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

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СКАЧАТЬ is a characteristic feature of the case, that throughout Italy prayers are offered in all the monastic communities still surviving, and in all zealously Catholic families, for the definition of the new dogma. The fact is mentioned in English journals, and I have heard it confirmed here. It reveals the patriotic feeling, that Papal Infallibility is an Italian possession more or less profitable to every member of the nation. “The Pope,” as one hears it said here, “will always feel and think above all as an Italian; his decrees are manufactured by a Court nine-tenths of whom, at least, are Italians, and with his infallibility under our management, we Italians shall be able to dominate and make capital out of all other nations, in so far as they desire to be Catholic.” The Italian is generally a good calculator. However, Italian priests and prelates feel and know right well what every nation and national Church owes to itself. If the Papacy belonged to any other nation, the Italians would never dream for a moment of acknowledging the system of Papal absolutism with its grand prop of Papal Infallibility. One soon observes, in conversing with these Monsignori, how they despise in their hearts the French and German Ultramontane Bishops, while at the same time admitting the correctness of their views, and praising them liberally for rolling in the dust before the infallible Curia, and crying out to the Romans, as that orator Ekebolius cried out to the Emperor Julian, “Only trample us under your feet, the salt that has lost its savour.”

      Thirty-five German Bishops have declared at the beginning, that they are ready to subscribe the above-mentioned counter address against the dogma of Infallibility, pretty fully expressed in the form of a petition to the Pope, and among them are included those who were before of opinion that they had sufficiently discharged their duty by the letter they sent to him from Fulda. This is a praiseworthy example of harmony, but at the same time the greatness of the danger, which has now become evident to even the most trustful mind, is shown by the fact that all present at the consultation on this address bound themselves in writing to subscribe it. It is needless to say that the Tyrolese and the pupils of the Jesuits, with Bishop Martin, held aloof from the meeting.

      Another proof was given on this occasion of the very different measure dealt to the two parties. The Infallibilist Address was at once printed, though everything else here has first to undergo the most rigorous censorship. The Roman censors would, of course, have refused their imprimatur to the counter address, and there was some scruple felt about printing it out of the country, as though by an evasion of the Papal laws, and so it cannot be printed at all. Even Bishop Dupanloup has been refused permission to print his answer to Deschamps. The address will probably be subscribed by the Bishops of each nation in separate batches, so that there will be five addresses, coinciding in substance. Forty-seven Germans and Hungarians are reckoned on – so many have subscribed already – and thirty-five French. The Anglo-Americans have somewhat altered the wording of the address, and say they can command twenty-five signatures. But what is most remarkable is, that a considerable section of the North-Italian Bishops from Piedmont and Lombardy now come out as opponents of Infallibilism, and give promise of twenty-five signatures for the counter address. The decisive point with them is their relation to the Italian nation and government, for the Infallibilist dogma must inevitably lead to a hopelessly incurable rupture between it and the Church. To these must be added six Irish and four Portuguese, making in all an Opposition of from 140 to 150 votes.

      The great question daily mooted in the Vatican is now, how Infallibility can be erected into a dogma in spite of the resistance of the Opposition minority, for there is no longer any illusion as to an obstinate residue of anti-Infallibilist protesters being sure to be left, after allowing for the fullest effects of all the alluring seductions used. Precedents are sought for in the history of Councils where the majority has passed decrees according to its own will, without regard to the opposite representations and negative votes of the minority. But no such precedents are to be found. At all Councils from Nice downwards the dogmatic decrees have always been passed only with entire or approximate unanimity. Even at Trent, where the Italians, commanded from Rome through the legates, dominated everything, many very important decrees were abandoned after being drawn up, as soon as a few Bishops only had pronounced against them. If only this fatal precedent of the Tridentine Synod could be got rid of! The Jesuits investigate and refine, but, unluckily for them, one of their own body, Father Matignon, in 1868, when an Opposition was still believed to be impossible, himself established the fact, and justified it on doctrinal grounds;36 and that is made use of now. So there is nothing left but to labour indefatigably for the conversion of opponents. But people in Rome seem not to know “qu'on ne prend pas les mouches avec du vinaigre;” and that methods of coercion, intimidation, and discrediting character, are not quite the most effectual means, psychologically, for converting adverse Bishops, is clear from the tone again and again manifested in the speeches on the Schema, which has gained conspicuously in sharpness and explicitness. On January 10, a Northern Prelate, distinguished for gentleness and refinement, but accustomed to parliamentary contests, said he had been obliged to speak in the vigorous style usual in his own country of the entire absence of real freedom in the Council, for the insolence of the other party was becoming daily more intolerable.

      Eleventh Letter

      Rome, Jan. 17, 1870.– It is a remarkable phenomenon that Pius ix., who is every way inferior to his predecessors of this century in theological culture, lets himself be so completely dominated by his passion for creating new articles of faith. Former Popes have indeed had their hobbies: some wanted to aggrandize and enrich their families; others, like Sixtus vi., were zealous in building, or, like Leo x., in fostering art and literature, or they waged wars like Julius ii., or, finally, they wrote learned works, and composed many long Bulls full of quotations, etc., like Benedict xiv. But not one of them has been seized with this passion for manufacturing dogmas; it is something quite unique in the history of the Popes. Herein, therefore, Pius ix. is a singular phenomenon in his way, and all the more wonderful from his hitherto having kept aloof from theology, and, as one always hears, not being in the habit of ever reading theological books. If it is inquired how this strange idiosyncrasy has been aroused in the soul of a Pope who began his reign under such very different auspices, as a political reformer, the answer given by every one is, that it is the Jesuits, whose influence over him has been constantly growing since he took Father Mignardi of that Order for his confessor, and who have created and fostered in him this passion for dogma-making.

      The displeasure and discontent of the Bishops finds constant nutriment in the conduct of the Curia. They say that if these momentous propositions had been laid before them in good time, some months before the opening of the Council, so that they might have carefully examined them and pursued the theological studies requisite for that purpose, they should have come duly prepared, whereas now they are in the position of having to speak and vote on the most difficult questions almost extempore. The attacks and objections directed against the first part of the Schema in their speeches have not applied so much to the separate articles as to the general scope and tendency of the whole, and I have not been able to ascertain anything more certain about the matter, for the real elaboration of the Schema, and discussion of its articles in detail, has to be managed in the Commission; in the Council Hall it is impossible. As yet there have been only long speeches on either side, as in academies or in a school of rhetoric, which, for the most part, were not understood, and in which the main question – what shape the decrees are to take, if issued at all – was never grappled with.

      On Friday, January 14, the debate on the Schema opened. This is occupied with the duties of Bishops – their residence, visitation of their dioceses, and obligation of frequently travelling to Rome and presenting regular reports on the state of their dioceses; the holding of Provincial and Diocesan Synods, and Vicars-General. The duties of Bishops are the one thing spoken of, and the design is everywhere transparent of increasing their dependence on the Curia, and centralizing all Church government in Rome still more than before. Archbishop Darboy observed on it, that it was above all necessary, in examining this second Schema, to discuss the rights of Bishops, instead of only the duties Rome assigned them. Cardinal Schwarzenberg had really opened the debate in this sense, and he had the courage to speak of the СКАЧАТЬ