The True Story of the Vatican Council/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
THE CENTENARY OF ST PETER: AND PREPARATIONS FOR THE COUNCIL.
No one who has watched with any attention the pontificate of Pius the Ninth will believe that the definition of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was the work of any parties or intrigues. Faith may move mountains, but cliques and cabals are agencies too human and too narrow to move Œcumenical Councils. Not just men only, but thoughtful men, will seek for wider and more adequate causes of such effects. And such causes lie on the surface of the history of this pontificate.
I. 1. Before the Council of the Vatican assembled, Pius the Ninth had three times called the bishops of the Universal Church to Rome. In the year 1854, 206 cardinals and bishops assembled for the definition of the Immaculate Conception; in 1862, 265 bishops came for the canonisation of the martyrs of Japan; and now a third time 500 bishops assembled from all parts of the world to celebrate the eighteenth Centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom. No pontiff from the beginning, in all the previous successions of 256 popes, has ever so united the bishops with himself. Each of these three assemblies had a special significance. In 1854 the bishops assisted at the promulgation of a doctrine of faith by the sole authority of their head; in 1862 the bishops with an unanimous voice declared their belief that the temporal power or princedom of the Roman Pontiff is a dispensation of the providence of God, in order that the head of the Church may with independence and freedom exercise his spiritual primacy. In 1867, 500 bishops unanimously proclaimed their adhesion to the pontifical acts of Pius the Ninth, both in the teaching of truth and in the condemnation of errors—that is to say, to the syllabus then recently published, which is a compendium of the acts of Pius the Ninth in the many and important encyclicals and other letters of his pontificate promulgated before that date.
In these three assemblies at the Tomb of the Apostle and around the throne of his successor there was an explicit act of submission to his primacy, and a more than implicit confession of his infallibility.
2. It may be truly said that since the year 1854 the subject of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff had been more than ever before the mind of the episcopate. If Pius the Ninth did not bear an infallible office, what was the act of 1854? The bishops who assembled at the definition of the Immaculate Conception were not an Œcumenical Council, nor any council at all. They were not convened as a council. Pius the Ninth alone defined the Immaculate Conception. His act was, therefore, infallible or nothing. The world outside the Catholic Church no doubt accounted it to be nothing; but the whole episcopate and the whole Catholic unity accounted it to be infallible.
It is certain, then, that the events of 1854 powerfully awakened in the minds of both clergy and laity the thought of infallibility. In like manner the canonisation of 1862 elicited from the mind of the Church an express recognition of the prerogatives of the successor of Peter. For many years, by allocutions and apostolic letters, Pius the Ninth had been condemning the doctrines of philosophers and revolutionists. His supreme office as teacher of the Universal Church had been denied by those who endeavoured to restrict it to the dogmas of faith. In the midst of this continuous warfare, the bishops assembled in 1862, and addressed Pius the Ninth in these words:
There can be little discernment in any man who cannot perceive how these two events brought out the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff—that of 1854 in the defining of a dogma of faith, that of 1862 in matters which, though not dogmas of faith, are nevertheless in contact with his supreme office as "teacher of all Christians."
3. But, powerfully as these two events tended to bring before the minds of men the subject of the authority of the Pontiff as the successor of Peter, they bear no proportion in their power and efficacy to the Centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom in 1867. In the month of June in that year bishops from all parts of the world began to arrive in Rome. There were bishops who travelled from regions which lay far beyond any practicable road. Some came from the furthest East, others from the extreme West, some came from Africa, some from South America, some from Australia. Thirty nations were represented by their patriarchs, archbishops, primates, and bishops. All languages were to be heard, and all costumes were to be seen in the streets. It was said that the population of Rome was nearly doubled by the concourse of Catholics from all parts of the world. Now what was the motive of this assemblage? It was simply the faith that Pius the Ninth is successor of Peter and heir of all his primacy with all its prerogatives and gifts. Since the Council of Chalcedon and of the second of Lyons—for the number at the Lateran Council is doubtful—500 bishops had never assembled together: at Chalcedon, where they exclaimed "Peter has spoken by Leo," Leo was not there. But in Rome at this time Peter's successor was at their head. It was not only the festival of the martyrdom of Peter, but of his primacy over all the world. The bishops, when they met around his tomb in the great Basilica of Constantine, knew that they were making a profession of faith in the primary of his successor.
4. It does not belong to the story of the Vatican Council to describe the external ceremonial of the Centenary; but it does emphatically belong to the right appreciation of the acts of the Vatican Council that the bearing of the Centenary upon it should be fully understood. It is not too much to say that of the proximate causes of the definition of the infallibility, the Centenary of St Peter's martyrdom was the most powerful. And this, I hope, will be made clear by a simple narrative of facts.
The solemnities of the Centenary consisted in the following acts:—
First, in the Consistory of the 26th of June, at which five hundred bishops were present. The number being so great, it was held in the tribune over the atrium of St Peter's, where the cœna on Maunday Thursday used to be laid. It was' in this consistory that Pius the Ninth for the first time publicly announced his intention of holding an Œcumenical Council.
Secondly came the festival of the Centenary. The Pope sung the first vespers of the Feast with great solemnity in St Peter's on the evening of the 28th; he sung also the pontifical mass on the following day at the high altar in the presence of half the bishops of the world.
Lastly, on the 1st of July the Holy Father gave audience to the bishops to receive from them their address or response to his allocution on the 26th.
