Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility/Chapter 10

by William John Sparrow Simpson

CHAPTER X

OPPOSITION AMONG ROMAN CATHOLICS IN ENGLAND

The struggle of Catholic versus Ultramontane in the Roman Communion in England finds forcible expression in the famous letter of the distinguished Roman Catholic layman, Sir John Throgmorton, in 1790:—

 

"He laid stress," says a Roman writer, "on the fact that ever since the day of Pius V.'s excommunication of Elizabeth, 'the English Catholics have been divided into two parties. The "Papistic" party, on the one hand, upheld and maintained all the pretensions of the Court of Rome, and were supported by all the influence of that Court, sometimes by briefs from the Popes themselves. … The other party consisted and still consists of the descendants of the old Catholic families, and a respectable portion of the clergy who, true to the religion of their ancestors, have uniformly … protested against the usurped authority of the Court of Rome.' He denied that the original cause of the difference—the question whether or no the Pope had the power to depose sovereigns—represented adequately the distinction between the two parties. The deposing power was no longer maintained by any one; but the 'Papistic' party still remained, and taught the Infallibility of the Pope and urged all his claims. He called on English Catholics to dissociate themselves from this party and its teaching."^[1]

 

The London Romanist clergy selected a Bishop of Catholic as opposed to Ultramontane convictions. Rome refused, however, to accept their selection, and the English Catholics submitted. Here is an illustration of the method by which the older principles were to be suppressed.^[2] Nevertheless the older principles remained. The Roman body in England continued to maintain its anti-Roman ideas. This appears incontestably in their appeal to Parliament for removal of their political disabilities, under which they had suffered terribly since the days of Elizabeth. These political disabilities were the Nemesis of the unfortunate action of the Papacy against Queen Elizabeth, and of the theories on the relation between spiritual and temporal power advocated by Roman writers of that period. The penal laws against the Roman Communion in England were the product of fear, being in design defensive against political results of Roman teaching. However, in course of time, none too soon, nobler and juster counsels began to prevail, and the time approached when all the impartial desired the removal of restrictions and penalties which were formed on principles of brutality and retaliation happily growing obsolete. But to secure the removal of penal legislation, it was necessary for the Romanists in England to reassure the public opinion that they were not bound by theories from Rome irreconcilable with English loyalty.

When accordingly in the year 1788 a Committee of English Romanists was formed to appeal to Parliament for the removal of Roman disabilities,^[3] the petitioners declared that it was a duty which they owed to their country, as well as themselves, to protest in a formal and solemn manner against doctrines which constituted no part of their principles, religion, or belief.^[4] Among these they rejected the theory that excommunicated princes may be deposed or murdered by their subjects. They declared that no ecclesiastical power whatever can absolve subjects from allegiance to lawful temporal authority.^[5] They wrote: "We believe that no act that is in itself immoral or dishonest can ever be justified by or under colour that it is done either for the good of the Church or in obedience to any ecclesiastical power whatever."^[6] And—what now particularly concerns us here—they said: "We acknowledge no Infallibility in the Pope."

This protestation of the Roman Catholics of England brought about the passing of the Relief Act of 1791. The representative character of the document may be realised from the fact that it was signed by all the four Vicars Apostolic; that is by all the highest Roman authorities in England, by 240 priests; and in all by 1,523 members of the Anglo-Roman body, among whom most of the educated and influential laity were included. It would be interesting to ascertain what proportion the 240 priests bore to the total number of Roman clergy in this land. Accurate statistics are not easily obtained. The Committee of English Romanists claimed that the total number of Roman priests in England did not exceed 260. Berington, in 1780, estimated the number as nearer 360, of whom 110 were ex-Jesuits. From these figures it would appear that, if the Jesuits are left out, nearly the whole body of Roman Clergy in England, including their four Bishops, committed themselves frankly to rejection of Papal Infallibility.^[7]

Dr Milner describes it, indeed, as "drawn up in ungrammatical language, with inconclusive reasoning and erroneous theology."^[8] And a vicar apostolic who first signed it afterwards withdrew his signature.^[9] On the other hand, an influential section of the Communion placed the document in the British Museum, "that it may be preserved there as a lasting memorial of their political and moral integrity."^[10]

The history of Irish Roman belief is similar. An Act for their relief was passed in 1793. It contains an oath which states that "it is not an article of the Catholic Faith, neither am I thereby required to believe or profess that the Pope is infallible."^[11]

In an address to Protestants of the United Empire in 1813 by a Roman Catholic writer (Charles Butler), anti-Roman prejudice is reassured by the terms of the oath taken by Irish Roman Catholics:^[12] "In the oath taken by the Irish Roman Catholics they swear that 'it is not an article of the Catholic faith, and that they are not thereby bound to believe or profess that the Pope is infallible.'"^[13]

No less unmistakable is the language of a Roman Catholic Bishop in England in 1822:—

 

"Bellarmine and some other divines, chiefly Italians, have believed the Pope infallible, when proposing ex cathedra an article of faith. But in England or Ireland I do not believe that any Catholic maintains the Infallibility of the Pope."^[14]

 

The Pastoral Address of the Irish Bishops to their clergy and laity in 1826 declared that it is "not an article of the Catholic faith, neither are they thereby required to believe that the Pope is infallible."^[15]

Accordingly, a Roman Catholic nobleman, Lord Clifford, writing to reassure the English peers on the Maynooth Endowment Bill, could say in 1845: "It is not an article of Catholic faith that the Pope is infallible even in matters of faith."^[16]

There is not the slightest reason to doubt the sincerity of the Romanist statements. They were not misrepresenting their convictions to improve their circumstances. They genuinely believed these principles. They claimed as Catholics an independence from Romanising views.

When Dr Wiseman (afterwards Cardinal) was nominated by the Pope to the London District in 1847, nearly all the clergy, says Wilfred Ward, "were sufficiently imbued by the conservative and national spirit to be opposed to his energetic scheme of reform."^[17] They viewed with distaste his "Romanising" proclivities. Trained in the College in Rome, having spent years under the Pope's immediate direction, Wiseman returned to England bent on propagating that "papistic spirit" against which the older English Roman Catholics, as represented by Sir John Throgmorton, had so vigorously protested.^[18] The introduction of the Jesuit and other religious Orders was Wiseman's work, and it was repugnant to the temper and prejudices of the old Romanist families in England. But Rome approved, and Wiseman persisted. Then came the re-establishment of the Roman Hierarchy in England, the elevation of Wiseman to the Cardinalate, and his return to England as Archbishop of Westminster. Then the Tractarian movement gave new life to the Anglican Church; but it also contributed new distinction and new strength to the Roman Communion. Converts like Faber threw themselves, with the convert's proverbial intensity, into the most extreme of Roman devotions, legends, and principles; much to the amazement and disgust of the old-fashioned Romans, who found themselves regarded with coldness and indifference, as half-Catholic, at Rome, while the zealous converted extremists basked in the sunshine of Rome's approval. There is no little irony in the situation. The Vicar Apostolic of the London district warned Newman on his conversion against "books of devotion of the Italian School."^[19] Faber reproduced the most Italianised lives of the saints. Bishop Ullathorne of Birmingham, himself of old Roman family, considered these Italian compositions unsuited to this country. Newman, as Superior of the Oratory, wrote to Faber, describing them as "unsuited to England and unacceptable to Protestants."^[20] Accordingly the publications ceased. But Wiseman's exertions to promote Ultramontanism within the Roman Communion continued, and were most successful. Here is a letter of approval written to the Cardinal from influential quarters in Rome:—

 

"I can say that you have been the instrument under God, to Romanise England. … You have been able to change the whole feeling of the rising clergy, and to instil into the laity what Roman principles they possess."^[21]

 

But if Wiseman "changed the feeling of the rising clergy," this was not done without desperate struggles on the part of the older clergy. Wiseman, whose insight into human nature was of the scantiest, chose as his coadjutor, with the right of succession, Bishop Errington. Errington belonged to the older school. The Chapter of Westminster agreed with him. Accordingly Wiseman found himself opposed by the Chapter, with the Coadjutor-Bishop as their leader. The contest which followed was, says Wilfred Ward, "the turning point in the controversy between the conservative policy and that of the new Ultramontanism."^[22] It was no merely personal struggle, but a struggle of principles. On the other side, Wiseman pushed forward Manning, whom the Pope sent from Rome and placed as Provost over the entire Chapter of Westminster.

