Letters From Rome on the Council. Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger
lasted some years. The Romanist party have published in a Quebec newspaper the Pope's bitter and reproachful letter to him, to which he made no reply. Darboy was and is resolved to be the bonâ fide Bishop of his diocese, the largest in the world, and will not admit any arbitrary encroachments or concurrent jurisdiction of the Court of Rome to annul his acts at its caprice. “This stinks of schism,” say the Romans here.34 And therefore, according to Roman notions, he is “a bad Christian,” for he does not believe in Papal Infallibility, and will not vote for it even as a Cardinal. Moreover, nobody sees better through the whole web of curialistic policy, with its artifices, small and great, and he shows not the slightest sympathy for it, so that in any case he will be a very inconvenient and unprofitable Cardinal. At the same time he is a man of rare eloquence, rich experience and knowledge of mankind, and easily outweighs ten Italian Cardinals in culture and learning. And the worst of it is that this bitter necessity of elevating Darboy has to be accepted with a good grace, for France wills it, and France must still remain the magnanimous champion of Rome and the Council. Some consolation is found for it in the now openly proclaimed apostasy of Archbishop Spalding of Baltimore, who has hitherto been wavering, for it is hoped that other American Bishops will follow his example.
If at the end of the first month we take a view of the situation, it is clear that the word “Council” requires to be taken in a very wide and general sense to include this assembly. It cannot be compared with the ancient Councils in the first thousand years of Church history, before the separation of East and West, for there are no points of contact. In the first place, the whole lay world, all sovereigns and their ambassadors, are entirely excluded from the Synod, which has never happened from the Council of Nice downwards. That was, of course, necessary, for even at Trent the French ambassador announced, on entering the Council, that his King had sent him to watch over the freedom of the Bishops; and certainly the ambassadors of Catholic Powers would have protested against the present arrangements and order of business, which give much less security than even at Trent. Here the Bishops are in a sense the Pope's prisoners. Without his permission they cannot leave the Council, they are forbidden to meet together for common deliberation, are not allowed to print anything till it has passed the censorship, or to bring forward any motion without the Pope's approval. It is the Pope who makes the decrees and defines the dogmas; the Council has simply to assent. Two rights only are left to the Bishops; they can make speeches in the General Congregation, and they can say Placet or Non placet. There is a quite luxurious abundance of means of coercion, impediments and chains; – with the Pope's 300 episcopal boarders, the 62 Bishops of the Roman States, the 68 Neapolitans, Sicilians, etc., all manœuvring with a precision a Prussian General could not wish to surpass on the reviewing-ground, the Curia might have fairly hoped to gain its ends, even were a little more freedom allowed to the Opposition section of the Assembly.35
Tenth Letter
Rome, Jan. 15, 1870.– On Sunday last the Pope gave audience to a great crowd of visitors, – some 700 or 1000, it is said, – at once, and took occasion to express before them his displeasure at the Opposition Bishops. He said there were some Prelates who lacked the temper of perfect faith, and hence arose difficulties, which however he, the Pope, should know how to overcome. In Church matters no attention was to be paid to the judgment of the world, as he himself despised it, for the Church's kingdom is not of this world. It has hitherto of course been held in the Church that the judgment of the world – that is, of their flocks, who constitute their own immediate world – is exactly what the Bishops ought to attend to very much, and to avoid giving offence to them and perplexing their consciences in matters of religion.
The prohibition to hold large episcopal meetings, communicated to the French Bishops only through Cardinal Bonnechose, is not obeyed either by the French or Germans, who continue to take counsel together. The united Germans and Hungarians have accepted in substance an address drawn up by Cardinal Rauscher, and on Sunday, January 9, bound themselves by a reciprocal obligation, with forty-three signatures, to vote against and combat in all conciliar methods the erection of Papal Infallibility into a dogma. The Austrian Prelates stand foremost in clearness, decision, and courage. Rauscher, Schwarzenberg, Haynald, and Strossmayer know what they want, are full of true love for the Church, understand the greatness of the danger, and are perfectly aware that no positive gain, nor any of the important reforms so urgently needed, can be expected from this Council – the Spanish and Italian phalanx is too strong and impenetrable for that, – but they hope, at least, by energetic resistance to ward off positive mischief from the Church.