Before we enter upon these events, it will be well to narrate one fact which throws much light upon the intention of Pius the Ninth in convoking the Council. The 17th of June was the anniversary of his creation. After mass in the Sistine Chapel, he went into the Pauline Chapel to unvest. The Cardinal Vicar, in the name of the Sacred College, made the usual address of congratulation, ending with the words that they washed to the Holy Father "health and many years to see the peace and triumph of the Church." The Pope answered in substance as follows:—
I accept your good wishes from my heart, but I remit their verification to the hand of God. We are in a moment of great crisis. If we look only to the aspect of human events, there is no hope; but we have a higher confidence. Men are intoxicated with dreams of unity and progress, but neither is possible without justice. Unity and progress based on pride and egotism are illusions. God has laid on me the duty to declare the truths on which Christian society is based, and to condemn the errors which undermine its foundation. And I have not been silent. In the encyclical of 1864, and in that which is called the Syllabus, I declared to the world the dangers which threaten society, and I condemned the falsehoods which assail its life. That act I now confirm in your presence, and I set it again before you as the rule of your teaching. To you, venerable brethren, as bishops of the Church, I now appeal to assist me in this conflict with error. On you I rely for support. I am aged and alone, praying on the mountain; and you, the bishops of the Church, are come to hold up my arms. The Church must suffer, but it will conquer. " Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, entreat, rebuke, with all patience and doctrine." For there shall be a time—and that time is come—"when they will not endure sound doctrine." The world will contradict you, and turn from you; but be firm and faithful. "For I am even now ready to be sacrificed, and the time of my dissolution is at hand." "I have, I trust, 'fought a good fight,' and 'have kept the faith,' and there is laid up for you, and I hope for me also, 'a crown of justice which the Lord, the just Judge, will render to me at that day.'"[2]
5. If we look upon the Centenary only as a demonstration of moral power and of the superiority of the moral over the material order of the world, it has a deep significance. Pius the Ninth was at that moment in the crisis to which the Italian revolution of so many years had been advancing. All protection of the Catholic powers of the world, of whom France had been till then the mandatory, had been withdrawn. He knew that the revolution would come to Rome again with more formidable power than in 1848. "Verrà fin qui," as he said in his farewell to the general of the French army. In the face of all menace, and with the certainty of the coming revolution, Pius the Ninth had the year before convened the Catholic episcopate to meet in Rome in 1867. No event, excepting the Council of the Vatican, has in our age manifested so visibly to the intellect and so palpably even to the sense of men the unity, universality, unanimity, and authority of the only Church which alone can endure St Augustine's two tests, cathedra Petri and diffusa per orbem—union with the See of Peter, and expansion throughout the world. The Centenary was a confession of faith, without an accent of controversy. Even those who were not of the unity of the Church recognised it as such. Whosoever believed in Christianity, and desired the spread of our Lord's kingdom upon earth, could not fail to see in that great gathering the wide foundations laid by the apostolic mission. Even they who reject certain Catholic doctrines hold the Creed of the Apostles, which has been guarded by the Catholic Church. Even they who rest their faith on Scriptures alone, still more they who rest it upon fathers and councils, know that the custody of all these is in the Church which assembled on that day round the centre of its unity. The world-wide Church is the great witness upon whose broad testimony all Christians must ultimately rest. Take the Catholic and Roman Church out of the world, and where is Christendom? These reasons moved even those who were not in the unity of the Church to a respectful silence. But if such was the undeniable action of the Centenary upon just and considerate men outside its unity, what was it upon those who were within? This we shall best show by quoting the words of Pius the Ninth in the allocution of the 26th of June, and the answer of the bishops in the audience of the 1st of July.
6. Pius the Ninth addressed the 500 bishops who had gathered round him from all parts of the world in these words:
To this the bishops unanimously answered:
The full meaning of this declaration of the bishops will not be understood unless we bear in mind that they were speaking of the doctrinal acts of Pius the Ninth during his pontificate, of which the definition of the Immaculate Conception, the encyclical, and the syllabus were the most prominent and the most recent. We see, then, half the episcopate of the Church proclaiming that from the moment that the voice of Pius the Ninth reached them, all the declarations and condemnations of the successor of Peter were to them, not necessarily in all things matters of faith because the greater part of the syllabus is in matters not revealed, but the rule of their teaching. With what consistency or sincerity could this be said of any teacher for whose declarations and condemnations there was no special guidance and guarantee? Without doubt these words did not explicitly declare the Roman Pontiff to be infallible, but half the episcopate of the Church would be not unreasonably accused of great temerity in their language if they had not believed the head of the Church to be in some special way guarded from error in his teaching.