Into the details of the struggle we cannot go. But Errington and Manning fought for opposing principles. Manning, says Wilfred Ward, with his "fixed ideas and firm determination."^[23] As to Errington: "iron determination and persistency were stamped on face and figure." "Both men of strong will with utterly opposite ideals and aims."^[24] Errington had none of the tactful discretion of the diplomatist in his constitution, and was no match for the subtlety of Manning. And ultimately, on Wiseman's appeal to Rome, Errington was removed by the Pope from the position of Coadjutor, and lost his right of succession to the Archbishopric of Westminster. The main charge against him was that he was anti-Roman in sympathies.^[25] Great was the rejoicing among the Ultramontanes at this victory. The succession of Bishop Errington was their greatest fear.

 

"I cannot conceive a greater misfortune," wrote a high authority from Rome to Cardinal Wiseman, "than your being followed by Dr Errington, who, I feel certain, if he ever become Archbishop of Westminster, will do all he can to undo what has been done, and will be a constant source of annoyance to the Holy See."^[26]

 

Father Faber wrote in similar strains:—

 

"If [Dr Errington] returns to Westminster as Archbishop, the Holy See will have to reckon that it will take fifty, if not a hundred, years to restore England to the pitch of Ultramontanism which she has now reached."^[27]

 

On Wiseman's death the older Catholic party made one more struggle for supremacy. The Chapter of Westminster, notwithstanding that Manning presided, longed for a Bishop of the older school. Accordingly, their then selected candidates were Bishop Errington, Bishop Grant, and Bishop Clifford. The insertion of Errington's name was considered by the Pope as a personal insult. In the interests of their own aims it was certainly unwise; for it rendered the Pope disinclined to listen to any of the Chapter's suggestions.^[28] As for Bishop Clifford, Manning denounced him in a private letter to Rome as a worldly Catholic, i.e. opposed to the Ultramontanes; and he sided against Infallibility afterwards in the Vatican Council. As for Bishop Grant, Manning wrote:—

 

"I cannot for a moment even fear that the Holy See would accept any one of these names. I wish," added Manning, conscious of the critical nature of the struggle for the future of Ultramontanism in England, "I wish that the Holy Father would reserve the Archbishopric in perpetuity to the Holy See. For it is perfectly certain that whoever comes, it is a question of a change of policy. It is Tories out and Whigs in, with all the consequences."^[29]

 

Manning's prophetic instinct proved correct. Pius IX. paused, reflected, took advice, and ultimately, not however without considerable misgivings, set aside all three of the Chapter's nominations, and on his own authority appointed Manning.^[30] Now Manning led the English Ultramontanes in the Council of the Vatican.

But the task of Romanising the English Catholics was no easy thing. The literature of the Roman Communion in England and Ireland during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century shows how thoroughly saturated they were with Catholic as contrasted with Ultramontane convictions. It is difficult to obtain that literature in its genuine and original form to-day; for of course all works reprinted since 1870 have been altered into conformity with Vatican ideas. In some cases the process of reducing to conformity was begun at an earlier date. It is therefore with works printed before 1870 that we are now concerned.

1. For example, in the well-known Roman manual of theology by Berrington and Kirk, entitled the Faith of Catholics, confirmed by Scripture, and attested by the Fathers of the first five centuries—with St Vincent's maxim on the title-page ("that which has been believed always everywhere," etc.)—we find the following teaching on Infallibility:—

 

"It is no article of Catholic Faith to believe that the Pope is himself infallible, separated from the Church, even in expounding the Faith: by consequence, Papal definitions or decrees, in whatever form pronounced, taken exclusively from a General Council or acceptance of the Church, oblige no one under pain of heresy to an interior assent."^[31]

 

This teaching, found in the edition of 1830, now disappears.

2. Delahogue was Professor in Dublin where his theological works were published in several volumes in 1829. The type of instruction then given in an Irish seminary to students of Roman theology may be understood from the fact that Delahogue asserts that the doctrine that the Roman Pontiff, even when he speaks ex cathedra, is possessed of the gift of inerrancy or is superior to General Councils may be denied without loss of faith or risk of heresy or schism.

To justify this position appeal is made among others to Cardinal Perron who, although himself a supporter of the doctrine of papal inerrancy, assured King James I. that the question was not a hindrance to Ecclesiastical Reunion; since whichever view his Majesty might adopt he would none the less on either side be recognised as Catholic.

Delahogue appealed also to the fact that no reference to Papal Infallibility occurs in the Creed of Pius IV. Bossuet's famous exposition affirmed that matters disputed in the schools of theology, and invidiously brought forward by Calvinistic doctors, were no part of the Catholic Faith; and Bossuet's Exposition was endorsed by a brief of Innocent XI. Delahogue also pointed out that inferences from the figurative comparison of the relation between the Pope and the Church to that between the human head and body must be drawn with discretion. The effect of decapitation upon the human body differs from that of the death of a Pope upon the Church. Indeed the latter is essentially the same in spite of a long interregnum, or a schism, or a doubtful succession of forty years. Similarly, it does not follow that an ex cathedra fallacious utterance would be the Church's ruin.

3. De Lisle, who was received into the Roman Communion at the age of fifteen, in 1825, was moulded in the Roman convictions as held in England at that date. Forty years later he recorded his faith in the following words:—

 

"We are far from claiming for the Papacy any separate Infallibility distinct from that which all Catholics are bound to believe in, as the prerogative of the Universal Church. Those who make so novel a claim must reconcile it with the grave facts of ecclesiastical history. … And we believe that with those facts undenied and not disproved it would be impossible for the Church to define any such theories to be articles of faith."^[32]

 

The following year De Lisle repeated his convictions on Infallibility in a letter to Father Ryder, afterwards Superior of the Birmingham Oratory.

 

"I will tell you my own belief, as to that attribute of Holy Church, which a learned Bishop pronounced accurate and orthodox. First of all, I believe Infallibility to be a conjunctive and collective attribute of the whole Catholic Church according to the words of Holy Church in her Collect, 'God by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified.' In other words, the infallible assistance of the Holy Spirit is given to the whole Church in its collective capacity, to the Laity as well as the Clergy. To the latter especially in their collective capacity as the teachers. To the former as the recipients of that teaching, giving them an instinctive apprehension of what is or is not in conformity with the traditional teaching of the Church. Now in this view of the matter, no one, whether pastor or layman, has any separate personal gift of the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit, but it is given to all collectively in order to enable them safely to keep and rightly to apprehend the Deposit of Faith. … Now it follows from my view that all Catholics—from the Pope downwards to the meanest baptized layman—all are under the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit, as long as all, in their respective positions, whether as Teachers or Believers, are acting and believing according to the unchangeable Deposit, for the preservation and right understanding of which the power of binding and loosing and of feeding the whole flock has been conferred upon the supreme Pastor."^[33]

 

4. Milner's End of Religious Controversy was written to explain the Roman tenets to Protestants and to remove misapprehensions.^[34]

 

"When any fresh controversy arises in the Church, the fundamental maxim of the Bishops and Popes to whom it belongs to decide upon it, is, not to consult their own private opinion or interpretation of Scripture but to enquire what is and ever has been the doctrine of the Church concerning it. Hence their cry is and ever has been on such occasions, as well in her Councils as out of them: So we have received; so the Universal Church believes: let there be no new doctrine; none but what has been delivered down to us by Tradition. The Infallibility, then, of our Church is not a power of telling all things past, present, and to come, such as Pagans ascribed to their oracles; but merely the aid of God's Holy Spirit to enable her truly to decide what her faith is and has ever been, in such articles as have been made known to her by Scripture and tradition. This definition furnishes answer to divers other objections and questions. … The Church does not decide the controversy concerning the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, and several other disputed points, because she sees nothing absolutely clear and certain concerning them, either in the written or the unwritten word, and therefore leaves her children to form their own opinions concerning them. Finally his Lordship, with other controversialists, objects against the Infallibility of the Catholic Church, that its advocates are not agreed where to lodge this prerogative, some ascribing it to the Pope, others to a General Council, or to the Bishops dispersed throughout the Church. True, schoolmen discuss some such points; but let me ask his Lordship whether he finds any Catholic who denies or doubts that a General Council, with the Pope at its head, or that the Pope himself, issuing a doctrinal decision which is received by the great body of Catholic Bishops, is secure from error? Most certainly not, and hence he may gather where all Catholics agree in lodging Infallibility."

