Front matter (continued 4)

Roughly speaking, Rome is about the size of Dublin. All the Catholic world sighs over the woes and desolations inflicted on Ireland by Protestant cruelty. Where has Rome set up a suburb like Kingstown, Dalkey, or Bray? Where sown a tract of country with rich smiling homes like those which spangle the emerald from Dublin to the Wicklow hills? Where in the oasis could a bishop on returning to Belfast point to a creation of wealth and beauty made in Papal times equal to Holywood, or the Antrim shore? And could his colleague of Cork dare to make the people who look on the lone banks of the stream from Rome to the sea mourn for those who hang their harps by the "pleasant waters" that flow within sound of the bells of Shandon? Had the Roman Curia reigned there, the vale would now be insecure; a wretched village or two, with skeletons and clouts by way of relics in tawdry churches, would crown the heights; instead of villas, mansions, and cots, a monastery or two walled up to heaven would hold the best points on the hills, inviting artists, but perhaps ill rewarding them, while nursing idlers within and beggars without. And had Rome less reigned at Cork than she has done, a scene many degrees livelier and richer than that which now surrounds the fair city would have noted the response of intelligent industry to the boons of a very bountiful Providence.

Inside the capital of the oasis!—capital of a region where for a thousand years, at the very least, no act morally wrong has been done by authority, true bower of a peerless Eden! Let no Englishman say that these pretensions are not to be treated seriously. We should all have said so thirty years ago. But now men from any nation in Europe, some blaming us, some vaunting over our return, will tell us that of late years more has been done to accredit these pretensions by a portion of the English clergy than by any educated class in Europe, and that more to adorn and sanction these pretensions has been done by a portion of the English aristocracy than by any privileged class in Europe. This is one instance more of the fact that not interests but principles are the safeguards of mankind.

Is the city, then, morally the perfection of beauty? Is it so rich in the Christian graces as to accredit the claim to be the central seat of an infallible power, the one spot on earth where it is directly touched by a divine authority? The priest at once tells you how holy the city is: there are eight basilicas, more than four hundred churches, and more than two hundred convents. Yes, but perhaps the "religious family" fabricated by teaching woman that her holy place is not the family which God founded, and in which every man has his own wife and every woman her own husband, may not in operation have proved a better thing than the Christian family. Poor creatures put into an artificial family where duties ordained by God are made void, and ties set by Him as strings in the harp of nature to make holy melody, are rudely unstrung—a "family" in which many of the things called good works are neither virtues nor graces, but vain repetitions of fantastic forms—a family where the obedience called for is not obedience to any natural authority or to any divine law, but to arbitrary will; communities of poor creatures such as these, we say, may not in the long run have proved centres of holiness. When we ask if the city is holy, we mean nothing about basilicas, or churches, or convents; but we mean, are the people like Jesus Christ, like a people prepared as a fit population for a sinless heaven?

We shall in reply give nothing but a statement on one side from the Civiltá, and one on the other from the prelate Liverani, so that neither heretic nor foreigner, nay, not even a layman, shall disturb the testimony. The Civiltá,[72] after the occupation of the city by Italy, showed that one of its characteristics had been the perfect subordination of all civil arrangements to evangelical law. Christ reigns, Christ governs. This motto had in Rome a worthy and complete application. Not only individuals, but the family, the city, laws, policy, all social institutions, felt the salutary influence. In the metropolis of Christianity, marriage, education, instruction, the administration of justice and charity, public and private manners, had to be regulated by Christian laws and evangelical principles:—

Such to a nicety was Rome. It was called the holy city, that is, the city more than any other consecrated to God and forming the expression of the kingdom of God upon earth. And the effect of this Christian order was seen in the very virtues of the civil population. The Roman people was not second to any other in piety towards God, and in propriety of conduct; and not only so, but it seemed the most dignified, the gravest, and the furthest removed from vulgarity and tumult.

The prelate on the other hand says—and we begin at the Vatican (p. 87):—

Thus came it to pass that at the Court of Rome, that is, the house of the lieutenant of Him of whom it is written, "The evil shall not dwell with Thee, neither shall the unjust remain within Thy sight," turned into a sink of scandal and a sewer of every foul iniquity (p. 87).... It was always to me a mystery how the Roman clergy, rich in gold and lands till most of the Agro Latino is in their hands, with their splendid temples and sumptuous ceremonies, with their retainers diffused among all classes, with control of the charities, the pulpit, the confessional, the confraternities—how it is that with all these elements of power in their hands I hear from one end of Rome to the other the cry, Death to the priests! (p. 87).... The particulars hitherto related disclose [in the Court] an iniquity only too deeply rooted, and even turned into blood and nature; they disclose sores both inveterate and envenomed, hard to cure and hard to eradicate. It was this that made Clement VIII say to Bellarmine, "I have not strength to contend with such a flood of bad habits; pray to God to release me soon, and to shelter me in His glory." Also the brave Marcellus II was accustomed to repeat a sentence of Onofrio, which I do not wish to copy (133).

As to the people, we shall give but one word. Liverani, remarking on objections raised against modern Italian rule by the "good Press," because certain houses existed in the cities, says:—

It reminds me of a pleasantry of the old rector of the parish of St. Angelo in Pescheria, who one day said to me that when he took charge of the parish he found one house bad and one not so, turn and turn about; but he soon found that they were all alike. This editor is ingenuous and innocent as if he wrote in a land of angels, instead of in the place where not long ago a prelate-judge abused his office to the point of using violence with arms in his hands against the sister and daughter of the convicts, so that he was prosecuted before the Vicar and before the Holy Office, and removed from the bench; but after a few years, the good nature of the prince being overcome by powerful intercession, he was reinstated in another judicial office.

We shall not go further into this subject than to add that one of the bitter reproaches cast upon the Italian senate by the Unitá was that when the most noted and most respected living man in Italian literature and politics, Mamiani, said, speaking on the conscription, that at all events the morals of the barrack-room were better than the morals of the convent, the senate received the statement with loud applause.

