The Civiltá proceeds to quote the opinions of the "good journals" of Italy, laying stress on the point that the opinions held by the supposed penitent could not be probable opinions—being in fact those which were already condemned in the Syllabus. It proceeds with great vigour to maintain that the Syllabus was the decree, not only of the Pope, but also of the five hundred bishops who had adhered to it last year (1867). Of these, the Civiltá correctly says that Darboy himself was one. It next contributes an important item of information, which completes the evidence of the perfect and formal ecclesiastical authority of all the condemnations of the Syllabus, on either theory of the constitution of the Church, the Papal or the Episcopal. After the address of the five hundred bishops present in Rome, all the absent ones, asserts the Civiltá, sent in their adhesion by letter, which they hastened to forward to this Roman chair, where, with the living Pontiff, resides the "spirit of truth" (p. 324). Hence it draws the inference, which is a just conclusion, if we may say so, in the face of a hundred English writers who, following an old tradition, when reviewing what Dr. Newman put upon paper on this subject, called it logical.
"This penitent (says the great organ of the Vatican), openly opposes the teaching power of the Church, whether that teaching power is considered as being exercised by the Bishop of Rome alone, or as being exercised by him in conjunction with all the bishops of Christendom. That teaching power has pronounced in the one mode and in the other, and has proscribed those opinions. In both ways has it condemned opinions, not imaginary or belonging to bygone times, but opinions which to-day, and under our eye, are pertinaciously maintained and reduced to practice" (p. 324).
Returning with intense earnestness to this point, it says (p. 543)—
The universal Bishop has spoken alone, and further, he has spoken conjointly with the bishops of the particular Churches. To contradict after this, is in effect to separate oneself from the whole of the pastors, and from him who is supreme among them all.
This is not enough. Some pages later, hesitation, on this question so vital to practical government, is again censured, in replying to the plea that the supposed penitent might be worthy of absolution on the ground of invincible ignorance—
We shall never tell him that ignorance consists in this, namely, that after he has read the Encyclical and the Syllabus, and re-read them, he could not understand that the modern opinions, which he retained, have been truly condemned, or that they have been condemned rightfully. This is not ignorance. It is an error and a pertinacity proper to a man not far removed from heresy. In this case, we once more repeat, confession is not the thing wanted. The first elements of the faith, and of the Catholic profession, have to be set straight in this man's head (p. 547).
It would almost seem as if Montalembert was personally pointed at in the two later articles. It is not a little curious to learn here that his bosom friend, Lacordaire, long the charm of the French pulpit, was called to Rome in 1850 to answer for his doctrine. The points on which he had to set himself right with Rome were anything but, in our sense, religious ones: (1) The coercive power of the Church; (2) The origin of sovereignty; and (3) The temporal power of the Pope. He did set himself right. Father Jandel, the General of the Dominicans, exulting over his answer on the question touching the coercive power, says, "It avenges his memory from the suspicion of complicity with certain opinions which some Catholics would fain shelter under the authority of his name."[117] Avenges his memory! It proves that whatever Lacordaire believed, he submitted to write as his own the doctrine of Rome, that the Church has power to "employ external force," and to inflict bodily pains. And so France sees the memory of her Bossuet held up to reproach, and the memory of her Lacordaire yoked by the Dominican General to his beloved Inquisition. She sees her Montalembert driven from public life, assailed, yea, reviled, while living, preparatory to being insulted when dead.
Any one acquainted with the high spirit and immense emotional force of Montalembert, can imagine his reddening and shivering at finding the following among the citations from Renan to prove that the sceptic understood the doctrine of "Catholicism" better than its professed friends in France—
The remedy applied by the Church of Rome to the liberty of worship and liberty of thought is the Inquisition. The Councils have established and approved the Inquisition, the Fathers and bishops have counselled and practised it. The Inquisition is the logical outgrowth of the whole orthodox system, and the quintessence of the spirit of the Church.[118]