 

Milner's view of Catholicism is that if we would know what is of faith, we must ask what is and ever has been the doctrine of the Church. A dogma cannot be something new. It must be what has been universally believed from the beginning. Tried by this test, he finds that the Immaculate Conception is an opinion, not a doctrine of the Church ; that individuals are free to form their own opinion concerning it, because there was nothing absolutely clear and certain about it either in the written or the unwritten word; that Papal Infallibility was a matter of scholastic discussion, a theory of theologians, but that the Infallibility of the Church was a matter which no Catholic doubted.

5. Gallitzin's rejection of Papal Infallibility is even more emphatic.

 

"Although I have plainly told the Protestant minister that the Infallibility of the Pope is no part of the Catholic Creed, a mere opinion of some divines, an article nowhere to be found in our professions of faith, in our creeds, in our catechisms, etc., yet the Protestant minister most ungenerously and uncandidly brings it forward, over and over again, as an article of the Catholic faith; and takes his opportunity from this forgery of his own to abuse the Catholic Church."^[35]

 

6. Another exposition of the Roman faith for English-speaking people is the famous book called Keenan's Catechism. It is entitled Controversial Catechism, or Protestantism Refuted and Catholicism Established. The edition of 1860 is described as the third edition, and in its seventeenth thousand. It bears the imprimatur of four Roman Bishops, two of them being Vicars Apostolic. In these approbations we are assured that "the sincere searcher after truth will here find a lucid path opened to conduct him to its sanctuary; while the believer will be hereby instructed and confirmed in his faith." From 1846 to 1860 it was being largely circulated throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland.

The book contains the following question and answer:—

 

"(Q.) Must not Catholics believe the Pope in himself to be infallible?

(A.) This is a Protestant invention: it is no article of the Catholic faith: no decision of his can oblige under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the teaching body, that is by the bishops of the Church."

 

Keenan's Catechism has since 1870 appeared with alterations. The new edition is, as the preface justly remarks, "more than a mere reprint." As issued in 1896, it rightly styles itself a "revised edition." The question and answer just quoted have of course now disappeared. They are replaced by a series of ten enquiries, with answers giving exactly the contrary doctrine. The first of these runs as follows:—

"(Q.) What do Catholics believe concerning the Infallibility of the Pope?

(A.) That the visible Head of the Church on earth received from Christ the same prerogative of Infallibility which we have shown above to be necessary to and belong to the Church by divine institution."^[36]

 

Thus what was formerly denounced as a Protestant invention is now affirmed as a Catholic truth.

The earlier revisers of Keenan's Catechism contented themselves with quiet substitution of the new doctrine for the old without further explanation. But the later revisers have felt that something more was necessary to justify the change. Accordingly they inserted the following:—

 

"(Q.) But some Catholics before the Vatican Council denied the Infallibility of the Pope, which was also formerly impugned in this very Catechism.

(A.) Yes; but they did so under the usual reservation—'in so far as they then could grasp the mind of the Church, and subject to her future definitions'—thus implicitly accepting the dogma; had they been prepared to maintain their own opinion contumaciously in such case they would have been Catholics only in name."

 

That is to say, that teaching endorsed by Catholic Bishops is delivered under the reservation that the opposite may be true; that this is the usual reservation, applicable therefore to all Episcopal teaching; that no certainty exists in the Roman Communion whether instruction now being given as Catholic may not be upset and reversed by some future definition; (in which case what is its authoritative value and its relation to truth?) and that the Roman Bishops who endorsed Keenan's first edition implicitly accepted the dogma which they explicitly denied. I am most anxious not to exaggerate. But this seems an intellectual and a moral confusion. There is something wrong with a cause which requires such a defence. But this is not all. For the revised edition goes on to enquire, "Were there any other dogmas defined by the Church which had been controverted before decision?" This is answered in the affirmative. "Nearly every definition of dogma by the Church had been preceded by a period of controversy, in which theologians ranked themselves on different sides." Then the question is asked:—

 

"(Q.) Can you name any Controversies on fundamental dogma on which the Church pronounced in the same way as she did on Papal Infallibility at the Vatican Council?

(A.) Yes. The Divinity of Christ was not formally defined till the first Council of Nicæa (325)."

 

Some other instances having been given, we then reach the Question—

 

"(Q.) What do you conclude from these observations?

(A.) That the definition of the Infallibility of the Pope as a dogma of primitive Christian Revelation has historically run a course similar to the definition of many other fundamental articles of the Catholic Faith."

 

The implications of this assertion are worth considering. A parallel is drawn between the attitude of Catholics towards the two doctrines of Papal Infallibility and of the Divinity of Jesus Christ. They have historically, it is said, run a similar course. Now we ask just this: Were those Bishops who endorsed Keenan's Catechism Catholics or not? There is only one possible reply: Yes, they were. They lived and died in the Communion of the Roman Church. It was then possible to be a Catholic before 1870 and yet deny this doctrine of Papal Infallibility. But was it ever possible to be a Catholic while denying the other doctrine, the Divinity of Jesus Christ? There is only one answer that can be given. Assuredly it was not. Explicit denial of the Divinity of our Lord must indisputably ipso facto exclude from Catholicity, and must have had this effect at any stage in the development of Christendom. Consequently the parallel between the course which these two doctrines have historically pursued is simply misleading and untrue. Indeed the assertion grievously misrepresents the evidence. A real parallel would require that as the doctrine of Papal Infallibility was disputed by Roman Catholics for many hundreds of years, and openly described as a mere opinion of the Schools which might be taken or left without detriment to Catholicity—indeed controversially deprecated as an invention of opponents, ungenerously and uncandidly ascribed to the Catholic Church, while its acceptance and rejection were both tolerated by the Church itself—similar experience awaited the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ. But not one iota of this holds good with the Divinity of Christ. Our Lord's Divinity was never disputed by Catholics, never openly described as a mere opinion of the schools; its rejection never was or could be tolerated by the Church for a single hour. No doubt there were imperfect expressions in the ante-Nicene period, but there was no silence on this doctrine in the primitive Church. The Arian was not an implicit Catholic, inwardly prepared to accept what he outwardly denied. Nor would he have been grateful for this explanation of his attitude. He never was a Catholic at all. Moreover, if the character of the two doctrines be considered, it is inevitable to ask whether the doctrine of Papal Infallibility is fundamental in the Christian Faith. If it be fundamental after the Church has defined it, it was fundamental before the definition. A doctrine does not become fundamental through the Church's definition, but through its own intrinsic character. It therefore remains unaccounted for that a fundamental of the Christian Faith should be described as a Protestant invention, and such description sanctioned by Catholic Bishops, and tolerated by Rome.

It is really incredible that a critically or historically trained intellect could venture on so daring and unhistoric a parallel. Such uncritical defence not only fails to secure its design, but suggests an insecurity in the Church's belief in the Divinity of her Lord. Such defence is necessitated by the school which is constrained to condemn what it previously taught, and to teach what it once condemned; but the necessity for such defence betrays the character of the doctrine which requires it.