The French on their part are active; Cardinal Mathieu, who returned to Rome, January 5, has opened a saloon in his house for the deliberations. Next to Dupanloup, Bishop Place of Marseilles, Meignan of Châlons, Landriot of Rheims, and Ginoulhiac of Grenoble, speak most decidedly. There are some thirty-five like-minded with them, and the inopportunists among them and the Germans are gradually coming to perceive that their position is quite untenable, and that to persist in treating Infallibility as a mere question of time and convenience, is to give their adversaries a safe and easy victory. But the Germans are further advanced in this conviction than the French. The now famous Infallibilist Address seems to have been simultaneously hawked about from two quarters, viz., by the trio of Manning, Deschamps, and Spalding, and by Martin and Senestrey. Who composed it, and how many Bishops have signed it, is still uncertain; the movement has come to a dead-lock, perhaps because the Spaniards, who talk of presenting an address of their own, don't want to sign it. Several Italians too refused to sign, and so the result has not been as satisfactory as was hoped, although it can hardly be doubted that the dogma will have 450 or 500 votes when it is laid before the Council.
It is a characteristic feature of the case, that throughout Italy prayers are offered in all the monastic communities still surviving, and in all zealously Catholic families, for the definition of the new dogma. The fact is mentioned in English journals, and I have heard it confirmed here. It reveals the patriotic feeling, that Papal Infallibility is an Italian possession more or less profitable to every member of the nation. “The Pope,” as one hears it said here, “will always feel and think above all as an Italian; his decrees are manufactured by a Court nine-tenths of whom, at least, are Italians, and with his infallibility under our management, we Italians shall be able to dominate and make capital out of all other nations, in so far as they desire to be Catholic.” The Italian is generally a good calculator. However, Italian priests and prelates feel and know right well what every nation and national Church owes to itself. If the Papacy belonged to any other nation, the Italians would never dream for a moment of acknowledging the system of Papal absolutism with its grand prop of Papal Infallibility. One soon observes, in conversing with these Monsignori, how they despise in their hearts the French and German Ultramontane Bishops, while at the same time admitting the correctness of their views, and praising them liberally for rolling in the dust before the infallible Curia, and crying out to the Romans, as that orator Ekebolius cried out to the Emperor Julian, “Only trample us under your feet, the salt that has lost its savour.”
Thirty-five German Bishops have declared at the beginning, that they are ready to subscribe the above-mentioned counter address against the dogma of Infallibility, pretty fully expressed in the form of a petition to the Pope, and among them are included those who were before of opinion that they had sufficiently discharged their duty by the letter they sent to him from Fulda. This is a praiseworthy example of harmony, but at the same time the greatness of the danger, which has now become evident to even the most trustful mind, is shown by the fact that all present at the consultation on this address bound themselves in writing to subscribe it. It is needless to say that the Tyrolese and the pupils of the Jesuits, with Bishop Martin, held aloof from the meeting.
Another proof was given on this occasion of the very different measure dealt to the two parties. The Infallibilist Address was at once printed, though everything else here has first to undergo the most rigorous censorship. The Roman censors would, of course, have refused their imprimatur to the counter address, and there was some scruple felt about printing it out of the country, as though by an evasion of the Papal laws, and so it cannot be printed at all. Even Bishop Dupanloup has been refused permission to print his answer to Deschamps. The address will probably be subscribed by the Bishops of each nation in separate
“Questo puzza di schisma.”
[Compare with this account of the freedom of the Council the letters of two French Bishops, published in the