However correct or incorrect may be the views of the several witnesses from whom we have heard a word, there can be no hesitation in pronouncing that any attempt to show evidence of divine superiority utterly fails—so utterly as to be more than ridiculous. But if there is not divine superiority, there must have been false pretensions. The one or the other is inevitable. If the States of the Church have not for the last thousand years been ruled by the representative of God, they have been ruled by one who was himself deceived and a deceiver of others.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XIII

Solemn Confirmation of the Syllabus by the Pope before the assembled Hierarchy, and their Acquiescence, June 17, 1867.

The twenty-first anniversary of the accession of Pius IX occurred shortly before the day for which the great assembly of 1867 was convened. As the Court historian omits all mention of the Syllabus when first issued, so does he also omit to say a word of its definite confirmation by the Pontiff on June 17, 1867, and of its formal acceptance by the episcopate. We are indebted for the details in this case to an author who published before the events of 1870. Important as the transaction was, we cannot find that at the time any of the ordinary organs of the Vatican notified it to the world. Many of the learned disputants in the controversies which were soon to arise took ground which showed that they were unaware of this decisive event.

It was Archbishop Manning who related how Mass was celebrated in the Sistine Chapel, and how the Pope retired, at its close, to robe in the Pauline Chapel. Here the Cardinal Vicar, Patrizi, followed by the whole of the Sacred College and the bishops, presented an address of congratulation, concluding with hopes for many years of additional life to Pius IX, that he might behold the peace of the Church, and her triumph.

As recorded by the Archbishop, the terms employed by his Holiness in reply were of historical importance.[73] It will be remarked that the watchwords, deprecated by the Pope, are not those of heretics, but of statesmen—Unity and Progress; and no Italian or German could doubt what were the unity and progress decried—

I accept your good wishes from my heart, but I remit their verification to the hands 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 foundations; and I have not been silent. In the Encyclical of 1864, and in what 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 lay 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. When the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness, they had a pillar of fire to guide them in the night, and a cloud to shield them from the heat by day. You are the pillar and the cloud to the people of God.

Here the bishops learned, with the full weight of pontifical authority, that the Syllabus was "the rule of their teaching." Some explained the Syllabus as affecting discipline, and therefore liable to alteration. The Civiltá and the Slimmen had always asserted that it was purely doctrinal, and therefore above all change. In pronouncing it the "rule of teaching" the Pope settled that vital point. Some, again, had been tempted to think that the Syllabus might be laid up, like an ancestral weapon; they were undeceived, and given to know that it must be tested in war. Such were placed in the dilemma of having to offer resistance to the sovereign thus surrounded, or of having to observe a silence which must ever after carry the effect of consent. Even if they did not feel with the Pope, that the foundations of universal society were crumbling in unprecedented decay, they did keenly feel with him that the foundations of his own temporal power were crumbling. Every doubter held his peace, and the Pope's act became virtually what, as we shall see, in a few days it became formally,—the act of the whole episcopate.

The Pope is not fortunate in quoting Scripture, often showing that he takes glosses for the text. He imagines that the "cloud by day" was not a pillar before the host, but an extended field of clouds overshadowing the wide-spread multitudes and not merely the tabernacle.

FOOTNOTES:

BOOK II

FROM THE FIRST PUBLIC INTIMATION OF A COUNCIL TO THE EVE OF THE OPENING (June 1867 to December 1869)

CHAPTER I

First Public Intimation of the intention to hold a Council, June 26 to July 1, 1867—Consistory—Acquiescence in the Syllabus of the assembled Bishops—The Canonized Inquisitor—Questions and Returns preparatory to Greater Centralization—Manning on the Ceremonies—O'Connell on the Papist Doctrines—The Doctrine of Direct and Indirect Power.

June 26, 1867, was the day of the Secret Consistory, to which not less than five hundred bishops from all regions of the earth lent their splendours. The Pope in his allocution deplored the evils which had overtaken the Church, and, as he supposed, in equal measure had overtaken all society. And now, at length, did he reveal his intention of convoking such an assembly as had not been witnessed for three hundred years. He had firm hope that from a General Council the light of catholic truth would shine forth and scatter the darkness which enveloped the minds of men; and that the Church, like the battle-array of an unconquered host, discomfiting her enemies, rolling back their onset, and triumphing over them, would spread abroad over the earth the dominion of Christ.

Though journalists and bishops at the time bravely reproduced this martial figure, the Jesuit historian Sambin (p. 13), writing after the battles of 1870, makes the Pope say that the Church would gain her fairest triumphs by converting her enemies.

The very name of an Œcumenical Council, uttered in the tones of Pius IX, instinct with personal and official hope, caused among the assembled prelates a movement of effusive joy. They felt that such a council would prove a "marvellous source of unity, sanctification, and peace." On July 1, assembling in the great hall over the portico of St. Peter's, with all possible accessories of form, they presented to his Holiness what they called a Salutation. This had been drawn up by Archbishop Haynald of Colocza, assisted by Bishop Dupanloup, Archbishop Manning, and others. It had been proposed to proclaim Papal infallibility in the document itself; but this set the French prelates up in arms.[74] Though stopping short of that goal, the bishops go far in their approaches to it.

"May the unmeasured benefits assured to society by the Roman Pontificate," say the bishops, "be, by this deed of Thy providence, once more displayed to the world, and may the world be convinced of the powers of the Church, and of her mission as the mother of civil humanity!" They were persuaded that a Council would have the effect of showing that everything tending to consolidate the foundation of a community, and to give it permanence, is fortified and consecrated by the example of authority, and of the obedience due thereto, presented in the divine institution of the Pontificate. Princes and peoples would not, "in the face of such a display, allow the highest sanction of all authority, the august rights of the Pope, to be trampled upon with impunity, but would see him secured in the enjoyment both of the liberty of power and the power of liberty."[75]

The words in which the bishops confirm their testimony of 1862, to the "necessity," of the temporal power are few and firm. They then proceed to cover the space between that time and the present. "With grateful feelings do we recall, and with fullest assent do we commend, the things done by Thee subsequent to that time, for the salvation of the faithful and the glory of the Church." This is a waymark showing that the old doctrine still ruled the practice of the Court, though long banished from its theory. The acquiescence of the bishops was practically necessary to give the ultimate sanction to the acts of the Pope.

