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

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СКАЧАТЬ and the reforms it needed. A simple Bishop would not have been suffered to do this, but they dared not interrupt a Cardinal. The speakers who followed, too, had a good deal to find fault with in the Schema, especially Ballerini, formerly rejected as Archbishop of Milan, and now titular Patriarch of Alexandria, and Simor the Primate of Hungary. This Prelate has protested so emphatically against the Schema and the treatment the Bishops have experienced at the hands of the Curia, that the offer of a Cardinal's Hat seems by no means to have produced the desired effect upon him. There are said to be still sixteen portions or chapters of the Schema in reserve, so that the authorities are already displeased at the length of the Bishops' speeches; and lately one Bishop gained general applause by saying he renounced his right to speak.

      We may gain some very valuable evidences in Russia and Poland as to how Papal Infallibility is already conceived of, and what hopes and fears respectively are entertained in reference to the projected new dogma. The six or seven million Catholics of that empire are very variously situated, and have different interests, and therefore, in some sort, opposite wishes. Among the Polish Catholics, who are just now being denationalized and Russianized, many are always looking out for the overthrow of the Russian dominion, and the restoration of a kingdom of Poland. To this party belongs Sosnowski, formerly administrator of the diocese of Lublin, whom the Pope has admitted to the Council. He is to represent the whole Polish Church at the Council, and is an ardent Infallibilist; he has accordingly given a severe snubbing, by way of answer, to the Polish priests who had communicated to him certain proposals of reform, with a view of restricting Papal absolutism, to be laid before the Council. His reply circulates here, and is also to be printed in a newspaper published at Posen. Sosnowski represents to the Polish clergy that the emancipation of Poland from Russia must continue to be the great object; and that for this a Pope recognised as completely absolute and infallible is indispensable. He appears to mean that such a Pope, being supreme lord over all monarchs and nations, can even depose the Russian Czar, or at least absolve the Poles from their oath of allegiance. He moreover assures them that Pius ix. has told him he reckons confidently on this emancipation of Poland from Russia. Here in Rome it is said and taught that the Pope is supreme master even of heretical and schismatical just as much as of Catholic sovereigns; for through baptism, whether received within or without the Church, every one at once becomes his subject. And we are reminded, in proof of this, how Pope Martin iv., in 1282, deposed the Greek Emperor, Michael Palæologus, and absolved his subjects from their allegiance, simply because he had made a treaty with the King of Aragon. This explains why the Russian Government told the Bishops who requested leave to attend the Council, that they might go to Rome, but should not return. The 2,800,00 °Catholics in Russia Proper, in the ecclesiastical province of Mohilew, think very differently from Sosnowski. A clergyman from thence said to-day, “If Papal Infallibility is made an article of faith, put into the catechisms and taught in the schools, it will bring us into a most difficult and desperate position as regards the Russian Government and people. We shall be told that our Czar sits in Rome, and that we obey him rather than the Czar at St. Petersburg, to whom we only swear a conditional allegiance, holding ourselves ready to rebel, if our infallible master at Rome absolves us from the oath; that we put his commands and prohibitions above the law of the land and the will of the Emperor. And thus, if Papal Infallibility is defined at Rome, it will be almost equivalent for us to a sentence of death on the Catholic Church in Russia, for everything will be done to undermine a Church regarded as an enemy and standing menace to the State.”

      Two new works have arrived here, each of which, in its own way, touches on the great question of the day. The one is a book of Dr. Pusey's, on the relations of the English Church to the Catholic, where he declares that making Papal Infallibility a dogma would destroy all hope of a reunion of the Churches, or of the adhesion of any considerable section of the English Church.37 Manning has assured them in Rome of precisely the reverse. The other work is the first Letter of the famous Oratorian, Father Gratry, to the Archbishop of Mechlin, a pungent criticism on that Prelate's brochure in favour of Infallibility, and on his gross misrepresentations of the history of Pope Honorius.38 Gratry also exposes the Roman falsifications introduced into the Breviary. It may alarm the curialists, when they discover how all the most intellectually conspicuous among the French clergy pronounce against their favourite doctrine, and their design of imposing it on the whole Church, and how the disreputable means employed for building up this system, by trickery and forgeries, are more and more being brought to light.

      The Pope's attempt to reduce 740 members of the Council to complete silence on all that goes on there has proved a failure, as might have been foreseen. A great deal has come out, and the Pope manifests great displeasure at it. In a conversation with a diplomatist, who asked him how, with this rule, trustworthy reports could be sent to the different Governments, he accused the French Bishops of violating the secrets of the Council, and called them “chatterboxes” (chiacceroni). Accordingly, in the Session of January 14, a more rigorous version of the order of business was read, to the effect that the Pope had made it a mortal sin to communicate anything that took place in the Council; so that any Bishop who should, for instance, show a theologian, whose advice he wanted, a passage from the Schema under discussion, or repeat an expression used in one of the speeches, incurs everlasting damnation! If your readers think this incredible, I can only assure them that it is literally true, and must refer them to the moral theology of the Jesuits on the foundation of the Pope's right to brand human actions, forbidden by no law of God, with the guilt of mortal sin, at his good pleasure. A Papal theologian, whom I questioned on the subject, appealed simply to the statement of Boniface viii., that the Pope holds all rights in the shrine of his breast.

      Twelfth Letter

      Rome, Jan. 26.– The grand topic of all conversations is Bishop Strossmayer's speech of yesterday; and it is possible to give a pretty correct description of its contents, which seem to have made a profound impression on his 747 hearers. The Bishop declared it to be unseemly to begin with the disciplinary decrees about Bishops and their obligations, because this might raise the suspicion in their dioceses that their recent conduct had given occasion to it. When their duties were spoken of, their rights should also be put forward. But, in fact, the reform must be carried through from the highest ranks of the hierarchy to the lowest, so that the Bishops should be introduced in their proper order. He spoke of the necessity of making the Papacy common property, i. e., making non-Italians eligible; for it is now a purely Italian institution, to the immense prejudice of its power and influence. He pointedly insisted on a similar universalizing of the Roman Congregations, so that the important affairs of the Catholic Church should not be arranged and settled in a narrow and jealous spirit, as had unfortunately been the case hitherto. And all matters not necessarily pertaining to the whole Church must be withdrawn from the competence of the Congregations, so that it might no longer be the case, as before, “ut qui superfluis et minimis intendit, necessariis desit.”

      Strossmayer insisted on a reform of the College of Cardinals, in the sense of its containing a representation of all Catholic countries in proportion to their extent and importance. The impression produced is said to have been most thrilling, when he exclaimed that it was to be wished the supreme authority in the Church had its throne, where the Lord had fixed His own, in the hearts and consciences of the people, and this would never be the case while the Papacy remained an Italian institution. And with regard to the more frequent holding of Councils, he is said to have reminded the Fathers of the Decretum Perpetuum of Constance, that a Council should be assembled every ten years. But the presiding Legates seemed to be greatly disturbed at the mention of Constance. The Bishop proceeded to point out that ordinary prudence urgently dictated to the Church the more frequent holding of Councils. The increased facilities of intercourse supplied means to the Church to gather more frequently in Council round its head, and thus show an example to the more advanced nations, who transact their affairs in common assemblies, of the open-heartedness and freedom, the patience and perseverance, the charity and moderation, with which great questions should be treated. Once, when Synods were more frequent in the Church, the nations had learnt from her how to bring their affairs to a settlement, but now the Church must offer herself СКАЧАТЬ