Letters From Rome on the Council. Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ which may be called quite unexampled. They have, in fact, become already the legislators and trusted counsellors of the Pope, who sees with their eyes and hears with their ears. To those familiar with the state of things at Rome, it is enough to name Piccirillo. For years past they have implanted and fostered in the mind of Pius ix. the views he now wants to have consecrated into dogmas, and have managed to set aside, and at last reduce to impotence, the influence of wise men, who take a sober view of the condition of the times. When the Dominican Cardinal Guidi, who was then the most distinguished theologian in Rome, freely expressed to the Pope his views about the projected Council and the measures to be brought before it, from that hour he was not only allowed no audience of Pius ix., but was excluded from all share in the preparatory labours of the Council, so that he remained in entire ignorance of the matters to be laid before it. But the Jesuits are also the oracles of many Cardinals, whose votes and opinions are very often ready-made for them in the Gesu. The Congregation of the Index, which they used formerly so often to attack, blame, and accuse of partiality, when their own works were censured by it, is now becoming more and more their own domain, though the chief places are still in the hands of the Dominicans; and this may gradually take place with most of the Congregations in whose hands is centralized the guidance and administration of Church affairs in all countries.

      And thus, if Papal Infallibility becomes a dogma, what inevitably awaits us is, that this Infallibility will not merely be worked in certain cases by the counsel and direction of the Jesuits; much more than that. The Jesuits will for the future be the regular stewards of this treasure, and architects of the new dogmas we have to expect. They will stamp the dogmatic coinage and put it into circulation. It is enough to know the earlier history of the Society to know what this means, and what an immense capital of power and influence it will place at their command. “Rulers and subjects” – that will henceforth be the relation between the Jesuits and the theologians of other Orders. Worst of all will be the position of theologians and teachers who belong to no Order. At the mercy of the most contradictory judgments, as is already, e. g., the case in France, constantly exposed to the displeasure of the Jesuits, of the Curia, and of their Bishop or his adviser, and daily threatened in their very existence, how are they to get spirit, perseverance, or zeal for earnest studies, deep researches, and literary activity? Every Jesuit, looking down from the impregnable height of his privileged position, will be able to cry out to the theologians of the secular clergy, “Tu longe sequere et vestigia prorsus adora;” for now is that fulfilled which the Belgian Jesuits demanded 230 years ago in their Imago Societatis Jesu. Their Order is now really, and in the fullest sense, the Urim and Thummim and breastplate of the High Priest – the Pope – who can only then issue an oracular utterance when he has consulted his breastplate, the Jesuit Order.18 Only one thing was still wanting for the salvation of a world redeemed and regenerated once again: the Jesuits must again become the confessors of monarchs restored to absolute power.

      It is one of the notes of an age so rich in contradictions that the present General of the Order, Father Beckx, is not in harmony with the proceedings of his spiritual militia. Here, in Rome, he is reported to have said, “In order to recover two fractions of the States of the Church, they are pricking on to a war against the world – but they will lose all.” But for that reason, as is known, he possesses only the outward semblance of Government, while it is really in the hands of a conference. With this the fact seems to be connected that he has appointed for his theologian at the Council the most learned and liberal-minded man of his Order, Father de Buck – a man whose views stand in much the same relation to those of his fellow-Jesuits Perrone, Schrader, and Curli, as the Bishop of Orleans's views to those of the Archbishop of Westminster.

      Second Letter

      Rome, Dec. 18, 1869.– After the solemn receptions, and the formal opening of the Council, visits, audiences, and homages, the time for serious business has arrived, and the Fathers have emerged from the dim twilight of early synodical dawn into the clear daylight. People have begun to get mutually acquainted, and to question one another. The first chaotic condition of an exceedingly mixed assemblage, some of whose members scarcely understand one another, or not at all, has been succeeded by a sort of division, through the rapprochement and closer combination of men of similar views. As we related before, two great parties of very unequal strength have organized themselves, and the shibboleth which caused this division is the question of Papal Infallibility, which is universally and consistently taken to imply that whoever is resolved to vote for this dogma is also ready to give his vote for all the articles of the Syllabus, and generally for every dogmatic proposition emanating from the Pope.

      The Synod is unquestionably the most numerous ever held; never in the early or mediæval Church have 767 persons entitled to vote by their episcopal rank been assembled. It is also the most various in its national representation. Men look with wonder at the number of missionary Bishops from Asia, Africa, and Australia. If one considers the constant complaints of want of funds in the missionary journals, the great distance, the difficulty and expense of the journey, and how much these men are wanted in the ill-organized state of their dioceses, with so few priests, the question occurs, Who bears the cost, and what means were employed to rob so many millions for a long time of their spiritual guides? Meanwhile most of the Bishops are pupils of the Roman Propaganda, and obedient to every hint of its will. And the more the new dogma is combated, the more necessary is the imposing consensus of five quarters of the world – of Negroes, Malays, Chinese, and Hottentots, as well as Italians and Spaniards.

      More than two-thirds of the Council are either completely agreed, or at least won over to the necessity of making the personal infallibility of the last 256 Popes, and their future successors, an article of faith now. Since the original design of carrying it by simple acclamation has been given up, Manning has renounced the rôle assigned to him of initiating it. But the Bishops of the Spanish tongue on both sides the ocean – in South America and the Philippine Isles – have declared, in a meeting held in the apartments of their Cardinal, Moreno, that they are ready to propose the dogma. A Roman Cardinal said lately of Bishops of this sort, “If the Pope ordered them to believe and teach four instead of three Persons in the Trinity, they would obey.”

      The other party, opposed to the dogma, includes towards 200 Bishops, and this is more than even the most sanguine ventured to hope at first. To it belong the majority of the German, Austrian, and Hungarian Bishops, half the French, all the Portuguese, some Irish, at least half the North American and Canadian, and a considerable number of the Oriental. If the votes were not only counted, but weighed according to the intellectual standard of the voters, the 200 would be far the majority. Among the German Bishops, besides those already named, the two Tyrolese, Gasser and Riccabona, Leonrod Bishop of Eichstadt, and the Vicar of Luxembourg, belong to the Infallibilists. Ketteler of Mayence, half won over by his hosts – he lives in the German College19– half succumbing himself, is said to purpose deserting to the same camp. He, as well as Stahl, Leonrod, and Martin are hampered awkwardly by the Fulda Pastoral, which they subscribed, but when once the knot is loosened or cut, they have only to bring their assent to the new dogma.

      It is said in the ruling circles that an opposition of 40 Bishops and under is so small and insignificant in so large a Council that no account need be taken of it. This would be to give up the principle always hitherto maintained, even at Trent, that no decision in points of faith could be issued without the physical or moral unanimity of the Council. But as the dogma in question is one which for the future will make all majorities and minorities of episcopal votes superfluous and valueless, it may very well be that by anticipation, or by virtue of an exception which is now to be made into a rule, the minority should in this case be pronounced non-existent and undeserving of any notice. I hear other curialists say that, as soon as the Opposition is reduced to 40, they, under a sense of their impotence, will give up all resistance, and either quit the field, or come over to the conquering side. And so the present strength of the Opposition must be greatly diminished, and this is being strenuously laboured at. There are plenty of means for the purpose, and as long as there are Bishops who think themselves fortunate if they gain the СКАЧАТЬ