Letters From Rome on the Council. Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger
there will be five addresses, coinciding in substance. Forty-seven Germans and Hungarians are reckoned on – so many have subscribed already – and thirty-five French. The Anglo-Americans have somewhat altered the wording of the address, and say they can command twenty-five signatures. But what is most remarkable is, that a considerable section of the North-Italian Bishops from Piedmont and Lombardy now come out as opponents of Infallibilism, and give promise of twenty-five signatures for the counter address. The decisive point with them is their relation to the Italian nation and government, for the Infallibilist dogma must inevitably lead to a hopelessly incurable rupture between it and the Church. To these must be added six Irish and four Portuguese, making in all an Opposition of from 140 to 150 votes.
The great question daily mooted in the Vatican is now, how Infallibility can be erected into a dogma in spite of the resistance of the Opposition minority, for there is no longer any illusion as to an obstinate residue of anti-Infallibilist protesters being sure to be left, after allowing for the fullest effects of all the alluring seductions used. Precedents are sought for in the history of Councils where the majority has passed decrees according to its own will, without regard to the opposite representations and negative votes of the minority. But no such precedents are to be found. At all Councils from Nice downwards the dogmatic decrees have always been passed only with entire or approximate unanimity. Even at Trent, where the Italians, commanded from Rome through the legates, dominated everything, many very important decrees were abandoned after being drawn up, as soon as a few Bishops only had pronounced against them. If only this fatal precedent of the Tridentine Synod could be got rid of! The Jesuits investigate and refine, but, unluckily for them, one of their own body, Father Matignon, in 1868, when an Opposition was still believed to be impossible, himself established the fact, and justified it on doctrinal grounds;36 and that is made use of now. So there is nothing left but to labour indefatigably for the conversion of opponents. But people in Rome seem not to know “qu'on ne prend pas les mouches avec du vinaigre;” and that methods of coercion, intimidation, and discrediting character, are not quite the most effectual means, psychologically, for converting adverse Bishops, is clear from the tone again and again manifested in the speeches on the Schema, which has gained conspicuously in sharpness and explicitness. On January 10, a Northern Prelate, distinguished for gentleness and refinement, but accustomed to parliamentary contests, said he had been obliged to speak in the vigorous style usual in his own country of the entire absence of real freedom in the Council, for the insolence of the other party was becoming daily more intolerable.
Eleventh Letter
Rome, Jan. 17, 1870.– It is a remarkable phenomenon that Pius ix., who is every way inferior to his predecessors of this century in theological culture, lets himself be so completely dominated by his passion for creating new articles of faith. Former Popes have indeed had their hobbies: some wanted to aggrandize and enrich their families; others, like Sixtus vi., were zealous in building, or, like Leo x., in fostering art and literature, or they waged wars like Julius ii., or, finally, they wrote learned works, and composed many long Bulls full of quotations, etc., like Benedict xiv. But not one of them has been seized with this passion for manufacturing dogmas; it is something quite unique in the history of the Popes. Herein, therefore, Pius ix. is a singular phenomenon in his way, and all the more wonderful from his hitherto having kept aloof from theology, and, as one always hears, not being in the habit of ever reading theological books. If it is inquired how this strange idiosyncrasy has been aroused in the soul of a Pope who began his reign under such very different auspices, as a political reformer, the answer given by every one is, that it is the Jesuits, whose influence over him has been constantly growing since he took Father Mignardi of that Order for his confessor, and who have created and fostered in him this passion for dogma-making.
The displeasure and discontent of the Bishops finds constant nutriment in the conduct of the Curia. They say that if these momentous propositions had been laid before them in good time, some months before the opening of the Council, so that they might have carefully examined them and pursued the theological studies requisite for that purpose, they should have come duly prepared, whereas now they are in the position of having to speak and vote on the most difficult questions almost extempore. The attacks and objections directed against the first part of the Schema in their speeches have not applied so much to the separate articles as to the general scope and tendency of the whole, and I have not been able to ascertain anything more certain about the matter, for the real elaboration of the Schema, and discussion of its articles in detail, has to be managed in the Commission; in the Council Hall it is impossible. As yet there have been only long speeches on either side, as in academies or in a school of rhetoric, which, for the most part, were not understood, and in which the main question – what shape the decrees are to take, if issued at all – was never grappled with.
On Friday, January 14, the debate on the Schema opened. This is occupied with the duties of Bishops – their residence, visitation of their dioceses, and obligation of frequently travelling to Rome and presenting regular reports on the state of their dioceses; the holding of Provincial and Diocesan Synods, and Vicars-General. The duties of Bishops are the one thing spoken of, and the design is everywhere transparent of increasing their dependence on the Curia, and centralizing all Church government in Rome still more than before. Archbishop Darboy observed on it, that it was above all necessary, in examining this second Schema, to discuss the rights of Bishops, instead of only the duties Rome assigned them. Cardinal Schwarzenberg had really opened the debate in this sense, and he had the courage to speak of the College of Cardinals, and the reforms it needed. A simple Bishop would not have been suffered to do this, but they dared not interrupt a Cardinal. The speakers who followed, too, had a good deal to find fault with in the Schema, especially Ballerini, formerly rejected as Archbishop of Milan, and now titular Patriarch of Alexandria, and Simor the Primate of Hungary. This Prelate has protested so emphatically against the Schema and the treatment the Bishops have experienced at the hands of the Curia, that the offer of a Cardinal's Hat seems by no means to have produced the desired effect upon him. There are said to be still sixteen portions or chapters of the Schema in reserve, so that the authorities are already displeased at the length of the Bishops' speeches; and lately one Bishop gained general applause by saying he renounced his right to speak.
We may gain some very valuable evidences in Russia and Poland as to how Papal Infallibility is already conceived of, and what hopes and fears respectively are entertained in reference to the projected new dogma. The six or seven million Catholics of that empire are very variously situated, and have different interests, and therefore, in some sort, opposite wishes. Among the Polish Catholics, who are just now being denationalized and Russianized, many are always looking out for the overthrow of the Russian dominion, and the restoration of a kingdom of Poland. To this party belongs Sosnowski, formerly administrator of the diocese of Lublin, whom the Pope has admitted to the Council. He is to represent the whole Polish Church at the Council, and is an ardent Infallibilist; he has accordingly given a severe snubbing, by way of answer, to the Polish priests who had communicated to him certain proposals of reform, with a view of restricting Papal absolutism, to be laid before the Council. His reply circulates here, and is also to be printed in a newspaper published at Posen. Sosnowski represents to the Polish clergy that the emancipation of Poland from Russia must continue to be the great object; and that for this a Pope recognised as completely absolute and infallible is indispensable. He appears to mean that such a Pope, being supreme lord over all monarchs and nations, can even depose the Russian Czar, or at least absolve the Poles from their oath of allegiance. He moreover assures them that Pius ix. has told him he reckons confidently on this emancipation of Poland from Russia. Here in Rome it is said and taught that the Pope is supreme master even of heretical and schismatical just as much as of Catholic sovereigns; for through baptism, whether received within or without the Church, every one at once becomes his subject. And we are reminded, in proof of this, how Pope Martin iv., in 1282, deposed the Greek Emperor, Michael Palæologus, and absolved his subjects from their allegiance, simply because he had made a treaty with the King of Aragon. This explains why the Russian Government told the Bishops who requested leave to attend the Council, that they might go to Rome, but should not return. The 2,800,00 °Catholics in Russia Proper, in the ecclesiastical province of Mohilew, think very differently from Sosnowski. A clergyman from thence