The historical evidence, which might be considerably increased, shows that English Romanists in general did not hold Papal Infallibility even as a private opinion; that, on the contrary, they maintained principles by which that opinion is excluded; that they believed in the Infallibility of the Church, but placed that Infallibility in the Collective Episcopate whether assembled or dispersed.

7. Even in the great College of Maynooth itself an Irish Roman Catholic Professor could publish as late as 1861 such words as these:—

 

"That the Universal Church is infallible in its belief and profession of faith, that the body of pastors is infallible in teaching, are two dogmas of Catholic faith. That the Infallibility of the Chief Pontiff is a revealed truth, and therefore definable, as of Catholic faith, is to me personally perfectly clear. Nevertheless, since it belongs to the Church alone to determine what is essential to belief, and since that dogma has never yet been in that manner proposed to be believed, they who genuinely hold the contrary are by no means or only in the least degree (unless indeed some other ground be shown) to be considered alien from the Catholic Faith."^[37]

 

Here we have striking indications of a change. The Ultramontane influence is recognised, although not submitted to; Papal Infallibility is acknowledged as a private opinion of the teacher, but the contrary opinion is, with reserve, recognised to be legitimate. This utterance from Maynooth becomes more intelligible when it is remembered that Cardinal Cullen, trained in Rome and nominated Primate of Ireland by Pius IX., was now presiding over that Communion in Dublin. Cullen, says Ollivier, responded admirably to the confidence which Pius IX. placed in him.^[38]

 

"The Romanised Cullen," says another, "whom the Pope forced as Primate on the Irish Bishops, with the same view as he imposed Manning on the English Bishops, is of course an Infallibilist."^[39]

 

Journalism in England took no unimportant part in the struggle between Catholic and Ultramontane. That most paradoxical extremist, the convert Ward, was appointed by Wiseman in 1862 editor of the Dublin Review.^[40] Ward's ideal in his Roman days was spiritual dictatorship of the most absolute character.^[41] He said he wanted pontifical decrees every morning for breakfast with his newspaper. And Manning encouraged him. Manning shut his eyes to Ward's exaggerations and rejoiced in his uncompromising tone.

 

"What we need," he wrote, "is incisive assertion of the loftiest truths. I am persuaded that boldness is prudence, and that our danger lies in half truths."^[42]

 

So blessed and sanctioned, Ward went straight ahead. The Ultramontanism of the Dublin Review must have been gall and bitterness to the old-fashioned English Romanist.

While Ward and the Dublin Review, supported by Manning, pushed papal absolutism to the furthest extremes, Lord Acton and the series of journals with which he was connected, such as the Rambler and the short-lived but brilliant Home and Foreign Review, recalled the Catholic mind to the facts of History. Abbot Gasquet's estimate of the Dublin Review and the Rambler is significant.

 

"The Dublin Review and the Rambler were conducted upon lines wholly divergent. In historical matters the policy of the Dublin Review appears to have been to avoid as far as possible facing unpleasant facts in the past, and to explain away, if it could not directly deny, the existence of blots in the ecclesiastical annals of the older centuries. The Rambler, on the other hand, held the view that the Church had nothing to lose and much to gain by meeting facts as they were."^[43]

 

The refusal to face the facts, the resolve to manipulate them in the interests of edification, was characteristic of an extensive controversial school of which the Dublin Review was a vigorous and extreme exponent. It was done deliberately, on principle, prompted by a profound distrust of history. Lord Acton's criticisms^[44] on this uncritical method of advancing truth are inimitable.

 

"A particular suspicion rested on history, because, as the study of facts, it was less amenable to authority and less controlled by interest than philosophical speculation. In consequence partly of the denial of historical certainty, and partly of the fear of it, the historical study of dogma in its original sources was abandoned, and the dialectical systematic treatment preferred."^[45]

As to the treatment of History: "First, it was held, the interests of religion, which are opposed to the study of history, require that precautions should be taken to make it innocuous where it cannot be quite suppressed. If it is lawful to conceal facts or statements, it is equally right to take out their sting when they must be brought forward. It is not truth, but error, which is suppressed by this process, the object of which is to prevent a false impression being made on the minds of men. For the effect of those facts or statements is to prejudice men against the Church, and to lead them to false conclusions concerning her nature. Whatever tends to weaken this adverse impression contributes really to baffle a falsehood and sustain the cause of truth. The statement, however true in its own subordinate place, will only seem to mislead in a higher order of truth, where the consequences may be fatal to the conscience and happiness of those who hear it without any qualification. Words, moreover, often convey to the uninstructed mind ideas contrary to their real significance, and the interpretation of facts is yet more delusive. … For the object is not the discovery of objective truth, but the production of a right belief in a particular mind. … It is the duty of the son to cover the shame of his father; and the Catholic owes it to the Church to defend her against every adverse fact as he would defend the honour of his mother. He will not coldly examine the value of testimony, or concede any point because it is hard to meet, or assist with unbiassed mind in the discovery of truth before he learns what its bearing may be. Assured that nothing injurious to the Church can be true, he will combat whatever bears an unfavourable semblance with every attainable artifice and weapon."^[46]

 

An Anglican writer has given us a terse expression of the same idea: The Deity, we are told, cannot alter the past. But the ecclesiastical historian can and does.^[47]

With all the instinct of self-preservation, the Ultramontane mistrusted and resented the historical School. Cardinal Wiseman wrote in a Pastoral^[48] a severe denunciation of the journal which Acton edited. To the Cardinal, the Home and Foreign Review seemed characterised by "the absence for years of all reserve and reverence in its treatment of persons or of things deemed sacred." He wrote with great severity on what appeared to him its "habitual preference of uncatholic to Catholic instincts, tendencies, and motives."

Acton^[49] admitted in his reply that "a very formidable mass of ecclesiastical authority and popular feeling was united against certain principles or opinions which, whether rightly or wrongly, are attributed to us." He then proceeded to give an account of the principles which ought to govern the attitude of Catholics towards modern discoveries.

 

"A political law or a scientific truth may be perilous to the morals or the faith of individuals, but it cannot on this ground be resisted by the Church. It may at times be a duty of the State to protect freedom of conscience, yet this freedom may be a temptation to apostasy. A discovery may be made in science which will shake the faith of thousands, yet religion cannot refute it or object to it. The difference in this respect between a true and a false religion is, that one judges all things by the standard of their truth, the other by the touchstone of its own interests."^[50]

 

And this led Acton to pronounce a severe criticism on methods of defence prevalent in the Roman Catholic Church of the day. He said that in reaction from the unscrupulous attacks of the eighteenth century, a school of apologists had arisen dominated by the opinion that nothing said against the Church could be true. Their only object was defence. "They were often careless in statement, rhetorical and illogical in argument, too positive to be critical and too confident to be precise." "In this school," he continues, "the present generation of Catholics was educated." And he complains that "the very qualities which we condemn in our opponents, as the natural defences of error, and the significant emblems of a bad cause, came to taint both our literature and our policy." Meanwhile, learning had passed on beyond the vision of such apologists, and the apologists have, so far as effectiveness is concerned, collapsed before it.

 

"Investigations have become so impersonal, so colourless, so free from the prepossessions which distort truth, from predetermined aims and foregone conclusions, that their results can only be met by investigations in which the same methods are yet more completely and conscientiously applied."^[51]

 

Resort to suppressive methods is, Acton was profoundly persuaded, suicidal as well as immoral. It argues either a timid faith which fears the light, or a false morality which would do evil that good might come. "How often have Catholics involved themselves in hopeless contradiction, sacrificed principle to opportunity, adapted their theories to their interest, and staggered the world's reliance on their sincerity by subterfuges which entangle the Church in the shifting sands of party warfare, instead of establishing her cause on the solid rock of principles!"^[52]

This noble appeal was unfortunately denounced by Bishop Ullathorne of Birmingham in a Pastoral wholly devoted to its refutation. What particularly disturbed the Bishop's mind was the distinction which Acton drew between a true and a false religion: that one judged all things by the standard of their truth, the other by the touchstone of its own interests. It appeared to Ullathorne^[53] that

 

"to say that the Church cannot refute or object to a discovery which will shake the faith of thousands; meaning thereby to deny her right to examine that discovery after her own methods, and by the union of science with faith in her theology, to ascertain whether and how far that discovery be true, … is to deny to the Church her mission to prove all things, and to hold fast that which is good. It is to deny her the mission of teaching to avoid oppositions of science falsely so called, and of protecting those thousands of souls from having their faith shaken by the erroneous deductions which men of science are too apt to draw from those real discoveries which can never conflict with faith."