7. The address from which this passage is taken was prepared as follows. Nothing can more clearly show how consciously present to the mind of the bishops at that time was the infallibility of their head. A general meeting of bishops was convened at the Altieri Palace, to draw up an address in reply to the allocution of the Holy Father. Bishops of every nation were present, and it was found impossible to frame any document in so numerous an assembly. It was therefore decided to entrust the drawing up of the address to a commission of seven—namely, the Cardinal De Angelis, Archbishop of Fermo, the Archbishops of Sorrento, Saragossa, Kalocsa, Thessalonica (now Cardinal Franchi), Westminster, and the Bishop of Orleans. At the first meeting of the commission it was agreed to entrust the preparing of the first draft of the address to Mgr. Haynald, the Archbishop of Kalocsa. At the next meeting of the commission the draft was examined. In outline it was nearly as it was adopted at last; but in one point, bearing intimately on the history of the Council, it underwent an important revision. As it originally stood, the word infallible was, in more places than one, ascribed to the office and authority of the Pontiff. To this word, as expressing a doctrine of Catholic truth, no member of the commission objected. It was however said that the word infallible had as yet been used only in provincial councils, or pastoral letters, or theological schools, but that it had not been inserted in the formal acts of any general council of the Church, and that, inasmuch as the 500 bishops then in Rome were not assembled in council, it might be advisable not to seem to assume the action or office of a Council. These considerations were assented to by all. It was then proposed to insert the words of the Council of Florence, which was the last authoritative decree on the primacy of the Roman Pontiff. To this no objection as to the subject-matter was made; but it was urged that the draft address already contained expressions stronger than the decree of the Council of Florence, which only implicitly contains the infallibility of the head of the Church as the teacher of all Christians, for the address explicitly declares that "Peter has spoken by the mouth of Pius." To this it was answered that though beyond all doubt these words explicitly declare the voice of the Pontiff to be infallible as Peter was, yet this acclamation of the fathers of Chalcedon and that of the third Council of Constantinople were always, and not unreasonably, set aside as of little weight in controversy, as little more than rhetorical amplifications of the authority of Leo and of Agatho. They were not doctrinal formulas, much less definitions, but only acclamations; and acclamations define nothing, and can form neither objects of faith nor terminations of controversy. It was therefore by the vote of almost all the seven members of the commission, if not indeed by the united vote of all, decided that the words of the decree of the Florentine Council should be inserted. These facts are here noted in detail because their importance will be seen hereafter. They prove that at the Centenary in 1867 the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, with its full prerogatives and endowments, was vividly before the minds of the bishops. The Centenary in itself, with all its solemnities, admonitions, and associations, threw out into visible and palpable relief the twofold office of the successor of Peter in doctrine and jurisdiction, or, in other words, his primacy and the divine assistance by which it is perpetually sustained in the custody of revealed truth. The facts prove also the circumspection with which the members of the commission avoided everything which could have the semblance of anticipating the action of the future Council, or of engaging the bishops by any expressions in any declaration beyond the previous and authoritative teaching of the Church. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the impression made by the Centenary upon the minds of the bishops determined many to promote, by all means in their power, the closing of a controversy which had for centuries periodically disturbed the Church.
8. It may not be out of place to give here an outline of the question of the infallibility—its origin, its climax, and its determination. But in writing the story of the Vatican Council it will be more fitting simply to trace the history of the question than to treat it theologically. A history is a narrative, not an argument, and the qualities required in a narrative are truth and accuracy, not a polemical defence of the truths narrated. This belongs to the province of dogmatic theology.[4]
Like other contested doctrines of Christianity, the infallibility of the head of the Church has had three periods: the first was a period of simple belief, the second a period of analysis and controversy, the third a period of gradual determination and final definition. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is a fair example. It has visibly passed through these three stages. It was implicitly contained in the universal belief of the Church, both East and West, that the Blessed Virgin was a person without sin, and sanctified by a pre-eminent and exceptional sanctification. This was the first period of unanalysed belief. The second period began in the Pelagian controversy, when S. Augustin, in affirming the universality of original sin, expressly excepted the mother of our Lord. This exemption from original sin was analytically accounted for in two ways—either that she was liberated from it and born without it, or that she was always free from it in the first moment of her existence. The former is the doctrine of the Immaculate Nativity, the latter of the Immaculate Conception. The third period dates from the eleventh century, during which the doctrine of the Immaculate Nativity was seen to be less and less adequate to explain the absolute sinlessness of the mother of our Redeemer, and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was seen to be more and more in conformity with the analogy of faith. These same three periods are traceable in the doctrine of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. Down to the Council of Constance in the fifteenth century, the stability of the faith of Peter, and the immutability of the Roman Church or of the see of Peter, were the universal belief of the Church. This belief was not speculative only. It was exhibited in the public practice of the Church. Every public act of Rome was declared to rest on the stability of faith in the see of Peter, or of the Apostolic See, or of the successor of the apostle, or of the voice of Peter still teaching by his successor in his see. This praxis of the Church was immemorial, universal, and invariable in the declaration of faith and the condemnation of error. The amplest proof of this truth is to be seen in the relation of the Pontiffs to general councils, as in that of S. Leo to the Council of Chalcedon, which he guided in faith, confirmed, and in part annulled; in that of Celestine to the Council of Ephesus, which he also directed and confirmed; of Agatho to the third Council of Constantinople; and in the acts of S. Innocent the First and of S. Gelasius, upon whose authoritative acts alone the doctrine of original sin and the canon of Holy Scripture rested down to the Council of Trent. In those days the word "infallibility" had not been invented, but the thing existed in its most energetic reality. Perhaps, but for what is called the great Western schism, the word "infallibility" might never have been invented. It was an analytical expression to account for the stability of the Roman faith. In the midst of all contentions both sides believed that the Apostolic See could never be deceived by errors, nor deceive others by erring itself. Why? Because, they said, of the promise given to Peter. But during the time when two and three claimants to the See of Peter divided the nations of Europe, which was his successor? Then the distinction between the infallibility of the See of Peter and the fallibility of the person who sat in it was first introduced. This was the beginning of a second period, or the stage of analysis. Nobody so far departed from the tradition of faith as to deny the stability, solidity, immutability—which is equivalent to the infallibility—of the Apostolic See. They analysed this universal belief into two elements—the see and the person. They distinguished inter sedem et in eâ sedentem—"between the see and him that sat in it." Gerson and certain writers of the Old Sorbonne denied the infallibility of the person, while they affirmed the infallibility of the see. But another analysis was soon to be made into the two elements of the person and the primacy. It was soon perceived that the see is nothing in itself—that it derives all its authority from him who sits in it. The See of Peter is not the material chair, nor is it the collective body of the Church around it, but the successor of Peter, who bears the office of Peter, with the powers and promises attaching to it. Nevertheless, as in the example already given of the Immaculate Conception, centuries passed away while the Immaculate Nativity and the Immaculate Conception were still in discussion, so also centuries passed away while theologians discussed whether the stability or infallibility in faith attached to the person or to the office.
