who were tracing the lines for the foundations of the reconstruction, found in the movements of the eagles of Prussia and France omens that counselled delay.
According to the original design, the Council was to be opened on the day observed as the eighteenth centennial anniversary of St. Peter's martyrdom. But, owing to these sad interruptions, when 1867 approached the secret preparations were not sufficiently advanced. Such, at least, is the only reason given by Cecconi why the Council was postponed.
The Pope, however, was resolved to cover St. Peter's day with glory. So his own thrice sacred anniversary, that of "the Immaculate," and of the Syllabus, was once more signalized by the issue of letters to the bishops of the whole world, citing them to Rome for the 29th of the ensuing June. They were not only to celebrate the centenary of Peter's martyrdom, but to take part in the canonization of some twenty additional saints, and also to attend certain consistories. The second name upon the list of the "new patrons in the presence of God" about to be created was that of Peter de Arbues, "Spanish inquisitor and martyr,"[59] of whose canonization we shall hear again. This invitation was dated three days before the French evacuated Rome. As trusty bayonets were failing, additional celestial powers were to be called into the firmament.
All this time the Liberal Catholics were becoming increasingly uneasy at the prospect of the dangers on which the Church was drifting. They had hoped to see her first embrace and then dominate modern culture and liberties. This was a dream of O'Connell, of Lammenais, and of Gioberti. At this aimed the erudite and steadfast German Catholics. But every new utterance of the Court, whether in official document or inspired organ, showed that it was determined upon dragging the Church in an opposite direction. According to the policy to which it had fully committed itself, the Church was to conquer, not by adopting the modern age, but by restoring the middle ages. The dominion of the Pontiff over the whole earth as spiritual despot and temporal suzerain was the ideal to which everything must give way. Montalembert, who had been flattered by the opening career of Pius IX, as sailors say they are flattered by what they call foxy weather, expresses himself as follows: "I began as early as 1852 to wrestle against the detestable political and religious aberrations summed up in contemporary Ultramontanism." He showed that when in 1847 he defended the Jesuits of the Sonderbund against Thiers, as he did with equal eloquence and want of foresight, he did not utter one word of the modern doctrines, and that for a good reason, because, he says, "No one had thought of setting them up when I entered on public life." Indeed, he affirms that, in 1847, Gallicanism was dead, but that it had been revived through the encouragement given to extreme pretensions during the pontificate of Pius IX. He then quotes an important letter addressed to himself, in 1863, by Sibour, at that time Archbishop of Paris—
The new Ultramontane school is conducting us to a twofold idolatry—idolatry of the temporal power and idolatry of the spiritual power. When you, like myself, made a splendid profession of Ultramontanism, you did not understand things in this fashion. We defended the independence of the spiritual power against the usurpations and pretensions of the temporal power; but we respected the constitution of the State and the constitution of the Church. We did not sweep away every intermediate power, or every gradation of order, nor yet every legitimate resistance, nor all individuality and spontaneity. The Pope and the Emperor were not then—the former the whole Church, the latter the whole State.
Montalembert goes on to say that the old Ultramontanes had recognized the right of the Pope, in a great crisis, to rise above all rules; but they did not confound the exception with the rule. These cares and apprehensions were for the time concealed, and were only brought to light by the anguish of that moment when the final leap downward was about to place a gulf that could never be re-crossed between Rome and all things free and equal. But when the expression did come, it bore with it the record of previous irritations.
"The Ultramontane bishops," said Montalembert,[60] "have pushed everything to the extreme, and have argued to the utmost against all liberties, those of the State as well as those of the Church."
"If such a system was not of a nature to compromise the gravest interests of religion, in the present, but much more in the future, we might content ourselves with despising it; but when one has the presentiment of the ills which are being prepared for us, it is difficult to be silent and resigned."
FOOTNOTES:
[56] Quarterly Review, No. 275, p. 293.
[57] Civiltá, Serie VI, vol. ix, p. 126.