"Certainly, a strange way has been invented of serving religion, of making the modern world accept, comprehend, and love it. One might say that they treat the Church like one of those wild beasts that are carried about in menageries. Look at her, they seem to say, and understand what she means, and what is her real nature! To-day, she is in a cage, tamed and broken in, by force of circumstances. She can do no harm for the present; but understand that she has paws and tusks, and if ever she is let loose you will be made to know it" (p. 641).
As he wrote this sad passage, in all probability there would rise before his imagination one of the most memorable scenes in the life of any orator. When glorifying the return of the Pope to Rome, restored by French force, and deprecating any attempt at a conflict with the Church, he said that from any such conflict only dishonour could result, as to a strong man would result dishonour from a combat with a woman. And then, turning upon his audience, he said, "The Church is more than a woman; the Church is a mother," with a gush and a power which produced such a scene as perhaps has hardly ever been witnessed in any parliamentary assembly. And both ideals were quite sincere. The Church of Montalembert's imagination was a mother; the Church of the Civiltá Cattolica is a dam, holding to her young while they continue in sheer dependence, treating them as strangers when they can take care of themselves. His Church is the dream of an exceptional few, the Church of the Civiltá is the strong reality.
The articles which called forth this protestation of Montalembert, were among the most curious even of the Civiltá. They dealt with France—Paris and Darboy. On February 5, 1868, the Archbishop of Paris held a conference of his clergy in the Church of Saint Rocque, and there argued the following case of conscience. By some exceptional feat of the worst of all evil genii, Publicity, the discussion, and its result, were reported in the Patrie; and this indiscretion caused the world for once to gain a real peep into the consultations in the judges' chambers, behind the internal tribunal.
"A man engaged in politics," says the case of conscience, "declares to his confessor that he has no intention of renouncing the doctrines which prevail among modern nations, the principal points of which are, liberty of worship, liberty of the Press, and the action of the State in mixed affairs. The confessor asks if he is to grant absolution to a penitent in this state of mind, or to deny it."—Civiltá, VII. ii. 151.
The reasoning ascribed to the supposed penitent is the following—
You, as my confessor, have not the right to lay on me as you would on a private man, the duty of devoting a certain day, and of adopting certain means for the conversion of this or that person. Doubtless, I ought, by word and example, to lay myself out for the conversion and edification of my neighbour; but it rests with me as a free agent to select the means and to discern the opportunity. In like manner, you cannot order me as politician, legislator, or prince, to take, this very day, this or that measure, against blasphemy for example, or Sunday labour, or the licence of the Press. Lay it upon me to attend to the propagation of righteousness and truth; but leave it to me to judge of the opportunity, and to choose the means. And, I pray you, consider the grounds of my opinions. In the first place, whenever we speak or act, we have on one side the truth and right, which certainly ought to be respected; but on the other side we have fitness and opportunity, of which also we must take account, if we would speak to good purpose. Now, in this respect, I know better than any other what I can do, and what I cannot, in my family, or in a political assembly, or in the nation. In the next place, perhaps you do not see the absurdity which would follow the opposite opinion. It would follow that you had the right to decide and regulate all my actions, because into every one of them morality may enter; and every one of them may be connected with religion. You would be able to dictate my will, to tell me what vote I ought to give, to determine whether I am to declare peace or war. Mere trifles, you say. But what, in that case, would temporal power be, but a passive instrument of the spiritual power, and a mere machine? These are the reasons why I stand to my old notions on this point, and have no thought of changing them for others.
In this case, as thus put, and in the ensuing discussion, we see the confessor of a king or minister preparing to meet his "penitent." In the language of Montalembert, we see the feeling of a politician in facing the "tribunal," under an Ultramontane confessor; and in the papers of the Civiltá we see the glaring eye of Rome searching out every movement of the one and the other.
The case being thus stated, both as to its substance and as to the reasoning of the supposed penitent, the discussion began. Abbé Michaud, of the Madeleine, maintained that the confessor ought to grant absolution. Abbé G——, a Dominican, maintained that he ought not to do so. Archbishop Darboy now and then interfered, to moderate the opposition of the latter. The Abbé Falcimagne interrupted the Archbishop, declaring that he would deny the absolution, for the supposed penitent was unworthy of it. Finally, the Abbé Hamon, Curé of Saint Sulpice, read out four conclusions, which were fully accepted by the Archbishop, and which allowed the confessor to grant the absolution. The Opinion Nationale and other journals said that this conclusion showed to how little the condemnations of the Syllabus amounted.
Both the conclusion and the grounds on which it was rested gave huge offence at Rome. The Civiltá was not content with less than five long articles, making ninety octavo pages. It is in these that the things are set forth which fired the embers of Montalembert's true love of liberty, and damped his dying hope of ever seeing his ideal Catholicism and actual Popery seated on the same throne. We need not quote the passages which are echoed in his indignant repudiation; but we give a few others, which show that, strongly as we have seen him put the case, he was not guilty of any injustice. The Abbé Michaud said that the liberty condemned was not moderate liberty, but unbounded liberty.[116] The Civiltá took it for granted that he could not have been sincere.
"Similar to liberty of worship, is that worst of liberties, never sufficiently execrated or abhorred—liberty of the Press, which some dare to invoke and promote with so much clamour." It continues—"In respect of religion and the Press, it is idle to distinguish between two sorts of liberty, one wise and the other unbridled, as the Abbé did. In such matters, all liberty is a delirium and a pestilence. There is no healthy man's delirium; all delirium is that of a sick man. There is no praiseworthy and harmless plague; every plague is deadly.... Hence, it is never a decent thing to introduce such liberty into a civil community. It is only permissible to tolerate it in certain cases, in the same way that a pest is tolerated" (p. 160).