(6) for the ceremonial of the council. The pope nominated the presidents of the council (Cardinals Reisach, de Luca, Bizarri, Bilio and Capalti); also the secretaries and the remaining officials. Again, before the proceedings began, he determined the order of business on his own initiative (Multiplices inter d. d. Nov. 27, 1869), — thus precluding the members of the synod from any opportunity of co-operating in the task. In these regulations the right of fixing the subjects for debate was reserved to the pope. The members of the synod, it is true, enjoyed the privilege of proposing motions; but these motions could never reach the stage of discussion, except by the papal sanction. Another fact of great importance was the strict privacy in which the labours of the council were to be conducted, the members being pledged to silence on every point. For their deliberations, two forms of assembly, analogous to those employed at Trent, were instituted: the congregationes generales and the sessiones. The General Congregations, presided over by cardinals, were employed in considering the schemata (drafts) submitted to the synod; and provisory votes — not regarded as binding — were there taken. The sessions witnessed the definitive voting, the results of which were to be immediately promulgated as ecclesiastical law by the pope. The form of this promulgation was, in itself, sufficiently characteristic; for the pope was represented as the real agent, while the acknowledgment of the share of the council was confined to the phrase sacro approbante concilio. In contrast to this, we may refer to the synods of Constance and Trent (C. Mirbt, Quellen u.s.w., pp. 155-202, and the articles Constance, Council of, and Trent, Council of). In the event of the drafts submitted by the Curia not being unanimously adopted by the General Congregations, they were to be remitted, together with the objections raised, to special committees chosen from the body of the council. These committees (congregationes speciales deputationes), the presidents of which were also nominated by the pope, were four in number: (1) for matters of belief; (2) for questions of ecclesiastical discipline; (3) for the religious orders; (4) for affairs of the Oriental Churches. The whole proceedings took place in the church of St Peter, the south transept of which had been prepared especially for the purpose. That the acoustic properties of the structure were unequal to the demands made upon them was obvious from the first day, and occasioned numerous complaints.
On the 8th of December the first session met, and the council was solemnly opened by Pius IX. From beginning to end it was dominated by the “Infallibility” problem. At the elections to the committees the fact was already obvious; for the leaders of the synodal majority in favour of the dogma took excellent care that no one should be chosen who was known to lean toward the opposite side. The order of procedure excited considerable dissatisfaction in many; and a series of petitions, with alternative suggestions, was submitted to the pope, but without success. The very first transactions of the council gave proof that numerous bishops held the theory that their convocation implied the duty of serious and united work, and that they were by no means inclined to yield a perfunctory assent to the papal propositions, which — in part at least — stood in urgent need of emendation. The Curia awoke to this unpleasant fact during the discussion upon the first draft laid before the council, the schema De Fide, — and some perplexity was the result; for on the 8th of December the second session had already been announced for the 6th of January. Since the consideration of the schema could not possibly be completed by that date, and since it was now futile to hope that the doctrine of infallibility would be carried by acclamation, and without debate, in that session, — Archbishop Darboy informing Cardinal de Luca that, in this event, a hundred bishops would leave Rome at once, — the second session, on the 6th of January, was reduced to a mere formality, the delegates again declaring their allegiance to the Professio Fidei Tridentinae, to which they had already pledged themselves at ordination. On the 10th of January the schema De Fide was referred to the committee “for matters of belief,” to receive further revision.
From the 10th of January to the 22nd of February 1870 the council was occupied with proposals concerning ecclesiastical discipline and with questions of church life. On this occasion it became evident that the synod was not blind to the necessity for many and various reforms. Even the College of Cardinals and the Curia did not escape. Complaint was made, for instance, that the papal chair and the Roman Congregations were filled almost exclusively by Italians; while the control of the Church was too much centralized in Rome. Again, the treatment of impediments to marriages, of licences and of the scales of charges, was submitted to criticism. The fact was elicited that the resolutions of provincial synods, when transmitted to Rome for approbation, were there subjected to arbitrary changes, so that the contents no longer corresponded with those to which the bishops had affixed their signatures. Even the desire for national assemblies and for ecumenical councils, held at regular intervals, found expression. The delicate subject of the compulsory celibacy of the clergy was also discussed; the notorious defects of the Roman Breviary were considered, and a long debate ensued with regard to the policy of drawing up a short catechism for the whole of Catholic Christendom. Even the proposals which led to these declarations of opinion — many of which were neither anticipated nor desired — were not accepted by the council, but returned for revision to the respective committees.
That matters progressed slowly was undeniable. It was the third month, and not one of the proposals under consideration had been despatched. That this unexpected delay was a natural sequel to the character of the proposals themselves was a fact which the Curia declined to recognize. Consequently, as that body could rely upon a complacent majority, it resolved to proclaim a new order of procedure, by means of which it would be possible to end these unwelcome discussions and quicken the pace of the council. By the papal decree of the 20th of February the influence of the committees was increased; the majority was allowed to cut short a debate by accepting a motion for its closure; a plurality of votes was declared sufficient to carry a proposal; and the voting itself was modified by the institution of a “conditional affirmative” (placet iuxta modum) in addition to the regular affirmative and negative (placet and non placet). Since neither the presidents nor the majority of the council could well be expected to employ the extensive powers thus placed at their disposal with much consideration for the rights of the minority, protests by the weaker party against the new regulations were handed in to the pope, but to no effect.
The main object, however, of this alteration in procedure was to ensure that if the council could not be induced to accept the doctrine of infallibility by acclamation, it should at least do so by resolution. From the first the general interest was almost exclusively concentrated on this question, which divided the members of the synod into two hostile camps. The adherents of the contemplated dogma — among whom Archbishop Manning of Westminster and Bishop Senestrey of Regensburg admittedly held the leading position — circulated petitions to the pope requesting the introduction of a proposal to meet their views; and, as a result of their efforts, the signatures of 480 bishops were obtained. This manœuvre aroused the other side. Petitions to the opposite effect were now similarly distributed, and signed by 136 bishops. On the 9th of February the committee of examination as was only to be expected resolved to recommend the pope to grant the wishes of the majority. The remarkable feature of the situation created by these agitations was not that the majority of members declared in favour of the dogmatization of infallibility — that was a foregone conclusion in view of the strides made by ultramontanism in the Roman Catholic Church — but that so many could be found with courage enough to withstand the aspiration to which Pius IX. had given open expression on every possible occasion. The weight of their opposition was accentuated by the fact that the finest intellects and the ablest theologians of Catholicism were included in their ranks. The presence of striking personalities, whose devotion to the Church was beyond question, — Archbishop Scherr of Munich, Melchers of Cologne, Bishop