Then comes the solemn adhesion of the assembled hierarchy to the condemnations collected together in the Syllabus—"Believing Peter to have spoken by the lips of Pius the things which have been spoken, confirmed, and pronounced by Thee, for the safe keeping of the deposit, we also declare, confirm, and announce; and we reject with one heart and voice those things which Thou hast adjudged to be reprobated and rejected, as being contrary to divine faith, the salvation of souls, or the good of human society."[76]

So it was done. The Pope had called for the express submission of the episcopate to his own acts, hitherto variously understood and discussed, and they had given it in round terms. Dr. Manning, in characterizing their document as "The Address or Response, in which they united themselves in heart and mind to their supreme Head,"[77] might well speak of "the gravity and moral grandeur of that act," for with him vastness always seems to prove grandeur, and an act of vast moral consequence this surely was. We shall hereafter see the fact tardily come to light that absent prelates were called upon to give in their adhesion by letter, and did so.

On either the Papal or the Episcopal theory, the Syllabus had now the status of Church law, and had become to all the clergy "the rule of your teaching." On the Papal theory, because it was the formal act of the Pontiff for the teaching and ruling of the whole Church; and on the Episcopal theory, because the collective hierarchy had not only tacitly acquiesced but openly accepted it.

Yet it is worthy of special remark that the Syllabus is not mentioned in this Salutation. More than two years later, however, the Civiltá said, "There is no doubt that the prelates had the Encyclical and Syllabus in view, since in these two documents are contained all the things which the Pope has spoken, confirmed, announced, and reproved in matters of doctrine."[78] And even as early as one year from the time, we shall find that the double authority of the Bishop of Rome, and of all other bishops, was declared to be outraged by Darboy when he practically disowned the Syllabus.

The next point touched by the prelates was one lying near to the heart of the Pope. They had been moved with joy on beholding the loyal faith, love, and reverence of the Roman people for their most indulgent prince. "Happy people and truly wise"—Felicem populum ac vere sapientem.[79] So, whoever had doubted as to the Model State, it was not the five hundred. Were they sincerely ready to make the people of their respective nations "truly wise" by bringing them to look on that government as the model?

The bishops evidently knew that they were initiating a movement which would test the combative qualities of both Pope and prelates. Every discerning man among them must have felt what Archbishop Manning expressed, "This event may be taken, I believe, to be the opening of a new period, and to contain a future which may reach over centuries."[80]

Under anticipations so serious do these old men, addressing a very old one, thus conclude—

Courage, most Blessed Father! Guide the bark of the Church with a firm hand, as has been Thy wont, certain of gaining the port. The Mother of divine grace, whom Thou hast saluted with fairest titles of honour, will defend Thy course, by the aid of her intercession; she will be to Thee the star of the sea.... Thou wilt have the celestial choirs of the saints favouring Thee; those whose glory Thou hast, with diligence and apostolic toil, sought out, and also hast proclaimed to the exulting world, both aforetime and in these recent days. May the princes of the Apostles Peter and Paul stand by Thee!... At the helm now held by Thee once stood Peter. He will intercede with the Lord that the bark which, by the aid of his prayers, has for eighteen centuries traversed the deep sea of human life, may under Thy command enter the celestial haven, all sail set, and laden with richest spoil of souls immortal.[81]

It is to be remarked that in this passage Peter is not honoured, like his successor, with capitals to all his pronouns. Again, he and Paul are coupled together as if they might have been somewhat on a level. Perhaps in both points the bishops made an unconscious concession to history, but in the state of things now initiated, such jots and tittles were to become symptomatic.

One allusion in the Address, which would pass with a smile in England, had great significance for the mind of Pius IX. It is that made to his claim to peculiar aid from the Blessed Virgin, because of the higher exaltation which he had procured for her, and also to his claim upon new saints whose titles he had made out. In the case of the Japanese saints, we have already seen how practical were his views. He was fighting for the territory of his predecessors, and, finding that he had not hosts enough on earth, he reversed the ordinary process of binding on earth and leaving it to be ratified in heaven, and now bound in heaven, by creating "new patrons in the presence of God," leaving it to be ratified on earth by a corresponding increase of forces.

The vision of these new heavenly auxiliaries dazzled the imagination. Even the professor of history in the university speaks of the awful moment when the Pope raised them to their thrones as "the sublime rite, during which heaven and earth hung upon the lips of the Pope."[82] The expressions of confidence in these new-made powers, as champions in the thickening struggle for that patrimony which, though costing so much blood, forgery, and intrigue, so much dependency on foreign arms, so much slaughter of Italians, had been retained through evil report and good report, irresistibly remind one of Licinius when menaced by the advance of Constantine, under the auspices of one God only. Licinius feels the advantage he has in the numbers of gods on whom he can rely.

"This present day," he, as reported by Eusebius, says, "will either declare us conquerors, and so most justly demonstrate our gods to be the saviours and true assistants, or else, if this one God of Constantine's, who comes from I know not whence, shall get the better of our gods, which are many, and at present do exceed in number, nobody in future will be in doubt which God he ought to worship, but will betake himself to the more powerful God, and attribute to Him the rewards of victory. And if this strange God, who is now a ridicule to us, shall appear to be the victor, it will behove us also to acknowledge and adore Him, and to bid a long farewell to those to whom we light tapers in vain. But if our gods shall get the better—which no person can entertain a doubt of—after the victory obtained in this place we will proceed to bring a war upon those impious contemners of the gods."[83]

Even if this does not describe what Licinius really said, it does represent the view of the early Christian, as to the heathen mode of thought, putting confidence in a multiplicity of celestial patrons, in the lighting of tapers and such like.