 

Thus was Acton misunderstood. And Bishop Ullathorne concluded by condemning the journal as "containing propositions which are respectively subversive of the faith, heretical, approaching to heresy, erroneous, derogatory to the teaching of the Church, and offensive to pious ears."^[54]

Notwithstanding this severe rebuke Acton continued to persevere.

The suppression of Lord Acton's brilliant but short-lived Home and Foreign Review ilustrates the restraints imposed upon an independent historian by the necessity of submission to the opinions of Roman Congregations, such as that of the Index. It was in the year 1863, when his periodical was some four years old, that Pius IX. issued a Brief to the Archbishop of Munich in which he affirmed that

 

"it is not enough for learned Catholics to receive and venerate the dogmas of the Church, but there is also need that they should submit themselves to the doctrinal decisions of the pontifical congregations."

 

This Papal Brief made no reference to Lord Acton or to the Home and Foreign Review, but it vitally affected the principles upon which that periodical had been throughout its short existence of four years conducted. For its principles were these:—

 

"To reconcile freedom of enquiry with implicit faith, and to discountenance what is untenable and unreal, without forgetting the tenderness due to the weak, or the reverence rightly claimed for what is sacred. Submitting without reserve to infallible authority, it will encourage a habit of manly investigation on subjects of scientific interest."

 

This means a claim for freedom in the province of opinion, and a right to the fearless assertion of historic truth. But how was it possible to reconcile that freedom with the literary decisions of such a Congregation as that of the Index? Consequently Lord Acton wrote a signed article in the Review, bearing the significant title, "Conflicts with Rome." It is written with admirable self-command and dignity, with the frankest confession of loyalty to truth from whatever sources derived, and under a solemn sense of the impossibility of reconciling the encroachment of Roman Authority with the independence essential to historic science. In a powerful sketch of the case of Lamennais, he shows how the extreme assertion of unlimited authority easily led by reaction to total loss of faith; and how the disparagement of human reason in the supposed interests of authority really undermines the foundation upon which all things human—that authority itself included—must necessarily rest. On the other side he draws a striking picture of the general attitude of Roman authority toward modern thought. He says, that in dealing with literature—

 

"the paramount consideration of Rome had been the fear of scandal. Historical investigations, if they offered perilous occasion to unprepared and unstable minds, were suppressed"—upon which he remarks that "the true limits of legitimate authority are one thing, and the area which authority may find it expedient to attempt to occupy, is another. The interests of the Church are not necessarily identical with those of the ecclesiastical government. One of the great instruments for preventing historical scrutiny had long been the Index of Prohibited Books, which was accordingly directed, not against falsehood only, but particularly against certain departments of truth. Through it an effort had been made to keep the knowledge of ecclesiastical history from the faithful, and to give currency to a fabulous and fictitious picture of the progress and action of the Church. The means would have been found quite inadequate to the end, if it had not been for the fact that, while society was absorbed by controversy, knowledge was only valued so far as it served a controversial purpose. Every party in those days virtually had its own prohibitive Index, to brand all inconvenient truths with the note of falsehood. No party cared for knowledge that could not be made available for argument."

 

This suppression of uncongenial fact was less possible in the German Universities, where the Roman Catholic teacher was placed amidst perfect freedom of enquiry, and where "the system of secrecy or accommodation was rendered impossible by the competition of knowledge in which the most thorough exposition of the truth was sure of the victory." The teacher in this environment "was obliged often to draw attention to books lacking the Catholic spirit but indispensable to the deeper student." The condition of things in Italy and in Germany was widely different.

 

"While in Rome it was still held that the truths of Science need not be told if, in the judgment of Roman theologians, they were of a nature to offend faith, in Germany Catholics vied with Protestants in publishing matter without being diverted by the consideration whether it might serve or injure their cause in controversy, or whether it was adverse or favourable to the views which it was the object of the Index to protect."

 

Yet for a while Rome had tolerated many things. "Publications were suffered to pass unnoted in Germany, which would have been immediately censured if they had come forth beyond the Alps or the Rhine." German philosophers were indeed denounced at Rome, but German historians escaped censure. The reason was, according to Lord Acton, plain:—

 

"The philosopher cannot claim the same exemption as the historian. God's handwriting exists in history independently of the Church, and no ecclesiastical exigence can alter a fact. The divine lesson has been read, and it is the historian's duty to copy it faithfully and without ulterior views."

 

But this toleration of independence in the realm of facts was now abruptly terminated by authority. The Pope's letter to the Archbishop of Munich affirmed the view that Catholic writers are not bound only by those decisions of the Infallible Church which regard articles of faith. They must also submit to the theological decisions of the Roman congregations, and to the opinions which are commonly received in the schools; and it is wrong, though not heretical, to reject those decisions or opinions.

In a word, therefore, the Brief affirms that the common opinions and explanations of Catholic divines ought not to yield to the progress of secular science, and that the course of theological knowledge ought to be controlled by the decrees of the Index. Confronted with this Declaration of Authority, Lord Acton professed himself resolved "to interpret the words as they were really meant, and not to elude their consequence by subtle distinctions, to profess adoption of maxims which no man who holds the principles of the Review can accept in their intended signification." In this Brief—"It is the design of the Holy See not, of course, to deny the distinction between dogma and opinion, … but to reduce the practical recognition of it among Catholics to the smallest possible limits."

Consequently, the question arose, what future was possible for the Home and Foreign Review? Continued existence on unaltered principles meant reiteration of principles denounced at Rome.

 

"The periodical reiteration of rejected propositions would amount to insult and defiance, and would probably provoke more definite measures; and thus the result would be to commit authority yet more irrevocably to an opinion which might otherwise take no deep root, and might yield ultimately to the influence of time."

 

That this change of mind on the part of authority would be anything else than the far-off outcome of a process indefinitely slow, Lord Acton did not for a moment suppose. He acknowledged that the line taken by Pius IX. expressed the general sentiment of the large majority of Catholics of the age. And in Lord Acton's view of the case, if new truth is to gain recognition from authority, it

 

"must first pervade the members in order that it may reach the head. While the general sentiment of Catholics is unaltered, the course of the Holy See remains unaltered too. As soon as that sentiment is modified, Rome sympathises with the change. The ecclesiastical government, based upon the public opinion of the Church, and acting through it, cannot separate itself from the mass of the faithful, and keep pace with the progress of the instructed minority. It follows slowly and warily, and sometimes begins by resisting and denouncing what in the end it thoroughly adopts. … The slow, silent, indirect action of public opinion bears the Holy See along, without any demoralising conflict or dishonourable capitulation. This action it belongs essentially to the graver scientific literature to direct."

 

Meantime, Lord Acton's lot is cast in the period when truth is resisted and denounced. Hitherto forbearance has been extended to the minority. But this is the case no longer. "The adversaries of the Roman theory have been challenged with the summons to submit."

 

"In these circumstances, there are two courses which it is impossible to take. It would be wrong to abandon principles which have been well considered and are sincerely held, and it would also be wrong to assail the authority which contradicts them. The principles have not ceased to be true, nor the authority to be legitimate, because the two are in contradiction."

 

Accordingly, Lord Acton's practical solution is as follows:—

 

"Warned, therefore, by the language of the Brief, I will not provoke ecclesiastical authority to a more explicit repudiation of doctrines which are necessary to secure its influence upon the advance of modern science. … I will sacrifice the existence of the Review to the defence of its principles, in order that I may continue the obedience which is due to legitimate ecclesiastical authority with an equally conscientious maintenance of the rightful and necessary liberty of thought."