Gradually the opinion of the Old Sorbonne became nearly obsolete, and probably would have become extinct but for the conflict of Louis the Fourteenth against Innocent the Eleventh in the matter of the Regale or royal prerogative in ecclesiastical matters. It was this conflict that gave rise to the Four Articles of 1682 in which the denial of the infallibility of the head of the Church was first reduced to a public formula and propagated by royal and parliamentary edicts. It was no sooner published than it was on all sides condemned—by the University of Louvain, by the theologians of Liége, by the professors of Douai, by the Church in Spain, and by a plenary council in Hungary. Three weeks after the four articles appeared they were condemned by Innocent the Eleventh, afterwards by Alexander the Eighth, and a second time upon his death-bed. After the death of Alexander the Eighth, Louis the Fourteenth wrote to his successor, Innocent the Twelfth, to retract the acts of 1682; and the bishops who framed the acts wrote also to retract them. They were likewise again condemned by Pius the Sixth, and by the whole consensus of schools, theologians, and universities, except only the Sorbonne and those who were formed by it or adhered to it. It may be truly said that, under the weight of all these condemnations, the opinion which ascribed infallibility to the See of Peter, but denied it to his successor, like the opinion of the Immaculate Nativity, to continue the parallel, had gradually declined, and that the opinion which affirms the infallibility of the Pontiff had become certain; so that if an Œcumenical Council had been held at any time between 1682 and 1869, there can be no doubt that the infallibility of the head of the Church would have been defined. But the time of definition was not yet come. There existed still, not in the tradition of the Church nor in theology, but in the minds of some, an obscurity as to the distinction between the person and the office. Controversies still went on as to whether the infallibility be personal or official. By personal infallibility some thought that inspiration was attributed to the Pope to be used personally at his will. But the idea of a personal infallibility distinct from the office was never maintained by any theologian. This wild notion existed only in the minds of those who imputed it as an extravagance to their opponents. But they simply taught that the successor of Peter cannot err in faith. No Catholic theologian ever held more than this. The doctrine affirmed by the schools and by the Holy See was, that infallibility attaches to the office, and that the office is held not by many as if in commission, but by one. Infallibility is personal, therefore, only in the sense that the office is borne by a person. It was in this sense that the bishops in 1862 and in 1867 said that the voice of Pius was the voice of Peter. Peter's office, with all its prerogatives, is perpetual, and his office is borne by the person who succeeds to his place. But it is not necessary to dwell longer now upon this doctrine. We shall have time to do so when we come hereafter to the history of the definition.
9. Such, then, was the state of this question when the solemnities of the Centenary closed, and the bishops returned to their dioceses. Many at once published pastoral letters giving an account of the events in Rome. In some of these documents the intellectual and doctrinal significance of the Centenary was fully brought out.[5] For some years before, in France, Germany, and England, the force and value of the pontifical acts, and the obligation imposed by the doctrinal authority of the Pope in definitions of faith or in inflicting censures, had been in lively discussion, and it cannot be doubted that the Centenary had powerfully moved half the episcopate of the Church to desire that the Œcumenical Council should put an end to internal divergences on these points, so nearly affecting the doctrinal authority of the Holy See.
10. We have seen that on the 26th of June, 1867, Pius the Ninth announced to the Bishops his intention to convoke the Council. The date, however, was still undecided. This decision was made in the following year. In a Secret Consistory held on the 22nd of June, 1868, Pius the Ninth interrogated the cardinals whether they thought it expedient that the Œcumenical Council should be promulgated on the next feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, that is, the 29th of the same month, and its opening fixed for the 8th of December, 1869. The cardinals unanimously answered in the affirmative, and the Pope enjoined them to pray thenceforward for the especial assistance of the Holy Ghost.
Inasmuch as the motives for which Pius the Ninth convoked the Council cannot be more directly known than from his own words and acts, it will be well to examine the text of the Bull of Indiction, which is dated the 29th of June, 1868. It runs as follows:—
Pius Bishop, servant of the servants of God, for perpetual remembrance. The only begotten Son of the Eternal Father, for the great love wherewith He loved us, that He might liberate mankind from the yoke of sin, the bondage of the devil, and the darkness of error, by which, through the sin of our first parents, it had been long and miserably oppressed, descended from the heavenly seat, but left not the glory of the Father, and, clothed in mortal array of the immaculate and most holy Virgin Mary, revealed the truth and way of life which He brought down from heaven, and having borne witness to it by many wonderful works, He delivered Himself for us as an Oblation and Sacrifice to God in the odour of sweetness.