The name of Arbues, the Spanish Inquisitor, has been mentioned as being second on the list of those now to be canonized. Professor Sepp, of Munich, long known as a Catholic theologian and Oriental traveller, says in his Deutschland und der Vatican (p. 52)—

Nothing was more calculated to degrade the Church, and render her unpopular, or to bring a flush of shame to the cheek of every Catholic, than this revival of the most disagreeable recollections of history. Had Arbues contended against the burning of heretics, we should have welcomed him, in the name of God, as a saint. But history gives us no information about the man except that he discharged the odious office of a Torquemada, and that the long-persecuted Jews brought him to an untimely end. The most that can be said for him is that he died for the idea of the Inquisition; and for that he is to be set up on our altars.

Many another Liberal Catholic blushed with Sepp. Baron Weichs, in Vienna, cried, "A single example will show you the difference between the spirit which reigns here and that which reigns on the banks of the Tiber. While here we speak of abolishing the penalty of death, there they canonize an Inquisitor, covered over with the blood of the victims whom he had immolated because they worshipped God in their own way." The Civiltá exclaims, "And men of this sort are to be reputed Catholics, and to make laws for Catholics. O tempora! O mores!"[84]

The Cardinals of the Holy Office had drawn up a list of questions on points of Church discipline, which was delivered to the bishops while in Rome, and afterwards sent to many, probably to all, of those who were absent. Lord Acton points out that these questions do not touch the depths of existing wants.[85] And Michelis seems to look upon them as a blind, to cover the real point at which the Council was to aim. They are, however, clearly framed to elicit facts bearing on uniformity of discipline, and especially on points of administration in mixed questions—that is, questions wherein both civil and ecclesiastical authority are concerned; for instance, schools, mixed marriages, civil marriages, domestic relations, and the like. The returns which the answers would supply would be of great value in the study of plans for reconstruction, and would seem to be of more practical importance than Lord Acton imagines, for the purpose of governing a mobilized clergy through bishops turned into prefects, by orders from one bureau, and of impressing through them a uniform movement on both institutions and families, in matters affecting national law.

The five hundred bishops soon dispersed to the four corners of the earth, carrying into their respective spheres enthusiastic descriptions of the beautiful, the grand, the splendid, the superb, the glorious, the unutterably majestic ceremonies which they had just witnessed, and no less enthusiastic hope of "the greatest event of the age," when the princes of the Church should assemble around her head to overawe her enemies and build her up anew. We do not use the epithet "divine," but it is perhaps right to say that the Civiltá described the appearing of the Pope "upon the portative throne, in all the majesty of his divine rank ... the Pope-king, the supreme representative of the two-fold authority which rules the nations in the name of God."[86] It of course celebrates the "standards which represented the glory of the Princes of the Apostles," and does not forget the "twenty thousand wax candles."[87]

Archbishop Manning reminded his clergy that in the solemn adherence of the bishops to those acts of the Pontiff, they did not confirm those acts as if needing confirmation, or accept them as if needing acceptance, or imply that they had been "of imperfect and only inchoate authority until their acceptance should confirm them." ... "They did not add certainty to what was already infallible."[88] The infallibility, he contended, belonged to all the approbations and condemnations alike—not, as some "blindly say," by virtue derived from canons, councils, or ecclesiastical institutions, "but from the direct grant of our Lord Jesus Christ, before as yet a canon was made or a council assembled." This is a somewhat crude statement of the doctrine which all the Irish and French Catholics we ever knew in our younger days resented, when ascribed to themselves by Protestants. They called it the doctrine of the "Papists," and contended that Protestants wronged all such Roman Catholics as were not Papists, by calling them so, indiscriminately. What we call "temporal authority," what the Jesuits have taught Rome to call "spiritual authority over temporal affairs," was one point, and the infallibility of the Pope was a second point, on which the Papist was at issue with the Liberal Catholic. In this sense Montalembert and O'Connell were not Papists. The latter says—

I am sincerely a Catholic, but I am not a Papist. I deny the doctrine that the Pope has any temporal authority directly or indirectly in Ireland. We have all denied that authority on oath, and we would die to resist it. He cannot, therefore, be any party to the Act of Parliament we solicit, nor shall any Act of Parliament regulate our faith and conscience. In spiritual matters too the authority of the Pope is limited: he cannot, although his conclave of Cardinals were to join him, vary our religion either in doctrine or essential discipline in any respect. Even in non-essential discipline the Pope cannot vary it without the assent of the Irish Catholic bishops. Why, to this hour the discipline of the General Council of Trent is not received in this diocese.[89]

The utterances of Archbishop Manning, though sweet to the ears of those who had the dispensing of the purple in Rome, were, nevertheless, hard on those who, as children, had learned that such doctrine was no part of their creed. In his day Alban Butler had proudly said, "But Mr. Bower never found the infallibility of the Pope in our creed, and knows very well that no such article is proposed [propounded] by the Church, or required of any one."[90]

Dr. Manning went on to declare that he had received the Syllabus at the first "as a part of the supreme and infallible teaching of the Church."[91] In this he proved how far he went before most prelates of experience on this side of the Alps and Pyrenees, although he coolly credits them, every one, with having done likewise.[92]

Just as the episcopate had been committed in 1862 to the temporal power, so was it committed in 1867 to the Syllabus. Whether a bishop believed that his assent had any constitutional effect or not was now a matter of comparative indifference, for his future action was bound; and the Syllabus was to prescribe the decrees and direct the deliberations of the future Council—in fact, to be its basis and its guide.

The language of Manning was treated by many Catholics as the menaces of a zealot; but the zealot knew that he spoke for the Pope and the Jesuits. During the conflict now on the point of breaking out, many honest men fought against the supposed design that the Syllabus should receive "doctrinal authority" from the Council, while in the mind of those in whose hands lay their future faith, the Council was under the doctrinal authority of the Syllabus. The Council might contribute to administration by turning the propositions into canons or constitutions, but could not add to their authority.