 

From that date accordingly the Home and Foreign Review ceased to exist. The expiration of a periodical may be an exceedingly small incident in literary activity, but the principles involved in this incident are of primary importance. Lord Acton's indomitable belief in the ultimate prevalence of historical truth, when the present tyranny of ignorance should be over-past, is worthy of all regard. The dignified surrender, coupled with frank reassertion of unaltered conviction, is most significant. He bows to an authority which has trangressed its limits, and which rejects to-day what it must of necessity at length believe. His theory that the truth must pervade and possess the members in order that it may reach the head, must have sounded strangely in Italian ears. A silence explicitly self-imposed, lest authority, if further provoked, should commit itself irrevocably to positions fatal to its own best interests, is impressive and pathetic; but certainly it suggests thoughts on the limits of authority incompatible with Ultramontane assumptions. While this subsiding into silence would prevent the irretrievable mischief of imprudent authoritative declarations, it would, at the same time, delay the enlightenment of the ignorant majority, and so delay the enlightenment of the head. Worse still, such silence, if widespread, must disable the Church from meeting the needs of modern thought, and from coping with, still more from guiding, the educated world. Wherever the system of secrecy and accommodation is rendered impossible, by the competition of knowledge in which the most thorough exposition of the truth is sure of the victory, there such methods as those advocated in the Brief, or practised in submission to its dictation, must be fatal to the Church's wider influence. We may reverence the individual self-suppression, but nothing can be more profoundly discouraging than the fatal conflict of authority with historic truth. Even Lord Acton's faith could only hope that authority might ultimately acknowledge the principles upon whose suppression it was for the present actively engaged. Thus the Church, in his view, was committed to a fruitless conflict with truths to which it must at last surrender. It was destined evermore to oppose all truth for which the ignorance of the majority precluded recognition; to silence its prophets and hereafter adorn their sepulchres; to denounce as injurious what it would one day embrace as true; if, indeed, the slowly increasing enlightenment of the general body of the devout shall ultimately remove the prejudices of the head. Certainly the prospect was scarcely one to cheer. It shows impressively the tremendous strain which the encroachment of authority over the province of opinion placed upon the faith of its noblest sons.

Bishop Ullathorne viewed the successive collapse of Acton's journals with a natural satisfaction.

 

"The unsound taint," he wrote, "was brought to England by certain young laymen, pupils of Dr Döllinger or others associated with him, and exhibited itself in the later numbers of the Rambler after it passed into their hands, in the Home and Foreign Review, the North British Review, and the Chronicle. But the Catholics of this country repelled the poison, and these publications dropped rapidly one after another into their grave."^[55]

 

Meanwhile, on the other side, Ward's ambition was to demonstrate "how extensive is the intellectual captivity imposed by God on every loyal Catholic."^[56] And there is no possibility to doubt which of the two schools was congenial to Roman authority. For the editor of the Dublin Review was rewarded with expressions of papal approval, while Lord Acton's literary ventures were one after another brought to untimely ends.^[57] But the thing that flourished, the work upon whose eccentricities and extravagances Roman authority looked with favour, was the Apologetic of Ward in the Dublin Review. Utterly unhistorical as it assuredly was, more Ultramontane than Rome itself, carrying recent development to unprecedented excess, and exhibiting exactly those characteristics of wilful blindness to uncongenial facts which roused so justly Acton's moral indignation, Ward's Essays were nevertheless the approved and sanctioned type of Roman doctrine and Roman defence offered for the edification and guidance of Roman Catholics in this land. There is something exceedingly tragic in the suppression of Acton's plea for sincerity and moral rectitude, coupled with the encouragement given to the reckless and painfully superficial utterances of the Dublin Review.

The English Romanists as a body were scared by Ward's extravagance. And to none were his methods more repugnant than they were to John Henry Newman. By a singular grace, Newman escaped the convert's proverbial temptation—that of carrying new beliefs to all possible extremes. He had affinities with the Dublin Review and with Lord Acton's Journals. But he was keenly conscious of the defects of both. He thought the one lacking in regard for authority, the other in reverence for fact. He was very far from identifying himself with either.

When Ward attempted to enlist Newman in his Infallibility campaign, Newman's characteristic sincerity did not attempt to conceal the repugnance with which he viewed the proposal.

 

"As to writing a volume on the Pope's Infallibility it never so much as entered into my thought. I am a controversialist, not a theologian, and I should have nothing to say about it. I have ever thought it likely to be true, never thought it certain. I think, too, its definition inexpedient and unlikely; but I should have no difficulty in accepting it, were it made. And I don't think my reason will ever go forward or backward in the matter."^[58]

 

But Newman despaired of inducing his fellow Romanists to attend to history.

 

"Nothing would be better," he wrote, "than a historical review. But who would bear it? Unless one doctored all one's facts one would be thought a bad Catholic. The truth is, there is a keen conflict going on just now between two parties one in the Church, one out of it; and at such seasons extreme views alone are in favour, and a man who is not extravagant is thought treacherous. I sometimes think of King Lear's daughters, and consider that they, after all, may be found the truest who are in speech more measured."^[59]

 

Hence it was that Ward's vehement and exaggerated Ultramontanism drew down upon him one of the severest rebukes which Newman perhaps ever wrote. He told Ward that it was wholly uncatholic in spirit, and was constituting a church within the Church. Ward comically observed that after such a letter he must take a double dose of chloral if he meant to sleep.

Newman also wrote a reassuring letter to Pusey, expressing his belief that there was no fear of a decree of Papal Infallibility, except in so limited a form as practically to leave things as they were.^[60] But when the Vatican Council was already met, and the probabilities that the dominant party might succeed in reducing to fixity what had hitherto been a theological opinion, at the most, became more and more convincing, Newman wrote to his Bishop in a very different and very anxious strain:—

 

"Why should an insolent, aggressive faction be allowed to make the heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful? I pray those early doctors of the Church whose intercession would decide the matter (Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome; Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Basil) to avert this great calamity. If it is God's will that the Pope's Infallibility be defined, then it is God's will to throw back the times and moments of the triumph which He has destined for His kingdom, and I shall feel that I have but to bow my head to His inscrutable Providence."^[61]

 

This memorable sentence, the most memorable of any from the Roman Communion in England, was written in the full confidence of privacy to his own Diocesan, Ullathorne, Roman Bishop of Birmingham. Somehow it came to light, and appeared in the public press. The publication, never explained, has been called a culpable indiscretion.^[62] But whatever it be called, it assuredly represents the writer's most profound conviction, uttered with perfect frankness. Here, as to his Father in Christ, he reveals his soul. Trusted and confided in as he was by individuals on either side within the Roman body; by Ward and Faber on the one hand, and by Lord Acton on the other; profoundly intimate with modern thought and religious conceptions beyond the Roman pale; he anticipates disastrous consequences to the Church, and to the world, if the Infallibility theory be decreed.

Bishop Ullathorne^[63] would undoubtedly receive this confidence with perfect sympathy. For, although a believer of the doctrine, he had himself, as a student, been taught the opposite at Downside. Indeed, his own fidelity to Ultramontane ideas was so challenged that he thought it advisable to seek a special interview with the Pope, and assure him, at the time of the Vatican Decrees. But, naturally, Newman's letter not only produced a great sensation when it appeared in the public press; it also deepened the distrust with which the partisans of Infallibility regarded him. We can well understand how one who wrote with so manifest an anxiety to stand by the historic past, and to avoid extremes, was regarded with suspicion from Rome by pronounced and uncompromising Ultramontanes.