After reciting the power given to the apostles to rule the Church which He had bought with His own blood, the Bull continues:—
The Bull then further says that
Nor have they failed, when they judged it opportune, above all in times of grave perturbations and in the calamities of our most holy religion and of civil society, to convoke general councils, that with the councils and united strength of the bishops of the whole world, whom the Holy Ghost has set to rule the Church of God, they might with providence and wisdom dispose all things necessary for defining the dogmas of faith, for destroying the errors which prevail, for illustrating and developing doctrine, for upholding and restoring discipline, and for the correction of moral corruption among the peoples.
It is at this time evident and manifest to all men in how horrible a storm the Church is now tossed, and by what vast evils even the civil State is afflicted. For the Catholic Church, and its saving doctrine and venerable power, and the supreme authority of this Holy See, are by the bitterest enemies of God and man, assailed and trampled down: all sacred things are held in contempt, ecclesiastical possessions spoiled, and the ministers of holy things, men of conspicuous life dedicated to the divine service, and men of the highest Catholic excellence, harassed in everyway; the religious orders suppressed, impious books of every kind, and pestilent documents, and manifold and most pernicious sects diffused on every side: the education of hapless youth, withdrawn everywhere from the clergy, and, what is worse, in not a few places intrusted to the teachers of iniquity and error.
Wherefore, following closely in the footsteps of our predecessors, we have judged it to be opportune to bring together into a General Council, which has long been our desire, all our venerable brethren, the ministers of the sanctuary, of the whole Catholic world, who have been called to share in a portion of our solicitude. . . . For in this Œcumenical Council must be examined with the greatest accuracy, and decreed, all things which, especially in these rough times, relate to the greater glory of God, the integrity of faith, the gravity of divine worship, the eternal salvation of men, the discipline of the secular and regular clergy, its wholesome and solid culture, the observance of ecclesiastical laws, the amendment of manners, and the instruction of Christian youth. . . . And with the most intent study care must be taken that all evils may be averted from the Church and from civil society. . . . For no man can deny that the power of the Catholic Church and of its doctrine bears not only upon the eternal salvation of men, but also promotes the temporal welfare of peoples, their true prosperity, order, and tranquillity, and also the progress and solidity of human sciences, as the annals of both sacred and profane history clearly and openly show by luminous facts, and demonstrate with constant evidence.Having thus drawn in outline the work of the Council, and declared the motives of its convocation, Pius the Ninth solemnly convoked it in these words:—
Then follows a paragraph of great moment:—
In this confidence we hope that God, in whose hands are the hearts of men, will, by his ineffable mercy and grace, bring it to pass that all sovereign princes and rulers of all peoples, above all such as are Catholic, seeing more clearly every day that the greatest benefits flow from the Catholic Church into the society of men, and that it is the firmest foundation of empires and kingdoms, will not only not hinder our venerable brethren from coming to the Council, but also earnestly favour and give them help, and studiously in all things, as becomes Catholic princes, co-operate with them in all things which may tend to the greater glory of God and the good of the Council.
It seemed well to quote thus much from the text of the Bull of Indiction. If any man would ask why was the Council convened, here he has his answer. If any think that Pius the Ninth desired to be assured of his supreme power, he need only see with what apostolic boldness he asserts it here, and with what authority he wields it over the episcopate of the Universal Church.
We will now take up once more our narrative of events.
11. From the year 1833, when Gregory the Sixteenth condemned certain political writings in France, and from the year when Pius the Ninth condemned the attempt made in Germany by certain professors to withdraw politics and science from the cognisance and guidance of revelation, a school had existed in both countries hostile to the authority of Rome. It is therefore not to be wondered at that the acts and declarations of the Centenary should have called such adversaries into greater activity. In France appeared various writings of a lighter or of a more extensive kind, which need no longer be enumerated by name. In Germany, in the year 1868, appeared the work entitled Janus, an elaborate attempt of many hands to destroy, by profuse misrepresentations of history, the authority of the Pope, and to create animosity against the future Council. The fable, that the infallibility was to be defined by acclamation, was first formally announced in Janus. The work was promptly translated into English, French, and Italian. It was understood that in England and in France a number of writers had divided among themselves certain portions of historical controversy by which it was intended to render the definition of the infallibility impossible. An active correspondence united ecclesiastical persons of several nations in co-operation for the same end. Conferences were held in France, Belgium, and Germany, to organise an opposition. Pamphlets and treatises were written on the eve of the assembling of the Council. But this was not all. In the year 1869, the Bavarian government was inspired to address itself to all the governments of Europe, inviting them to unite in opposition to the Council, which was to meet on the 8th of December in that year. A document was sent, dated the 9th of April 1869—that is, eight months before—with the signature of Prince Hohenlohe, then minister at Munich, the internal evidence of which revealed the hand from which it came. The object of these documents was to inspire all the civil powers of Europe with suspicion and alarm, and to combine them in active resistance to prevent the definition of the infallibility of the head of the Church. Prince Hohenlohe in his despatch said:—"The only dogmatic thesis which Rome would wish to have decided by the Council, and which the Jesuits in Italy and Germany are now agitating, is the question of the infallibility of the Pope." How Prince Hohenlohe should know the wish of Rome with such exclusive precision, he did not tell us. He then goes on to say:—"I thought the initiative in so important a matter should be taken by one of the great powers; but not having as yet received any communication on the subject, I have thought it necessary to seek for a mutual understanding which will protect our common interests," &c. A schedule of questions was then proposed to the theological faculty at Munich, intended to elicit answers for the purpose of obstructing the definition by alarming the powers of Europe. Answers were returned in the sense desired. But the questions and answers lost much of their effect because they were believed to come from the same hand. Nevertheless an extensive political and diplomatic party or conspiracy was formed, with the intention of hindering the expected definition. In the month of June following, Prince Hohenlohe addressed a second despatch to the governments of Europe. The Spanish minister, Olozaga, threatened the Church with the hostility of a league of France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Bavaria. An Italian minister addressed a circular to his diplomatic agents at the courts of Europe, inviting the powers to prevent the assembling of the Council. A joint despatch was sent by the Bavarian and Italian governments to the French government, urging the withdrawal of the French troops during the Council, to insure the freedom of its deliberations, or, in other words, to anticipate the 20th of September 1870 and the seizure of Rome.