The anticipation of Archbishop Manning as to the political effect of the doctrinal change then impending was clearly recorded, and in terms never to be forgotten—

"Civil governments, so long as their Catholic subjects can be dealt with in detail, are strong and often oppressive. When they have to deal with the Church throughout the world, the minority becomes a majority, and subjects, in all matters spiritual, become free. We are approaching a time when civil governments must deal with the Church as a whole, and with its head as supreme; and a General Council which makes itself felt in every civilized nation will powerfully awaken civil rulers to the consciousness that the Church is not a school of opinion, nor a mere religion, but a spiritual kingdom, having its own legislature, tribunals, and executive."[93]

Some seven years after sounding this note, preparatory to a powerful awakening of civil rulers, the Archbishop, having seen some beginning of the results of that policy to which he was helping to hurry on his Church, could say, "I must add that they who are rekindling the old fires of religious discord in such an equal and tempered commonwealth as ours, seem to me to be serving neither God nor their country."[94]

The language of O'Connell, as above quoted, was not employed loosely. He spoke as a Catholic, and as a lawyer; but, above all, as a politician. Had his declaration with regard to the spiritual power been less explicit, that upon the temporal power might, though not without violence, have been open to an Ultramontane interpretation. It might have been said that he only meant that the Pope had no authority in Ireland, which either directly or indirectly sprang from a temporal origin; for, in the language of the Ultramontanes, temporal authority does not mean authority over temporal affairs, but authority of temporal origin. His statement on the spiritual authority however, precludes any such interpretation. Even the spiritual authority he declares to be limited, both in doctrine and in discipline: it cannot "vary" doctrine, and cannot even vary the essential points of discipline, without the consent of the Irish bishops. If spoken to-day, this reserve in favour of the bishops would involve nationalism; and O'Connell's denial of the Pope's infallibility, without the consent of the bishops, would be heresy. Archbishop Manning, with a great many others, sought to prove, before the Council sat, that the latter position was proximate to heresy. So O'Connell and Montalembert must always lie under the brand of having lived and died as proximate heretics. The elect champion of the Pope's faith to-day may, if he refuses to change, be the butt of his anathema to-morrow.

NOTE DR. NEWMAN ON THE SYLLABUS

It was eight years after the Syllabus had been formally confirmed by the Pope, and after its ratification by the collective hierarchy had been officially communicated to the Papal clergy in England by Archbishop Manning, that Dr. Newman treated of it in his letter to the Duke of Norfolk, in reply to the "Expostulation" of Mr. Gladstone. The assertions in that reply are among the most unaccountable known to the history of our literature. Still, such as they are, they have been made in a pamphlet bearing the name of an English duke on its title-page, and that of an English gentleman at its end. Moreover, they were received by our Press—and the fact is known throughout Europe—with perfect gravity.

Dr. Newman (p. 78) asks and answers an important question as follows—

"Who gathered the propositions out of these Papal documents, and put them together in one? We do not know." After no more than three sentences he adds: "The Pope has had the errors, which at one time or other he therein condemned, brought together into one, and that for the use of the bishops." On the next page he asks: "Who is its author? Some select theologian or high official, doubtless; can it be Cardinal Antonelli himself? No, surely; anyhow, it is not the Pope." First he tells us that we do not know who put it together, then that the Pope has done it, or has had it done. Again, in the same manner, he first tells us that it is not Cardinal Antonelli's, and then more than once calls it Cardinal Antonelli's (p. 91), as if his authorship of the document was an established point on which arguments might be grounded. Dr. Newman in this manner procures for himself a double set of premises, which he employs throughout, with frequent shifting. His argument now assumes the affirmative, namely, that the Syllabus is the work of the Pope; and now it assumes the negative, that the Syllabus is not the work of the Pope; and this is what the English Press with, so far as we know, unanimity agrees to call logical.

"But," asserts Dr. Newman, "the Syllabus makes no claim to be acknowledged as the word of the Pope" (p. 80). The very heading of the Syllabus sets up the claim to be accounted the word of the Pope; ay, and his word in official, public, and teaching acts. The heading is, "The Syllabus of the Principal Errors of our Time set forth in Consistorial Allocutions, Encyclicals, and other Letters Apostolic, by our most holy lord, Pope Pius IX." This claim is not incidental, but formal and capital, incapable of being either overlooked or put aside. No man's judgments are here introduced but those of Pope Pius IX, and of his judgments not one here recited is less official than are Letters Apostolic.

"The Syllabus, then," further asserts Dr. Newman, "has no dogmatic force. It addresses us not in its separate portions, but as a whole" (p. 81). The affirmative is true, the Syllabus addresses us as a whole. The negative is not true, namely, that the Syllabus does not address us in its separate portions.

Does Dr. Newman mean that there is a single one of the eighty propositions which does not bear the Papal brand, "error"? It is very wide of the mark—no man in England better knows how wide of it—to talk about different brands, some more and some less damnatory, such as "heretical," "false," "impious," or the like.

"There is not a single word in the Encyclical to show that the Pope in it is alluding to the Syllabus" (p. 82). This is said to refute an allegation of Mr. Gladstone, which Dr. Newman calls "marvellously unfair." That allegation is, that the Encyclical virtually, though not expressly, includes the whole of the errors condemned. It will be seen by any one who refers to our own remarks upon the Encyclical (pp. 5-7), that had Mr. Gladstone read it as we do, he would not have written what he did. He would have written instead of it something to this effect, that the Encyclical includes the whole of these condemnations, not by reciting them, but by clearly expressed reference. What he did say, instead of being unfair, comes short of what is required by the evidence contained in the documents. The reference in the one to the other is formal. "In pursuance of our apostolic ministry, and walking in the illustrious footsteps of our predecessor, we have lifted up our voice, and in several published Encyclical Consistorial Allocutions, and other Letters Apostolic, we have condemned the errors of our sad times." This language proves that Mr. Gladstone in saying that the whole of the Pope's condemnations were virtually though not expressly included in the Encyclical, was within the limits of the evidence. They are expressly referred to, and those additional ones contained in the Encyclical itself are linked on to the previous ones as a complement, making them a whole. In itself the point is of no consequence whatever, but Dr. Newman has chosen to make it important, and for his theory it may have some importance.

