Beside fears like these, others perhaps more general were those of quiet Catholics wishing to live in peace and serve their respective nations loyally, who being conscious that even now they were liable to suspicion of a divided allegiance, feared that if the Jesuit tenets became the creed, their political relations would be less comfortable, and their prospects of office not so good. "At the Vatican," says Ce qui se Passe au Concile, speaking of the mystery and the uneasiness of this moment; "At the Vatican they spoke in low tones of grandiose projects that were to transform the world, and by exalting Pius IX were to confound the enemies of the Church." It was those grandiose projects which made good citizens fear for their own future political standing.
Even feelings of this sort, as represented by Holtgreven, ought to touch us, being those of silent millions awaiting in the dark the sentence of their lords in Council. He says—
When we left the gymnasium, soon after the year 1860, there was no pupil who could say that, even by hint, he had been taught there that the Pope was infallible by himself, and without the consent of the Church. The answer 128 in Martin's Handbook of Religion is still too fresh in the memory of all; an answer which affirms that the grace of infallibility belongs only to the collective body of bishops, as successors of the Apostles.... Persons in office and out of it, clergy, laity, and exalted Church dignitaries, agreed that the pretensions of the Pope to power over kings and nations, in matters of allegiance and such like, were not part of their religion, but arose out of the state of the civil laws in the middle ages.... Thus does the Catholic teacher teach in his lectures on Church history, thus does the student learn; and this view, which captivates the youth, putting his German heart at rest, and rejoicing it, still gives him repose and removes every scruple when, as a man, he lifts up the hand to swear allegiance to the laws of the fatherland.[119]
Those of the French clergy whose education had been carried beyond the usual round of Latin, logic, and manners, began to manifest misgivings as to the effect of the impending change on men of enlarged culture. It was in March, 1869, that the Unitá published the Pope's famous letter to the Archbishop of Paris, described in a former chapter. The Paris correspondent of that journal, commenting upon it, calls the dignitary who, in the eye of the world, would be his metropolitan and ordinary, "a pretty fellow"—bel soggetto—whom no one would any longer look upon as a candidate for the rank of Cardinal. In the same letter he says that war against Prussia must break out, whether the occasion be the Belgian railways, or complaints that Prussia violates the treaty of Prague.
Fears as to coming changes, in their effect on men of culture, were felt still more deeply in Germany, where the general education of the clergy was higher than elsewhere. Both the German clergy and the nobler of the French were unprepared for what they began, in secret, to call Pius-cult, as it appeared in the language employed by the favoured organs. One word in the prayer for the Pope, recommended by the Unitá, on March 12, grated not on Protestant ears only. The Ave Maria was for a week to be followed by these petitions: "Eternal Father, defend Pius IX! Eternal Word, assist Pius IX! Holy Spirit, glorify Pius IX!"
Perhaps none of the publications now flowing from the Press excited greater attention than one which was announced as being from the pen of one of the best known of the Austrian clergy. It was entitled The Reform of the Romish Church in Head and Members. Not only does this author oppose the attempt to restore laws enforcing unity of creed, but he actually does so on principle, as well as on the ground of expediency. The longing of Rome for the subjection of the States of the world, and for power again to employ the arm of the State in her service, is, he contends, a delusion which will lead only to her overthrow. Moreover, he lays down the startling principle that the Church has nothing to ask but liberty to act in her own sphere like any private society. This last position is utterly irreconcilable with all the ordinary theories. He holds that anything granted to the Church by the State beyond what is given to any other private society is an evil, and also that every case, in the past, wherein Church and State have joined hands in order to help one another to gain their respective ends, has turned out ill for both of them. In modern times his ideal of the normal relation of Church and State is that existing in America, which he imagines works favourably for Romanism.
The author of Reform in Head and Members looks on the system of lower seminaries for boys and higher ones for young men, in which the future clergy pass their youth separated from all society, leading an unreal life, pursuing narrow studies and without knowledge of men, or the possibility of acquiring any breadth of mind, as producing only a race of priests unfit to lead an educated age. He declares that in France, Italy, and Spain the system of close seminaries has destroyed theological science among Catholics. He manifests the ordinary contempt of German scholars for the showy and wordy pupils of the Roman seminaries, and contends that Catholic theology does not bear any comparison, as to talent and learning, with Protestant theology in any country except Germany, where the priests have to study at the universities. He further believes that the lamentable moral condition of the Romish clergy is not a little to be ascribed to the seclusion and unreality in which their youth is passed (p. 161).
The young priests in whose hands the guidance of the people is to be placed, squander the fair and precious years of youth in enclosures shut off from the world, and out of them do they go forth into life without experience of men or of the world. Then does the world, with all its charms, allurements, delights, and seductions, rush in upon those narrow, inexperienced young clergymen; and alas! only too many of them sink in a sea which to them is new, strange, and untried.
He demands a thorough reform of this system, insisting that the contempt shown by all respectable Italians for the priesthood is not to be accounted for except on the ground of this wretched system and of its wretched moral and religious results.
Another demand boldly made by this Austrian priest is for the abolition of the vows of celibacy, so far as they are either perpetual or obligatory. He would admit of vows that were both voluntary and temporary. The corrupting effects of celibacy evidently leave him no hope that it is capable of being rendered consistent with tolerable morality. He treats this institution as purely local and Romish, regarding its imposition upon the Catholic Church as a great public evil, impossible to be justified. At page 117 he says, "Upon the law of the Romish Church fall back all those moral abominations, beyond measure and beyond number, which have arisen out of it, and which will stain the Church as long as that law remains in force." When the writer approaches the subject of bureaucratic centralization, the Catholic rises against the Romanism which has fastened itself on the Churches of other nations. This system of centralization as carried out by the Curia is much too narrow legitimately to claim the name of national. Our author wants to see an end of the system. He wonders what may be the annual revenue paid into Rome from all quarters of the globe for indults, dispensations, indulgencies, remissions of sins, and the fees gained by all the inventions for what he calls selling poor parchment and bad writing very dear. He does not, like many writers when they touch this subject, break out into a passion against the huckstering of their religion, but manifests a cold contempt, feeling that the system is low and hollow.