An anonymous document was received by the bishops, which appeared simultaneously in French, English, German, Italian, and Spanish, elaborately arguing against the opportuneness of defining the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. It was in certain countries distributed to the bishops by their governments. Such was the activity displayed in the ecclesiastical and diplomatic bodies. But there were other agencies at work. The newspapers of every country in Europe began to assail the future Council. Men of every sort of religion and of every shade of unbelief, by every kind of opposition from argument to derision, endeavoured to diminish beforehand the authority of the Council. It was said that it would not be œcumenical, because the Protestants would not sit in it: it would not be free, because the Pope would overbear the bishops. Then it was said that the bishops would not be able to discuss in Latin; that the Council would make new dogmas of matters not revealed; that no one would believe its definitions, or pay attention to its decrees. Janus had supplied all the adversaries of the Catholic faith and of the Catholic Church with a large vocabulary of vituperation, which was copiously directed against both.
12. The effect of this deliberate, wide-spread, and elaborate attempt to hinder the definition of the infallibility of the head of the Church, by controlling the Council and obstructing its freedom, was as might be expected. It insured the proposing and passing of the definition. It was seen at once that not only the truth of a doctrine, but the independence of the Church, was at stake. If the Council should hesitate or give way before an opposition of newspapers and of governments, its office as Witness and Teacher of Revelation would be shaken throughout the world. The means taken to prevent the definition made the definition inevitable by proving its necessity. It was no longer a desire or conviction of individuals, but a sense of duty in the great majority of the bishops. But to this we shall have to return hereafter.
II. Having thus brought down the external events from the Centenary to the eve of the Council, we must take up again the narrative of the preparations that were making in Rome. We have seen that, by reason of the disturbed state of Europe and of Italy, the preparations were suspended in 1866. They were resumed on the 28th of July 1867, and were continued without interruption until they were completed just before the assembling of the Council.
1. The Commission of Direction consisted of five cardinal presidents, with eight bishops, and a secretary, the Archbishop of Sardis. Twenty-four Consultors were appointed for the Commission of Dogma, nineteen for that of Discipline, twelve for the Commission on Religious orders, seventeen for the Commission of Foreign Missions and the East, and twenty-six for the Commission of Mixed or Politico-ecclesiastical Questions. The entire number of Consultors was one hundred and two, of which ten were bishops, sixty-nine secular priests, and twenty-three regulars: of these eight were Jesuits, four Dominicans, two Augustinians, one Barnabite, one Conventual Franciscan, one Minor Observant, one Benedictine, one Carmelite, one Servite, one minister of the Sick, and one Oratorian. Of these hundred and two thirty-one were from various nations invited to Rome.
The first question to be decided by the Commission of Direction was as to who had the right of sitting in the Council.
There could be no doubt as to the right of the episcopate at large; but a question arose as to bishops who had no ordinary jurisdiction such as vicars apostolic. There could, also, be no doubt as to their admissibility if invited, nor of their decisive vote when admitted. But the question was as to their right to be called. The decision arrived at was that it was fitting that they should be called to the Council according to the precedents and practice of the Holy See, and also lest their exclusion should give rise to questions as to the œcumenicity of the Council. The principle of this decision was that the Bulls by which councils have been convoked call together "archbishops, bishops, &c.;" therefore the axiom, "Ubi lex non distinguit, nec nos distinguere debemus," takes effect.
A letter of earnest and affectionate invitation was then written "to all bishops of the Churches of the Oriental Rite who are not in communion with the Apostolic See." This letter was presented to the patriarch of the Orthodox Greek Church, but he did not see fit so much as to open it. It was on that day, we are told, that four millions of Bulgarians notified to the same patriarch their withdrawal from his jurisdiction.
A letter was also written to all Protestants and other non-Catholics.
At the Council of Trent the same invitation was given, but with no happier result. Julius the Second published the condition on which they were invited—namely, a recognition of the divine authority of the Church. On no other condition could the Church invite them without abdicating its divine commission.
2. It will be hereafter seen of how great importance was also another question decided at this time by the Commission of Direction—that is, to whom it belongs to form the order or method by which, the proceedings of the Council should be regulated. After full discussion and a careful examination of the precedents of former councils, it was concluded that the forming of such order could ultimately belong to no authority except to the same which alone has the power to convene, to prorogue, to suspend, and to confirm the Council, or even to withhold confirmation from any or all of its acts. It was manifest that whensoever the head of the Church had invited the bishops in Council to express their pleasure as to the order to be observed, it had been done by way of prudence and from the desire to satisfy every reasonable wish. The experience of all numerous assemblies and even of General Councils shows that a supreme power of direction is often needed; and if this be true in assemblies of one nation, and with identity of habits and interests, how much more in an Œcumenical Council of many nations, among whom, being men, national sympathies and antipathies are often strong, notwithstanding their unity in faith. On the 29th of June 1869, it was therefore decided that the right of regulating the Council belonged to the authority which convened it, and that it was of the highest prudence to retain that right in the hands of him who is the head not only of the Council but of the Church. The importance of this, which may be called a vital law of the Church, will appear in our future narrative.