"All we know," says Dr. Newman, "is that by the Pope's command this collection of errors is sent by his Foreign Minister to the bishops" (p. 78). That is not all we know. We also know that the Foreign Minister did not, by the Pope's command, send it as the work of Cardinal Antonelli. We know that he did send it as the work of Pope Pius IX. We know that he recited in one and the same note, once for all, the language common to the two documents. 1. As regards what is condemned—"the principal errors of our times." 2. As to who it was that condemned them—the Pope. 3. As to the official acts in which he did condemn them, namely, Allocutions, and so on.

The next assertion we have to note is made in a strong interrogative form. "How can a list of errors be a series of pontifical declarations?" (p. 84). We reply, how can it be otherwise? What does an error mean in the language of such a document? It means errors declared to be such by the Pontiff; a list of such "errors," therefore, is simply a list of pontifical declarations. Dr. Newman knows as well as he knows his own name, that every clause of the Syllabus is a pontifical declaration that the words there written express an error.

Alluding to the forty-second of the condemned propositions, namely, that in the conflict of laws, civil and ecclesiastical, the civil law should prevail, Dr. Newman says this is a universal, and the Pope does but deny a universal. A universal may be denied in two ways. First by its contradictory, which may amount only to saying in popular language that the rule is not without exceptions. But there is another way of denying a universal, namely, by its contrary; that is, asserting that the rule is just the contrary of what some one has stated.

Now if Dr. Newman believes that when the Pope denies that, in case of conflict, the civil law should prevail, the Pope means no more than that there are exceptions to that rule, he believes what is in flat contradiction to the whole tenor of the Pope's language, and that of his organs year by year—language cast in forms as forcible as the case admits of. If he does not mean that, his repeated statement about denying universals is, in a technical sense, incorrect, and, in a popular sense, misleading.

Dr. Newman's treatment of the Sentence (24) which condemns those who say that the Church has not the right to employ force, is very instructive. First, he says (p. 89), "Employing force is not the Pope's phrase, but Professor Nuytz's." And what then? Is this phrase, "It is an error to say the Church has not a right to employ force" Professor Nuytz's or the Pope's? Next Dr. Newman says that what the Pope means is, "It is an error to say with Professor Nuytz that what he calls employing force is not allowable to the Church." And what then? What does Professor Nuytz call force but force? Schrader translates it "outward force." Dr. Newman does not venture so far as to translate it "spiritual coercion." The whole sentence is about temporal power and the use of force—Vis inferendae—potestatem temporalem; it never glances at spiritual censures in the popular sense.

At the next step, Dr. Newman professes to "set down what the received doctrine of the Church is on ecclesiastical punishments" (p. 89). Does he do so, or make any straightforward attempt to do it? Not by any means. "Ecclesiastical punishments" is a term of wide extension, embracing great varieties of penalty, from the deposition of an Emperor to the paltry penance of a nun. In all this range of inflictions, the single point touched by Dr. Newman is that of corporal punishment. The selection of this one point proves that he was perfectly aware that both Nuytz and the Pope meant force when they said force; and this fact reduces the talk about Nuytz's sense of that term to what it is.

But having selected corporal punishment as the whole of ecclesiastical punishment, how does Dr. Newman set down the received doctrine regarding it? By quoting a passage which, under the appearance of surrendering something, really claims something additional, according to a common usage with Papal writers (p. 89). Cardinal Soglia, as quoted by Dr. Newman, makes a merit of giving up on behalf of the Church "the corporal sword by which the body is destroyed, or blood is shed." This, however, the Church formerly never claimed to hold in her hand, but only in her power and at her beck, in the hand of the temporal ruler. But, in giving up the corporal sword, Soglia is not contented to claim for the Church in her own hand what the bull Unam Sanctam claims; that is, the spiritual sword. He does of course claim that, but he further claims that the same hand should have and hold also the corporal instalments "of lighter punishments," such as imprisonment, flogging, and beating with sticks—anything "short of effusion of blood." The last penalty is the stroke of the corporal sword, and is left to the temporal arm. The Church did not in past time claim two swords in her own hand, the spiritual one and the corporal. She only claimed a spiritual sword according to Boniface VIII; and according to Dr. Newman she claims also a cat, a cudgel, and a rack.

Neither in what he writes, nor in what he quotes, on this subject does Dr. Newman allow even an allusion to appear to the question whether the corporal sword is or is not in the power of the Church. He cannot be unaware that untrained Englishmen, in reading the statement of his authority to the effect that the corporal sword is by some writers withdrawn from the Church, would suppose that they taught that it is not in her power. Dr. Newman knows that such an impression upon their minds would be a false one. He knows that Cardinal Soglia does not give any hint that the corporal sword is a weapon which the Church may not employ. Dr. Newman himself does not give any such hint. To ordinary readers, indeed, he seems to resent the assertion that she may employ it; but even in seeming to resent it he does not venture to affirm that she may not do so. Much less does he say, in plain English, that such is the received doctrine. He engages us in chat about flogging and thrashing, and forgets all about where his Church keeps her corporal sword—the only one we care about. Not that we like even the instruments of flogging and thrashing, much less the instruments of other corporal pains which fall short of the "effusion of blood."

Dr. Newman, at one time, says that the Syllabus does not address us in its separate portions; and at another, shows that every one of its portions refers to an original document, in which that portion is to be found. These documents, he admits, are authoritative; but the Syllabus, which culls out the really authoritative parts of them, is not authoritative. We can hardly credit Dr. Newman with making a distinction of the following sort: that one is to feel bound by the Pope's judgments when they lie buried in a clumsy document, and not feel bound by them when they have been culled out by himself, and put simply before us. If Dr. Newman feels free to teach in opposition to any one of the eighty sentences as read from the Syllabus, though bound to teach according to it when read in the original document, what he has written on the subject may have some kind of serious meaning for himself, though incomprehensible to other people.