As always in great movements, so with the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, much depended on commanding personalities. And no figure in the conflict of 1870 is more conspicuous than that of Archbishop Manning, It was not for his learning or intellectual depth or piety that he held so remarkable a place in promoting Ultramontane opinions. But there is no doubt that, whether outside the Council or within, he arrested universal attention. No man was more completely identified with the doctrine than he; and identified with it in its extremest form. No paradox alarmed him; he shrank from no inference, however strange. Bellarmine would have been proud of him as in many ways a worthy successor to his own à priori methods. It is impossible to mistake the temperament which produced the two famous Pastorals launched by Manning for the instruction of English Romanists in 1867 and 1869.

He has already, and this is very significant, formulated the doctrine practically in the same phrases in which it appeared in the Vatican Decree: "Declarations of the Head of the Church apart from the Episcopate are infallible."^[64] "Judgments ex cathedra are, in their essence, judgments of the Pontiff apart from the episcopal body, whether congregated or dispersed."^[65]

This doctrine, he is certain, the Church has always believed and taught. History awakens no doubts, creates no problems, to Manning's mind. Everywhere he contemplates, both exercised and admitted, papal inerrancy. His theory is that the stages of the doctrine have been three: simple belief, analysis, definition. In the first period, belief in the Church's and the Pope's inerrancy pervaded all the world. Thus he thinks that the condemnation of Pelagianism by Innocent I. (418) was regarded as infallible from the first moment of its promulgation. As for Honorius, there is not the slightest reason for misgivings: "heretical he could not be." We have his letters. They prove his Catholicity. The papal acts of the primitive ages imply infallibility, according to Manning, "and in almost all cases explicitly declare it."^[66] The exercise of authority is everywhere to him Infallibility. Thus the Archbishop presented the English Romanist with a sketch of the first ages pervaded by a calm, unchallenged faith in the Pope's Infallibility.

The second period in the doctrine's progress is that of analysis and contention. And here Manning pours unqualified contempt on the Gallican view. Gallicanism was Manning's peculiar and special abomination.

 

"Gallicanism," he said, "is rationalism; that which the Gospel cast out; that which grew up again in medieval Christendom. Gallicanism is no more than a transient and modern opinion which arose in France, without warrant or antecedent, in the ancient theological schools of the great French Church; a royal theology, as suddenly developed and as parenthetical as the Thirty-nine Articles; affirmed only by a small number out of the numerous Episcopate of France. …

"To this may be added, that the name of Bossuet escaped censure only out of indulgence, by reason of his good services to the Church: and that even the lawfulness of giving absolution to those who defend the Gallican Articles has been gravely questioned."^[67]

 

In Manning's view of history, Gallicanism was a disease engendered by the corruptions of the old French Monarchy.

The third period in the progress of Infallibility is the period of definition. This is certain to come. It is merely a question of time.

Thus, according to Manning, the doctrine of Papal Infallibility is no more of an innovation than the doctrine of our Lord's Divinity at Nicaea. It is true that he is conscious of a possible objection lurking in suspicious minds.

 

"If any one shall answer that these evidences do not prove the Infallibility of the Pope speaking ex cathedra, they will lose their labour.

"I adduce them," he continues, "to prove the immemorial and universal practice of the Church in having recourse to the Apostolic See as the last and certain witness and judge of the Divine tradition of faith."

 

But Manning's real interests were not in endeavours to ascertain what history declares. The sole duty of the believer was absolute submission to the authority of the existing Church, irrespective of past teachings. The assumption that what is taught to-day corresponds with what always has been, was made, and must not be challenged. Hence the famous identification of history with heresy, for which Manning made himself responsible. His assurance of the doctrine is so unassailable that he can scarcely tolerate the enquiry, Is it true?

 

"The question is not," he writes, "whether the doctrine be true, which cannot be doubted; or definable, which is not open to doubt; but whether such a definition be opportune, that is, timely and prudent."^[68]

 

Or again, more emphatically still if possible—

 

"With the handful of Catholics who do not believe the Infallibility of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, speaking ex cathedra, we will not now occupy ourselves. But the opinion of those who believe the doctrine to be true, but its definition to be inopportune deserves full and considerate examination."

 

That the doctrine is opportune, said Manning, followed at once from the fact that it was true. God has revealed it. "Can it be permitted to us to think that what He has thought it opportune to reveal, it is not opportune for us to declare?" If it be said that many revealed truths are not defined, Manning answers, Yes, but "this revealed truth has been denied." "If the Infallibility of the visible Head of the Church had never been denied, it might not have been necessary to define it now." Thus the prospect of a coming definition is held in terrorem over the heads of any who do not silently acquiesce in the doctrine being taught. Manning could scarcely ignore the fact that this denial of Infallibility was no new thing in the Roman Church. His answer to this is equally significant.

 

"We are told by objectors that the denial is far more ancient and widespread: that only makes the definition all the more necessary."^[69] "In England, some Catholics are stunned and frightened by the pretentious assumption of patristic learning and historical criticism of anonymous writers, until they doubt, or shrink in false shame from believing a truth for which their fathers died."^[70]

 

One would like to know how this sounded to the old Catholic families of England, to Bishops such as Errington or Clifford, to those whose fathers had assured the English Government on oath that Papal Infallibility formed no part of the faith of Catholics.

Manning indeed saw a host of practical reasons why the inerrancy doctrine should be decreed: because this truth has been denied; because, if not decreed, the error will henceforward appear to be tolerated, or at least left in impunity; because this denial of what Manning called "the traditional belief of the Church" was an organised opposition to the prerogatives of the Holy See; "because it is needed to place the Pontifical Acts of the last 300 years, both in declaring the truth, as in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and in condemning errors, as in the long series of propositions condemned in … Jansen and others, beyond cavil or question"; because it was openly said that the pastors of the Church are not unanimous, therefore "it is of the highest moment to expose and extinguish this false allegation, so boldly and invidiously made by heretics and schismatics of every name."

The dogma was necessary also to justify the believer's attitude toward the Pope. Faith, argued Manning, requires the Infallibility of the teacher of truth. If the teacher be fallible, our certainty cannot be Divine. If the Pope be fallible, we cannot be certain that the doctrines propounded by him—the Immaculate Conception, for instance—are of faith. "The treatise of Divine Faith is therefore incomplete so long as the Infallibility of the proponent is not fully defined."

Thus a theoretical system requires completion which nothing but this dogma can give ; for which, therefore, this dogma must be created. Moreover, Manning scorns what he calls "the incoherence of admitting a supremacy and denying its infallible action." We have here a reminiscence of De Maistre. There is the same theorising tendency. Two dominant ideas are found throughout. The one, that the doctrine is required to secure the completion of an à priori view. The other, that it will be practically a singularly useful asset. Therefore we must have it. It is not the theologian, it is the ecclesiastical statesman who speaks in this. The centralisation of power, concentrated in one supreme individual, easily accessible, prompt to reply, was Manning's ideal. He contrasted it with the slow, deliberate method of Universal Assemblies. Errors would have time to spread, with fearful rapidity, before this heavy machinery could be brought effectively into operation. Statesmen would frustrate its assembling. If the Pope be personally infallible, apart from the Episcopate, "why," asks Manning quite naturally,

 

"why is he bound to take a means which demands an Ecumenical Council, or a world-wide and protracted interrogation, with all the delays and uncertainties of correspondence, when, by the Divine order, a certain means in the Apostolic See is always at hand?"

 

Assertion—vigorous, uncompromising, sweeping—was not only the bent of Manning's disposition; it was also cultivated on principle. What the English people wanted, according to the Archbishop of Westminster, was neither compromise nor accommodation. "Downright truth, boldly and broadly stated, like the ring of true metal, wins their confidence." When Gladstone described him as "the oracle," Manning replied, "He shall not find me ambiguous." Thus he prided himself on the quality of aggressive speech. Among his favourite phrases is the term—"it is certain." Six times in one page, applied to all manner of thingshistorical interpretations, future probabilities, indiscriminately. No shade of distinction exists. There might be no such thing conceivable as hesitation in the universe. He seems to grow, if possible, increasingly sharp, incisive, uncompromising, as his words speed on.