3. The chief points provided for in the order of proceedings were as follows:—
(1.) The proposition or introduction of matters to be treated.
(2.) The mode of discussion and of voting.
(3.) The attendance of the bishops.
(4.) The justification of absence.
(5.) The precedence in session.
(6.) The possible variances.
(7.) The mode of living.
(8.) The nature, number, and office of the officials of the Council.
(9.) The oath, or obligation of secrecy.
These points were defined after prolonged deliberation by the body of Consultors and published afterwards in the form of an Apostolical Constitution. All but the first two and the last points may be passed over in silence here; but on the right of proposition, the mode of discussion, and the secret, it may be well, in a narrative of the Vatican Council, to state briefly the course which was laid down.
We have already seen that there exists in the divine constitution of the Church no absolute necessity for the holding of councils—that the assembling of all bishops in one place is an usage of prudence, the expediency of which must be ultimately decided by the only authority which extends over all. No one but the head of the whole Church can lay on the bishops of the whole Church the duty of coming together. An archbishop may convene his province, and a patriarch his region of provinces, but no local authority can convene the universal episcopate. Therefore no one can constrain the head of the Church to convoke a council. It is an act of his own free will, guided by reasons of prudence, in order to obtain counsel upon the needs of the whole Church. He may, as we have seen that Pius the Ninth did, invite the fullest and widest counsel to ascertain beforehand what matters should be introduced or proposed for discussion; and having done so, the self-evident dictates and the first instincts of prudence prescribe that the programme of subjects be fixed, precise, and limited. They can be limited by no authority except by that which is supreme.
But, inasmuch as in the course of discussion, and in the prolonged duration of a Council, it may be found that some subjects of moment have been passed over, or that new and important questions may emerge, provision was made for the introduction of new matter by the appointment of a special Commission chosen by the Pontiff out of the members of the Council to assist him by their advice as to the introduction of any other propositions beyond those contained in the original programme. Every bishop was thereby able to lay before this commission, in the form of a written petition to the Pontiff, any subject he might desire to see proposed to the Council. The Commission of Postulates, as it was called, after examination reported its judgment to the Pontiff, who gave orders as he might see fit. Anybody who will, with a just and sincere mind, weigh the reasonableness and the sufficiency of this provision cannot fail to acknowledge that without such a limit the discussions of an Œcumenical Council might be prolonged to any duration; any subject, howsoever needless and injurious, might be forced into discussion: the treatment of the most vital matters delayed, indefinitely obstructed, and even defeated altogether; the bishops detained for months or years from their dioceses, or the Council so thinned by their departure as to reduce it to a minority, and that, it may be, of the most pertinacious and the least pastoral bishops of the Church. Such, indeed, would be the way to expose the Council to the imputation of intrigues, cabals, and cliques. So much for its reasonableness. And as for its sufficiency, no petition which had in it reason enough to approve itself to a representative commission of five-and-twenty bishops chosen for their prudence and experience would be rejected; and certainly no petition which could not stand that ordeal ought to be proposed. The limitation of the right of proposition and the Commission of Postulates were the two securities of the Council itself against any unreasonableness or imprudence of its own members. The adversaries of the Vatican Council will not deny that, according to their estimate of its members, such securities were not needless; and the friends of the Council will acknowledge that in a body of 700 men there might well be found some for whom such temperate restraints were not unwise.
4. The other point of chief importance was the method of discussion. It would be unnecessary, and indeed impossible in the space of this short narrative, to give all the reasons which were alleged, and either accepted or laid aside by the Commission of Direction, as to the best mode of conducting the discussions. It may be truly said that this most critical and difficult question was treated with a minuteness and a fulness which left nothing unweighed. Passing over the reasons, we will explain the method.
It was decided that the preparatory labours of the 102 theologians and canonists should be digested into schemata, or draft decrees—that is into a definite and positive form giving the result of the patient labours of those who had been chosen out from many nations for their learning and experience.
These schemata were altogether the work of the bishops and theologians who prepared them. They had not so much as the shadow of the supreme authority upon them. The liberty of the Council to accept or to reject, to change or to modify them, was completely secured. The Pope, in his Constitution at the outset of the Council, told the bishops that the schemata had received no sanction from him, so that they might deal with them in all freedom.
The schemata were printed for the use of the Fathers of the Council. The method of examining them was as follows:—
(1.) The Council was to elect by secret vote within itself five commissions or deputations on: I. Faith; 2. Discipline; 3. Missions; 4. Mixed Questions; 5. Rites.
(2.) The schemata were to be distributed to each of the members of the Council ten days at least before any discussion upon them would be opened.
(3.) The first discussion was in the general congregation of the whole Council. This first debate answered to the debate on the first and second reading of a bill in our legislature. If the bishops accepted the principle of the schema, they next proceeded to the second discussion on the details, or clauses as we should say, paragraph by paragraph, as in a committee of the whole house.
(4.) If objections were made, the whole discussion, taken in shorthand, was referred to the respective Commissions of Faith or Discipline, and the like, as the case might be.
(5.) The whole schema was then re-examined by the commission. It was amended, or even remodelled, and then reprinted and distributed again to the bishops, and submitted once more to a general congregation by a reporter deputed by the commission out of its own number.