One other point we would notice. "When we turn to these documents which are authoritative," says Dr. Newman, "we find the Syllabus cannot even be called an echo of the apostolic voice." We certainly do not profess to find that it is so. It is an echo of a voice very unlike an apostolic one. But Dr. Newman means the Pope's voice. Of that voice the words in the Syllabus are not an echo, because they are its own words. Dr. Newman says that, as uttered in the Syllabus, they are not an exact reproduction of the words of the Pope; meaning by that, as found in the original documents. The words in the Syllabus are the exact words of the Pope used on a second occasion, and sometimes slightly varied from those he originally did use.

Dr. Newman has a passage in his own history which is not to be forgotten, and which ought to have made it difficult for him to stand on points about a variation of language made by a Pope, objecting that it impairs the authority of solemn documents.

There was a moment in the life of Dr. Newman when he still retained the freedom of a Christian man to teach the Catholic faith, ancient, strong and true. But he was on the point of parting with it—in the very act of swearing away that blessed birthright of his soul. He had already recited the form of sound words called the Nicene Creed, and had come to the point where the plunge must be made from the rock of Scripture, on which it builds, into the quicksands of tradition. In the modern form of oath which, at that dark moment, he was venturing to take upon his conscience, the first sentences, after parting from the language of the Catholic Church, the first that are the work of Rome, shift to another foundation from that laid under the old, scriptural, abiding verities. The true and noble old words, "the life of the world to come," built on the living Rock, are immediately succeeded by such preparation for modern inventions as the following: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions, and the other practices and statutes of the said Church. I do also admit the Holy Scripture according to that sense which holy Mother Church has held and does hold, to whom it belongs to judge as to the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scripture; nor shall I ever receive or interpret it except according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers."

This new thing in a creed was said by the Pope to have been ordained by the Council of Trent. If Dr. Newman had taken the trouble to see how far the terms to which he had to swear were an "echo" of those of the Council, he would have found that there was a discrepancy, considerable in words, but, in practice, monstrous. The Council decreed that no one should interpret Holy Scripture against the unanimous consent of the Fathers. That decree was confirmed by the Pope. It had thus acquired all the warrant of infallibility, and the most solemn guarantee for being irreformable that Rome had it in her power to give. This decree was "of faith." How long did it continue to be "of faith"? Only until the Pope prepared his Bull, collecting the dogmatic decrees into a novel creed. Then it was altered. The men who, henceforth, were to be the priests of Rome found themselves called upon to take oath, not as the Council willed it and worded it, that they would never interpret Holy Scripture against the unanimous consent of the Fathers, but that they would never interpret it except according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers. This was another will and another wording altogether. The latter amounts to little less than an oath that they would never interpret it at all, except on very few points.

To make the scope of this alteration clearer, let us suppose the case of Dr. Newman himself, while yet in the enjoyment of that ministry of the English Church which he afterwards threw away. Had he then been required not to preach anything contrary to the unanimous opinion of the bench of bishops, he might have felt tolerably free. But had he been required never to preach anything except according to the unanimous opinion of the bench of bishops, he would have felt—Why, I can hardly preach at all. Yet this vast change is made in a creed while its articles are passing through the process of being culled from the original documents, and presented in a collected form. In this form it was imposed by oath upon the consciences of men for ever. One and the same Papal hand signed its infallible certainty and irreformable permanency in one shape, in a little time afterwards altered its tenor, destroyed its certainty, reformed its scope, and then signed its infallibility and its irreformable permanency in the new shape. And an Englishman who swallows this camel in the creed stands between us and the light, straining out a gnat that he says has got into the Syllabus.

But what is the real teaching, as to the use of physical force, of Cardinal Soglia, who is soberly put forward by Dr. Newman before the English public as justifying him in crying out against Mr. Gladstone for accusing the Church of claiming the right to use force? Page 216: "The Church, exercising her power in the external tribunal, has been long accustomed to chastise offenders even with prison, exile, confinement in monasteries, whipping or flagellation, with fine, and other similar penalties; which, inasmuch as they affect the body, are commonly called corporeal." Page 219: "We affirm that in the inherent authority of the Church, by which she can coerce offenders with salutary penalties, is certainly contained the right of awarding such temporal penalties as consist in fine, exile, prison, whipping, and other things of the same kind." Page 222: "If a case occurs in which severer punishment appears necessary, the ecclesiastical judge may not himself resort to it, but he is to hand over the delinquent to the secular power to be punished according to its will. Besides, it is evident that the crime of heresy itself was brought under the cognizance of the ecclesiastical tribunals up to the point when the heretics, being convicted, and found obstinate, were first punished by ecclesiastical censures, and afterwards, being subjected by the lay power to capital penalty, were exterminated." Page 222: "The Church never pronounced a sentence of blood. Even the Inquisition smote heretics with the spiritual sword, and prison, but the lay princes subjected them to the last capital penalty." Page 217: "Perhingius believes that the Church does possess the right of inflicting capital punishment, but that she is not accustomed to exercise it, or to carry it out by ecclesiastical ministers and judges, but through lay ones, and by means of the temporal power, because the latter is more becoming, and more appropriate to the claims of the Church." What follows would, by internal evidence, seem to be added by Vecchiotti, but no intimation is given to that effect. Page 217: "He [Cardinal Tarquini] held that there is no kind of penalty with which the Church may not in her own right punish offenders; and thus temporal goods, reputation, rights of office and of heritage, and life itself, are subject to the ecclesiastical power. Otherwise the Church could not compel disobedient rebels, or avenge herself for their crimes, nor could she cut off rotten and noxious members from the body." Soglia, or rather his continuator, speaking of the moderns, Tarquini and "other doctors," and their doctrine of physical force, says (p. 217), "They derive it from the character and constitution of the Church herself, or from the nature of a perfect society and its end. Hence, just as in a perfect civil society the right of execution jus necis belongs to the lay power for the good of the commonwealth and of the citizens, so do they assert that none can deny that by stronger reason the same right resides in the ecclesiastical power for the spiritual good of the faithful."