 

"The Ultramontane opinion is simply this, that the Pontiff, speaking ex cathedra on faith or morals, is infallible. In this there are no shades or moderations. It is simply aye or no."

 

Of qualifications, of restrictions, nothing is said. It is all sweepingly universal. Yet with all his heart, he says, he desires to find a mode of conciliation—"but not a via media which is the essential method of falsehood." Of the philosophic temper, the balancing of opposing truths, the holding truths unreconciled, through faith in their ultimate yet hitherto undiscovered synthesis, there is not a shadow in these amazing Pastorals.

Nothing can surpass the confidence with which Manning expressed his ideas of the work which the Council would effect.

 

"It is certain that upon a multitude of minds who are wavering and doubtful … the voice of a General Council will have great power. The Council of Trent," he tells us, "fixed the epoch after which Protestantism never spread. The next General Council will probably date the period of its dissolution."^[71]

 

Not less singular, especially when read in the light of Manning's incessant polemical correspondence on the doctrine, is the picture which he has drawn of the state of the Roman Church in this crisis.

There is universal excitement, he says, in the outer world, caused by the assembling of the Council at Rome; "not, indeed, within the unity of the Catholic Church, where all is calm in the strength of quiet and of confidence, but outside in the political and religious world"—the calm of the Dublin Review, for instance, and the passionate rhetoric of Ward.

Manning further predicts that if this doctrine were defined, it would be at once received throughout the world with "universal joy and unanimity." Nothing can prove more clearly than these words how completely the theory with which he was identified fired his imagination, and warped his judgment.

Manning entirely failed to carry the English Romanists with him. The English Bishops at Rome elected Grant, not Manning, as their candidate for the Commission of Faith. And the Archbishop was adopted by the Italians. He complained of his English colleagues, that "of those who ought to have defended Infallibility not one spoke. The laity were averse and impatient. They would not read."^[72] Some, however, did read, among them Lord Acton, who characterised those Pastorals as "elaborate absurdities." They were read also by De Lisle, who was amazed at Manning's theory on the case of Honorius.

 

"Archbishop Manning denies that Honorius fell into heresy, but in denying this he appears to me to injure the Catholic cause, for he denies history, and what is worse, sets himself up against a General Council which is universally received, and which in this very particular was solemnly confirmed by Pope Leo II., Honorius's next successor but one."^[73]

 

Most significant is the contrast of type between Manning and Newman within the Communion of Rome.

 

"Manning," says Thureau Dangin, "like other converts in the ardour of their new faith, and in reaction against the Protestant spirit from which he had escaped, considered that he could not go too far in conceptions designated 'Ultramontane.' The personal attractiveness of Pius IX., who manifested a fatherly confidence in him, the authority which thus accrued to him in the government of the Church, the storm of controversy before and after the Vatican Council—all confirmed him in this attitude. He was more concerned to extend Infallibility than to determine its limits. He seemed to make it a duty of conscience and a point of honour to offend the English Catholics by presenting in uncompromising terms precisely those features of Italian doctrine which scandalised them most. He was well aware of his unpopularity, and consoled himself with an application of the text, If I pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ."

 

However, Manning pleased men, at least in Rome, where the larger sympathies of Newman were most distasteful, and where a hardy official went so far as to describe him as more Anglican than the Anglicans, and the most dangerous man in England.

Meanwhile Manning is found denouncing the English Jesuits to Rome as sympathisers with a watered version of Catholicism. Thus the Roman Catholics in England were being thoroughly schooled in Ultramontanism, and the Jesuits themselves Romanised by a convert from another Church.

The conclusions to which our investigations lead are: that the Roman Communion in England during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was Catholic in sentiment as opposed to Ultramontane; that the process of change was wrought by Italian influence, imposing Italianised Bishops upon a reluctant community, and by the suppression of the organs of independent thought, especially those which did not revise the facts of history in the interests of edification; that this conversion of the Roman body to Ultramontane ideas necessitated a rewriting of the English Roman literature, which was done on a very extensive scale, and constantly without any acknowledgment of the changes introduced into the author's opinions; that this process of infiltration was vigorously resisted, and continued incomplete down to the Council of 1870, in which Irish and English Bishops openly opposed the theories of papal prerogatives which their Italianised rulers had laboured to force upon them.

1. Quoted in W. Ward's Life of Wiseman, i. p. 513.
2. Quoted in W. Ward's Life of Wiseman, i. p. 515.
3. See Butler, Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics, vol. ii. p. 115ff.
4. See Butler, Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics, vol. ii. p. 117.
5. Ibid. p. 118.
6. Ibid. p. 119.
7. Bernard Ward, Dawn of the Catholic Revival, i. p. 151.
8. Cf. Husenbeth's Life of Milner, p. 23.
9. Ibid. p. 24.
10. Cf. Gladstone, Vaticanism, p. 47.
11. Ibid. p. 48.
12. Gladstone, Vaticanism, p. 218.
13. Ibid. p. 230.
14. Bishop Baine's Defence, quoted in Gladstone, Vaticanism, p. 48.
15. Gladstone, Vatican Decrees, vol. xliii. ed. 1875.
16. Letters to the Earl of Winchelsea, p. 15.
17. Life of Wiseman, i. p. 515.
18. Ibid. p. 512.
19. Life of Wiseman, ii. p. 221.
20. Ibid. p. 223.
21. 1859.
22. Life of Wiseman, ii. p. 321.
23. Ibid. ii. p. 265.
24. Ibid. p. 254.
25. Ibid. p. 332.
26. Life of Wiseman, p. 331.
27. Ibid. p. 370.
28. Life of Manning, ii. p. 206.
29. Ibid.
30. 1865.
31. Page 165.
32. Ambrose Lisle Phillipps, Union Review, May 1866, p. 95.
33. 1867. De Lisle, Life, ii. pp. 36, 37.
34. Milner, End of Religious Controversy, ed. 2, 1819, p. 150.
35. Gallitzin, Defence of Catholic Principles. See Papal Infallibility, by a Roman Catholic layman, 1876, p. 16.
36. Page 111.
37. Murray, Tractatus de Ecclesia Christ, ii. (i), p. 171.
38. Ollivier, L'Eglise et L'Etat. ii. p. 9.
39. Quirinus, p. 290.
40. Thureau Dangin, ii. p. 336.
41. Ibid. p. 343.
42. Ibid.
43. Gasquet, Lord Acton and his Circle, p. xxxix.
44. "Ultramontanism," Home and Foreign Review, iii. p. 173, 1863.
45. "Ultramontanism," Home and Foreign Review, p. 175.
46. Ibid. p. 177.
47. Inge, Truth and Falsehood in Religion, p. 41.
48. Cf. Bishop Ullathorne. Letter on the Rambler; 1862, p. 3.
49. Acton, History of Freedom, p. 446.
50. Ibid, p. 449.
51. Acton, History of Freedom, p. 452.
52. Acton, History of Freedom, p. 454.
53. Pastoral (1862), p. 9.
54. Ibid. p. 42. A.D. 1862.
55. Expostulation, p. 5.
56. Essays on the Church's Doctrinal Authority, pp. 2O, 34.
57. Cf. Church Times, 26th July 1907.
58. 1866, Thureau Dangin, iii. p. 111; Purcell, Manning, ii. p. 321.
59. See Guardian article, 6th June 1906, from the Month of January 1903.
60. Life of Pusey, iv. p. 128.
61. Standard, 7th April 1870; Salmon, Infallibility, p. 22; Thureau Dangin, iii. p. 124.
62. Thureau Dangin, iii. p. 124.
63. Autobiography, p. 41. Cf. Purcell, Manning, ii. p. 439.
64. Pastoral (1867), p. 23.
65. Ibid. (1869), p, 142.
66. Pastoral (1867), p. 40.
67. Ibid. p. 41.
68. Pastoral (1867), p. 119.
69. Pastoral (1867), p. 40
70. Ibid. p. 41.
71. Pastoral (1867), p. 90.
72. Purcell, ii. p. 454.
73. Life of De Lisle, ii. p. 73.