(6.) After renewed discussion it was then put again to the vote, which might be given in three forms: 1. Placet, or aye; 2. Non Placet, or no; 3. Placet juxta modum, or aye with modification, which is equivalent to voting for a bill on the second reading with the intention of amending it in committee. Those who voted juxta modum were required to send in their amendment in writing, which was printed, submitted to the deputation, and reported again to the general congregation for another voting.
(7.) If the schema so remodelled was further amended, the same process might be repeated. If, however, it was accepted by a majority of the Council, it was then passed by vote, and reserved for a final voting in the public session over which the Pope presided in person. The voting in Public Session, all discussion being over, was only by aye or no, by placet or non placet. This method of proceeding was published in the preliminary assembly of the Council by the Constitution Multiplices inter on the 6th of December, 1869. It underwent afterwards certain modifications by which the complete discussion of every subject was even more fully insured.
On this method we may observe that the liberty of speech was as perfectly secured as in our Parliament, and the accuracy of debate was even more completely provided for by the full and careful written amendments, and by the repeated remodelling of the schema by the commission or Select Committee before it returned to the Council—that is, to a committee of the whole house.
5. The only other point in the method for the regulation of the Council of which we need to speak is the obligation of secrecy. In the beginning of the Council of Trent this precaution was omitted; wherefore, on the 17th of February, 1562, the legates were compelled to impose the secret upon the bishops. If this was necessary in the sixteenth century, when the press had hardly come into existence, how much more so in the nineteenth, when whatever is said to-day is published over all the world to-morrow. It is obvious that for the treatment of such matters as were before the Vatican Council a complete independence and tranquillity of mind were necessary—a thing impossible under the relentless assaults of hostile governments and an ubiquitous press, with the perpetual harassing of half-informed friends and the incessant misrepresentations of enemies. So much for the method and the regulations which were agreed to on the 3rd of November, 1869, by the commission of Direction, and confirmed by authority.
We now come to the last part of our narrative as to the events before the assembling of Council—namely, the matters to be discussed, of which it will be enough to give a list. They were six in number.
(1.) Schema on Catholic doctrine against the manifold errors flowing from Rationalism.
(2.) Schema on the Church of Christ.
(3.) Schema on the Office of Bishops.
(4.) Schema on the Vacancy of Sees.
(5.) Schema on the Life and Manners of the Clergy.
(6.) Schema on the Little Catechism.
On these, or at least on some of these, we shall have to speak hereafter. It will therefore be enough at this time to note one fact only.
6. In preparing the schema on the Church of Christ, which consisted of fifteen chapters, after a full treatment of the body of the Church the commission inevitably came to treat of its head. Two chapters were prepared: the one on the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, the other of his temporal power. In treating of the primacy it was likewise inevitable that the commission should come to treat of the endowments of the primacy, and, among these endowments, first of the divine assistance promised to Peter and in Peter to his successors in matters of faith, or, in other words, of the infallibility. On the 14th and 21st of January, 1869, the commission treated of the nature of the primacy; on the 11th of February it reached the doctrine of infallibility. Two questions were then discussed: the one, 1. "Whether the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff can be defined as an article of faith;" the other, 2. "Whether it ought to be defined as an article of faith." To the first question the whole commission unanimously answered in the affirmative; to the second all, but one only, concurred in the judgment that the subject ought not to be proposed to the Council unless it were demanded by the bishops. The words of this judgment run as follows: Sententia commissionis est, nonnisi ad postulationem episcoporum rei hujus propositionem ab Apostolica Sede faciendum esse. ("The judgment of the commission is, that this subject ought not to be proposed by the Apostolic See except at the petition of the bishops.") The one dissentient Consultor was an inopportunist The commission, therefore, never completed the chapter relating to the infallibility.
The Commission on Doctrine sat for twenty-seven months, and held fifty-six sessions, in which time it completed three, and only three, schemata. After the opening of the Council it met once only; and so its labours ended.
Two observations may be made on these facts. The first is that now, for a second time, when the subject of infallibility would, according to the adversaries of the Council, be expected to take the first place, it was deliberately set aside. The second observation is that Pius the Ninth had neither desire nor need to propose the defining of his infallibility. Like all his predecessors, he was conscious of the plenitude of his primacy. He had exercised it in the full assurance that the faith of Christendom responded to his unerring authority; he felt no need of any definition. It was not the head of the Church nor the Church at large that needed this definition. The bishops in 1854, 1862, 1867, had amply declared it. It was the small number of disputants who doubted, and the still smaller number who denied, that the head of the Church can neither err in faith and morals, nor lead into error the Church of which he is the supreme teacher, that needed an authoritative declaration of the truth.
As to the labours of the other sections, on Discipline, on Religious Orders, on Missions and the Oriental Churches, and on Rites, no comment need be made. The world has little interest in them, and takes no notice of them. The one object of its hostility is the Definition which has affirmed the divine authority of the head of the Church.
- ↑ Declaration of the Bishops, June 8, 1862, in the "Acts of the Canonisation of the Martyrs of Japan," p. 543. Rome, 1864.
- ↑ "Centenary of St Peter and the General Council," pp. 6, 7. Longmans.
- ↑ "Petri Privilegium," part i. pp. 28—33. Longmans.
- ↑ The theological argument may be found in the first and second parts of "Petri Privilegium." Longmans.
- ↑ "The Centenary of S. Peter and the General Council." Longmans. 1867.