Letters From Rome on the Council. Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger
another representation, with forty signatures, expressed in much more moderate terms. They entreat the Pope to be graciously pleased to allow them to inspect the stenographic reports, and to let the Bishops print their treatises on the questions laid before them without the censorship, for the information of their colleagues. Posterity will marvel at the humble submissiveness of these Bishops, and the wisdom of the Roman policy, which, after two years' preparation for the Council, provides a hall where all discussion is impossible, and furthermore prohibits the Bishops from inspecting the stenographic reports of their own speeches.
Some ten of the leading Bishops of different nations have formed themselves into an International Committee, so as not, for the future, to ask concessions of the Pope in the name of one nation only – the French or German. They wish that every Bishop should be admitted to speak in Congregation according to the order of inscription, irrespective of hierarchial rank or age, and that the speeches should be at once printed, and distributed to the Bishops before the next Session; and finally, that the Papal Commission for revising motions, which holds the whole Council in its hands, should be increased by the introduction of members freely elected. Some further requisitions which I am not acquainted with are said to be added.
Against these things, which make the Pope very irritable, two principal remedies are adopted. In the first place, an attempt is made to prevent any number of Bishops meeting together, either by direct prohibition or by announcing the displeasure of the supreme authority against those who take part in such separate deliberations, which are said to be revolutionary. And next, the Bishops are worked upon individually, and every one is watched and taken stock of, on the assumption that everybody has his price, if one could only discover what it is. Two examples of this may be cited here. One of the most distinguished German Bishops, who is free from the usual clerical vanity, and could neither be bought with titles nor with the cut or colour of a vestment, was quite lately accosted by the Pope – in full consciousness of his Vicarship of Christ – with the question, asked in the most affectionate tone, “Amas me?” What inference was attached to an affirmative answer need not be specified. The other case occurred somewhat earlier. Lavigerie, Bishop of Nancy, came to Rome coveting some striking mark of distinction. It seemed worth while to bind him closer to the Curia, and so an article of ecclesiastical dress was hit upon, which he and no other Bishop of the Western Church was to wear. It was called a superhumeral, and is described as a somewhat broader stole, thrown over the shoulders, and adorned with fringes, with two maniples of the shape of shields hanging down from it. The effect is said to have been enormous, and of course since then Mgr. Lavigerie is a profoundly convinced Infallibilist. “C'est avec de hochets qu'on mène les hommes,” said the first Napoleon; but it moves one's pity to look at Bishops who let themselves be led by the nose by these childish toys.
Very instructive considerations may be formed here on the representation of particular nations and national Churches at the Council. Frenchmen and Germans must practise themselves in the virtues of humility and modesty, and learn how insignificant they are in the Catholic Church, in all that concerns doctrine and legislation. There is the diocese of Breslau, with 1,700,00 °Catholics, but its Bishop has not been chosen for any single Commission, while the 700,000 inhabitants of the present Roman States are represented by 62 Bishops, and the Italians form half or two-thirds in every Commission. For the Kingdom of God, wherein the least is greater than John and all the Prophets, lies, as is well known, between Montefiascone and Terracina, and whoever first saw the light in Sonnino, Velletri, Ceccano, Anagni, or Rieti, is predestinated from the cradle “imperio regere populos.” It is true the 62 Bishops of this chosen land and people have not succeeded in restoring the most moderate standard of morality in their little towns and villages; there are still whole communities and districts notoriously in league with brigands – but the Council has no call to trouble itself with matters of that sort. There are the Archbishops of Cologne with 1,400,000, of Cambray with 1,300,000, and of Paris with 2,000,00 °Catholics, but any four of the 62 Neapolitan and Sicilian Bishops can out-vote these Bishops with their 5,000,00 °Catholics at their back. Thus the 12,000,00 °Catholics of Germany Proper are represented at this Council by fourteen votes. Their relative positions may be expressed in this way: in Church matters twenty Germans count for less than one Italian. And should a German indulge any fancy that his nation, with its numerous theological High Schools, and its learned theologians, might reasonably claim some weight at a Council, he only need come here to be cured at once of that notion. There is not in all Italy one single real Theological Faculty, except in Rome; Spain gets on equally without any higher theological school or any theology; yet here at the Council some hundreds of Italians and Spaniards are masters, and are the appointed teachers of doctrine and dictators of faith for all nations belonging to the Church.
Count Terenzio Mamiani has lately observed, in the Nuova Antologia, published at Florence, that in Italy there are not so many religious books printed in half a century as appear in England or North America (or Germany) in one year. And we must remember too that the theological literature published in Tuscany and Lombardy might almost be called copious in comparison with the nearly absolute sterility of the States of the Church. Here in Rome you may find a lottery dream-book in almost every house, but never a New Testament, and extremely seldom any religious book at all. It seems as though it were a recognised principle that, the more ignorant a people, the greater must be the share their hierarchy have in the government of the Church. And thus we have the question of nationalities within the bosom of the Church. Everything done here is but the expression of one idea and the means to one end, and this idea and end are that the spiritual domination of the Italians over the other nations, especially over the Germans and French, should be extended and confirmed. Above a hundred Spaniards have come from both sides of the ocean to let themselves be used as instruments of the Italians at the Council. They have no thought, or will, or suggestion of their own for the good of the Church. It is difficult to form a notion of the ignorance of these Latins in all historical questions, and their entire want of that general cultivation which is assumed with us as a matter of course in a priest or bishop. And up to this time I have always found here that the predilection for the Infallibilist theory is in precise proportion to the ignorance of its advocates. It has been deemed necessary still further to help on this immense numerical superiority, and so the Pope, as I am informed, has appointed during the two years since the proclamation of the Council 89 Bishops in partibus, whose flocks are in the moon or in Sirius.
And now for something about the course of procedure in the Council as to the Schema during the last ten days. There are only constantly speeches on each side, for a real discussion is impossible in the Hall, and it is obvious that it was chosen, and is still kept to in spite of daily experience, for that very reason.33 Some speakers, however, whom nature has endowed with a specially ringing voice, have made an unwonted impression. The most significant occurrence was Cardinal Capalti's interruption of Strossmayer's speech. The Bishop had touched on the novel and unconciliar form in which the decrees were to be published, as decisions of the Pope, with the mere approval or forced consent of the Council. It was an ominous circumstance that the assembly sacrificed by its silence the man who was speaking for its rights. Meanwhile there has been a wholly unexpected attack on the Schema by a host of speakers, so that Antonelli, on leaving the Council, said, in visible excitement, to a diplomatist who was waiting for him, that this could not continue, or the Council would go on for ten years. Strossmayer was followed by Ginoulhiac, the learned Bishop of Grenoble, who spoke in the same sense. The proportion of speakers against the Schema is overwhelming. In the Session of January 3, all four spoke against it, even the Patriarch of Venice. An impression was produced by the warning of the Eastern Patriarch, Hassoun, against embittering the Orientals, and driving them into schism by dogmatic innovations. The Italian, Valerga, named by the Pope to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, represented the Roman standpoint in its crudest form, but he had his speech read for him by Bishop Gandolfi.
It is now said to be certain that Darboy, Simor, and Tarnóczy have been apprised of the intention to make them Cardinals. As regards the two last, the abandonment of all opposition to the Infallibilist dogma, and to every other decree on faith in a Papal sense, is an indispensable condition. But with Darboy the case is different: the Curia must take him as he is or let him alone, for he cannot be bought at any price. The irritation, complaints, and sighs of the Pope at having to make this man a Cardinal,
[Monsignor Nardi said this