Letters From Rome on the Council. Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger
Not a few of them flutter about Infallibility like flies about a candle, in evident fear of getting burnt. But when the critical moment comes, they will vote obediently as the master whose power they have sworn to increase bids them. If the Prelates were even slightly acquainted with Church history, they would certainly recoil in terror from the maxims and doctrines their decision will recall from the realm of shadows they seem to have sunk into, and clothe again with flesh and blood. They would recoil from the complications and contests they and their successors must hereafter be involved in with all nations and governments, as forced executors of every infallible utterance of 256 Popes.
The sudden departure of Cardinal Mathieu, Archbishop of Besançon, is connected with the election of the Commission on Faith, which turned out so unfortunately for the Germans; the French Bishops after the previous consultation had divided their forces, the Infallibilists voting for Bonnechose, their opponents for Cardinal Mathieu. The defeated party wanted to protest against a scandalous intrigue about the election, carried on by a man whose name I suppress; and Mathieu's sudden departure was in order to avoid being mixed up with the conflict, and from disgust at the whole affair.
A singular incident not long since created some sensation and amusement in English circles. The English Bishops, like their Archbishop, Manning, are declared Infallibilists – a tendency first introduced among the clergy there since Wiseman's time, for before that Gallican views prevailed almost universally in England, and definite assurances were given on the subject at the time of Catholic Emancipation. And as Papal Infallibility implied necessarily the doctrine of the Pope's dominion over monarchs and governments, which was formally abjured —e. g., in the Irish clerical seminary of Maynooth – the Infallibilist theory was supposed to be shelved also. It chanced that lately the Pall Mall Gazette, which is much read even here, under the heading, “The Infallibility of the Pope a Protestant Invention,” quoted the following question and answer from a widely-used manual of instruction, approved by many Bishops, and highly praised even in Manning's journal, the Tablet, called The Controversial Catechism: – “Q. Are not Catholics bound to believe that the Pope is in himself infallible? —A. This is a Protestant invention, and is no article of Catholic belief; no Papal decision can bind under pain of heresy, unless received and prescribed by the teaching body, the Bishops of the Church.”
At the moment I am writing, there is a pause, but by no means a truce. Le Concile ne marche pas, mais il intrigue, I heard a Frenchman say this morning. The acoustic qualities of the Assembly Hall, which is the whole height of St. Peter's, make it quite unfit for use. If anything is to be proclaimed, it must be shouted at full pitch to the four sides. It happened the other day that the Bishops on one side were crying Placet, while those on the other side expressed their opinion by Non placet, quia nihil intelleximus. Pius ix., who was long ago made aware of the state of the case, really thought that all discussion was superfluous. And as the hall must be abandoned as utterly useless, the 120,000 scudi lavished on preparing it are wasted. There is no lack of funds, however; so much so, that 20,000 scudi have been spent already on laying the foundation of the memorial pillar of the Council. These things must make an indescribable impression on those who have heard most touching pictures drawn in the pulpit at home of the wants and poverty of the Head of the Church.
Antonelli, to whom the impossibility of carrying on the Council in this place has been represented, has now taken the matter in hand, and another chamber is to be found and got ready. A room in the Quirinal is talked of, or the atrium over St. Peter's in the Sistine. The latter would be an ominous place, for in the Sala Regia, which the Bishops must pass through to enter the Sistine, is Vasari's famous picture, painted by order of Gregory xiii., for the glorification of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The contemplation of this picture, which now, since the publication of the nuncio Salviati's despatches, the Pope is proved to have ordered with full knowledge of the real nature of that horrible occurrence, and full intention of sanctioning it, might perhaps somewhat indispose the Prelates to vote for the articles of the Syllabus on religious coercion and the power of the Church to inflict bodily punishment. Antonelli means now to take up the Council in earnest. For him, indeed, who was formerly an advocate, the theological side of Infallibility has little interest; but he is too skilful and experienced a statesman and financier not to appreciate keenly the gain to be derived from the new dogma in all countries, in the shape of power, influence, and revenue. He understands well enough, and better than many statesmen this side the Alps, the incalculable consequences of having it henceforth taught and insisted on as a first principle in every catechism, public school, and country pulpit, that Papal decrees and decisions, not only in the domain of faith but of morals, the relations of Church and State, and the whole life of society, are absolutely infallible, – of its being made the first and crucial question for Catholics in all cases, What has the infallible Pope, either the reigning pontiff or one of his predecessors, decided on this point, or what will he decide if asked?
A Bull appeared yesterday, which, if read and understood, would create great excitement. It professes to abolish a part of the numerous excommunications latæ sententiæ,21 which the Popes have gradually accumulated; but virtually it is intended as a renewal or confirmation of the Bull In Cœnâ Domini, which Clement xiv. (Ganganelli) first dropped the custom of publishing annually, and which, from his time, had been regarded, everywhere out of Rome, as abrogated, though the Curia always maintained that it was binding in principle, as Crétineau-Joli shows in his Memoirs of Consalvi. I am only giving here the judgment of a friend who has read the Bull. If he is rightly informed, it is but the first link in a chain of decrees embodying the retrospective force of the anticipated dogma, for the saying will hold good then, “Quod fuimus erimus, quod fecimus faciemus.” Every claim once advanced must be maintained, every doctrinal proposition renewed, and so the living body will be chained to a corpse.
Desertions from the ranks of the Opposition to the majority of 500, must, no doubt, be reckoned on, and the renegades will say, like Talleyrand, that they are not deserting, but only coming in earlier than others. Whether these desertions will be numerous enough to reduce the minority to 40 or 50, as the authorities hope, will be determined when the question of opportuneness gets disentangled from the question of principle. For it requires more than common courage to make open profession of disbelief in the Infallibilist dogma at Rome, since the Pope, in his letters to Manning and Deschamps, has indulged in severe censures of those who question his infallibility; and every Cardinal and Monsignore is accustomed to express himself in the same sense.
Can this Council, then, which can move neither hand nor foot, be called free? Is an assembly free, when no speech can be made, no single decision come to, without the express permission of an external master? If this is freedom, there has never been an unfree Council. So I hear many saying, as well clergy as laity, and even Bishops. The Pope, of course, has not forgotten that, on the day of his election, sitting on the High Altar of that very church where the Council is now being held, he was adored by the Cardinals, and four days afterwards crowned with the triple tiara, with the words, “Scias te esse rectorem orbis.” It has been summoned to arrange and negotiate the transition from the previous condition of the Church to a new one. Till now, at least in theory, Councils were, or were supposed to be, assemblies deliberating and deciding freely. But, in the new condition of the Church, under the rule of Papal Infallibility, assemblies of Bishops are purely superfluous, or only useful as machines for acclamation. The present assembly stands midway between the old Church and the new, and participates in both. The vital breath of freedom and independence it is deprived of, but it is not yet a mere acclamation-machine: it can still dissent and say, Non placet. On the day when the new dogma is proclaimed, and the eternal city again, as in 1517,22 declares its joy by illuminations, the Synod will have killed itself with its own hand, and marched into the grave as the last of its generation. And just as when a knight died the last of his race, his shield was broken and his arms obliterated, so will the usual chapter De Conciliis be obliterated from the dogmatic manuals.
Fifth Letter
Rome, Dec. 23, 1869.– The Council is suspended for a while, for want of an available place of meeting, or is occupied only in studying the Schemata that have been distributed at home, and deliberating in different sections. The German Bishops
Excommunications
When the news arrived from Paris of the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction,