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

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СКАЧАТЬ that general cultivation which is assumed with us as a matter of course in a priest or bishop. And up to this time I have always found here that the predilection for the Infallibilist theory is in precise proportion to the ignorance of its advocates. It has been deemed necessary still further to help on this immense numerical superiority, and so the Pope, as I am informed, has appointed during the two years since the proclamation of the Council 89 Bishops in partibus, whose flocks are in the moon or in Sirius.

      And now for something about the course of procedure in the Council as to the Schema during the last ten days. There are only constantly speeches on each side, for a real discussion is impossible in the Hall, and it is obvious that it was chosen, and is still kept to in spite of daily experience, for that very reason.33 Some speakers, however, whom nature has endowed with a specially ringing voice, have made an unwonted impression. The most significant occurrence was Cardinal Capalti's interruption of Strossmayer's speech. The Bishop had touched on the novel and unconciliar form in which the decrees were to be published, as decisions of the Pope, with the mere approval or forced consent of the Council. It was an ominous circumstance that the assembly sacrificed by its silence the man who was speaking for its rights. Meanwhile there has been a wholly unexpected attack on the Schema by a host of speakers, so that Antonelli, on leaving the Council, said, in visible excitement, to a diplomatist who was waiting for him, that this could not continue, or the Council would go on for ten years. Strossmayer was followed by Ginoulhiac, the learned Bishop of Grenoble, who spoke in the same sense. The proportion of speakers against the Schema is overwhelming. In the Session of January 3, all four spoke against it, even the Patriarch of Venice. An impression was produced by the warning of the Eastern Patriarch, Hassoun, against embittering the Orientals, and driving them into schism by dogmatic innovations. The Italian, Valerga, named by the Pope to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, represented the Roman standpoint in its crudest form, but he had his speech read for him by Bishop Gandolfi.

      It is now said to be certain that Darboy, Simor, and Tarnóczy have been apprised of the intention to make them Cardinals. As regards the two last, the abandonment of all opposition to the Infallibilist dogma, and to every other decree on faith in a Papal sense, is an indispensable condition. But with Darboy the case is different: the Curia must take him as he is or let him alone, for he cannot be bought at any price. The irritation, complaints, and sighs of the Pope at having to make this man a Cardinal, who will not yield or apologize, have already lasted some years. The Romanist party have published in a Quebec newspaper the Pope's bitter and reproachful letter to him, to which he made no reply. Darboy was and is resolved to be the bonâ fide Bishop of his diocese, the largest in the world, and will not admit any arbitrary encroachments or concurrent jurisdiction of the Court of Rome to annul his acts at its caprice. “This stinks of schism,” say the Romans here.34 And therefore, according to Roman notions, he is “a bad Christian,” for he does not believe in Papal Infallibility, and will not vote for it even as a Cardinal. Moreover, nobody sees better through the whole web of curialistic policy, with its artifices, small and great, and he shows not the slightest sympathy for it, so that in any case he will be a very inconvenient and unprofitable Cardinal. At the same time he is a man of rare eloquence, rich experience and knowledge of mankind, and easily outweighs ten Italian Cardinals in culture and learning. And the worst of it is that this bitter necessity of elevating Darboy has to be accepted with a good grace, for France wills it, and France must still remain the magnanimous champion of Rome and the Council. Some consolation is found for it in the now openly proclaimed apostasy of Archbishop Spalding of Baltimore, who has hitherto been wavering, for it is hoped that other American Bishops will follow his example.

      If at the end of the first month we take a view of the situation, it is clear that the word “Council” requires to be taken in a very wide and general sense to include this assembly. It cannot be compared with the ancient Councils in the first thousand years of Church history, before the separation of East and West, for there are no points of contact. In the first place, the whole lay world, all sovereigns and their ambassadors, are entirely excluded from the Synod, which has never happened from the Council of Nice downwards. That was, of course, necessary, for even at Trent the French ambassador announced, on entering the Council, that his King had sent him to watch over the freedom of the Bishops; and certainly the ambassadors of Catholic Powers would have protested against the present arrangements and order of business, which give much less security than even at Trent. Here the Bishops are in a sense the Pope's prisoners. Without his permission they cannot leave the Council, they are forbidden to meet together for common deliberation, are not allowed to print anything till it has passed the censorship, or to bring forward any motion without the Pope's approval. It is the Pope who makes the decrees and defines the dogmas; the Council has simply to assent. Two rights only are left to the Bishops; they can make speeches in the General Congregation, and they can say Placet or Non placet. There is a quite luxurious abundance of means of coercion, impediments and chains; – with the Pope's 300 episcopal boarders, the 62 Bishops of the Roman States, the 68 Neapolitans, Sicilians, etc., all manœuvring with a precision a Prussian General could not wish to surpass on the reviewing-ground, the Curia might have fairly hoped to gain its ends, even were a little more freedom allowed to the Opposition section of the Assembly.35

      Tenth Letter

      Rome, Jan. 15, 1870.– On Sunday last the Pope gave audience to a great crowd of visitors, – some 700 or 1000, it is said, – at once, and took occasion to express before them his displeasure at the Opposition Bishops. He said there were some Prelates who lacked the temper of perfect faith, and hence arose difficulties, which however he, the Pope, should know how to overcome. In Church matters no attention was to be paid to the judgment of the world, as he himself despised it, for the Church's kingdom is not of this world. It has hitherto of course been held in the Church that the judgment of the world – that is, of their flocks, who constitute their own immediate world – is exactly what the Bishops ought to attend to very much, and to avoid giving offence to them and perplexing their consciences in matters of religion.

      The prohibition to hold large episcopal meetings, communicated to the French Bishops only through Cardinal Bonnechose, is not obeyed either by the French or Germans, who continue to take counsel together. The united Germans and Hungarians have accepted in substance an address drawn up by Cardinal Rauscher, and on Sunday, January 9, bound themselves by a reciprocal obligation, with forty-three signatures, to vote against and combat in all conciliar methods the erection of Papal Infallibility into a dogma. The Austrian Prelates stand foremost in clearness, decision, and courage. Rauscher, Schwarzenberg, Haynald, and Strossmayer know what they want, are full of true love for the Church, understand the greatness of the danger, and are perfectly aware that no positive gain, nor any of the important reforms so urgently needed, can be expected from this Council – the Spanish and Italian phalanx is too strong and impenetrable for that, – but they hope, at least, by energetic resistance to ward off positive mischief from the Church.

      The French on their part are active; Cardinal Mathieu, who returned to Rome, January 5, has opened a saloon in his house for the deliberations. Next to Dupanloup, Bishop Place of Marseilles, Meignan of Châlons, Landriot of Rheims, and Ginoulhiac of Grenoble, speak most decidedly. There are some thirty-five like-minded with them, and the inopportunists among them and the Germans are gradually coming to perceive that their position is quite untenable, and that to persist in treating Infallibility as a mere question of time and convenience, is to give their adversaries a safe and easy victory. But the Germans are further advanced in this conviction than the French. The now famous Infallibilist Address seems to have been simultaneously hawked about from two quarters, viz., by the trio of Manning, Deschamps, and Spalding, and by Martin and Senestrey. Who composed it, and how many Bishops have signed it, is still uncertain; the movement has come to a dead-lock, perhaps because the Spaniards, who talk of presenting an address of their own, don't want to sign it. Several Italians too refused to sign, and so the result has not been as satisfactory as was hoped, although it can hardly be doubted that the dogma will have 450 or 500 votes when it is laid before the СКАЧАТЬ