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER II

Six Secret Commissions preparing—Interrupted by Garibaldi—A Code for the Relations of the Church and Civil Society—Special Sitting with Pope and Antonelli to decide on the Case of Princes—Tales of the Crusaders—English Martyrs—Children on the Altar—Autumn of 1867 to June 1868.

While in the provinces the bishops were kindling enthusiasm for the coming assembly, and for the movement of reconstruction in general, in Rome six Commissions were at work, under the Directing Congregation, making secret preparations for the Council. Each of these Commissions had of course a Cardinal at its head. The first, that for Theology, was under Cardinal Bilio, a monk, and a native of Piedmont, only forty years of age, and but lately raised to the purple.[95] Rightly or wrongly, as Vitelleschi says, he is credited with the principal share in the preparation of the Syllabus. Others, however, are named for the same honour. We ourselves heard a member of the original Congregation for the preparation of the Syllabus assert that it was Passaglia who first suggested it. Passaglia was a great Jesuit theologian, who lost position by declaring against the temporal power. The second Commission, for Ecclesiastico-Political Affairs, was under Cardinal Reisach, a man of sixty-five, an accomplished Bavarian, but so denationalized in manner and spirit, that his countrymen sometimes accused him of affecting to have almost forgotten German. For some years he left Rome to hold high place in his native country. As Archbishop of Munich he did much to supplant the old national faith by the Vatican one, and to unsettle the previously existing relations of Church and State. Under his eye the popular catechism of Canisius was changed. The answer, "The Pope by himself is not infallible," had done good service for centuries; but now it had to make way for a new one; and eventually the whole book was transformed by the French Jesuit Deharbe.[96]

The Commission next in importance was that on Ceremonies. If the theological one had to formulate the principles on which the world was to be governed, and the ecclesiastico-political one had to draft the rules and frame the executive machinery by which those principles were to be carried out, the Commission on ceremonies had to devise the scenic effects with which the movement should, to use a frequent expression of Roman, French, and even of German Catholic writers, be put upon the stage—the mise en scène.

Oriental Affairs, the Religious Orders, and Ecclesiastical Discipline, were the subjects committed to the other three Commissions.

A seventh, of which the official history makes no mention, was, according to Vitelleschi (p. 26), an object of great public attention. It was for Biblical matters, and the revision of the Index. Its President was Cardinal de Luca. But it inclined to a more liberal procedure in regard to the Index, gave offence, and after a few meetings, was discontinued. The official organs, as the same author says, buried it in oblivion, though its labours were of great public interest.

The renewed preparations had not proceeded long before they were once more interrupted by political events. From August to December the Directing Congregation could hold no meeting. General Dumont had been sent back to Rome, by Napoleon III, to inspect and harangue those French soldiers who now formed a principal part of the so-called Pontifical, or Œcumenical army. The national Italian party was excited by his presence and his speech. France forced them to feel that foreign occupation was discontinued only in name. Garibaldi, supported only by feeble forces, moved upon Rome with the reckless valour which had succeeded in Sicily. The movements of the Italian Government to restrain him were altogether inefficacious. The efficiency and zeal of the little army of "Crusaders" had been utterly underrated by the Italians. The Dutch, English, Swiss, German, and French youths who fought for the Crown of martyrdom were a different material from the soldiers of Ferdinand or from those of the old Papal corps. They faced great odds, and did right daring deeds. But they were too few. The ready French were once more called in. On November 3 they secured for Pius IX another respite by the battle of Mentana; but the Pope's own historian does not even name the French. For all that is said by Cecconi, not a foreign mercenary might have been in the Pontiff's pay, not a foreign regiment might have been sent to his relief. Indeed the word "foreigner," as applied to any baptized person bearing arms for the Pontiff, is offensive language—another fruit of this degenerate age. In opposition to certain "ill-advised" Catholics, who thought it a pity to have recourse to foreign arms, the Civiltá cries: "Foreigners?—the word is a great and odious lie! At Solferino the French were foreigners; at Mentana they were in their father's house."[97] So does the one belief that the Pope is the appointed lord of the world change the lights that fall on every national movement. We only saw the fact that at Solferino the French killed Teuton invaders of Italy, and that at Mentana they were the invaders who killed Italians. We shall find French mothers of "martyred" counts calling him for whom they fell, "our King."

When the lance of Garibaldi was thus, for the second time, shivered against the shield of France, who would have said that when next lifted it would be in her defence, after the armies that had for twenty years upheld the temporal power had gone into captivity?

The martial value of the religious motives and principles which animated the Crusaders, as contrasted with the Garibaldians, became a favourite theme for sacred pens. The Crusaders showed by their bearing that they were "conscious of serving the majesty of the God of battles." They lost no passing opportunity of renewing their strength at the altar.

The proud lads, in full equipment of war, bowed the knee before the altar, offered up their lives to God, and consecrated their bayonets to St. Peter; or hastily receiving the Sacrament, they arose with joy and seized their pieces, which had been laid down by the rails of the sacred table. Happy he who with his eyes beheld such elevation of thought, such constancy of purpose, such sanctity of Christian war march triumphantly through the Roman territory.[98]

On October 8, the correspondent of the Times at Berlin stated that Napoleon III had bound himself to leave Victor Emmanuel free as to Rome, provided the latter would help him in case of war with Prussia. Earlier than this, in the month of September, the Austrian bishops found themselves menaced with an abolition of the Concordat, and had to make a formal appeal to the Emperor against such a step.

"We have at this time of day," said Baron Weichs, "to decide whether we shall be an independent State, or whether, as in Japan, we shall have two sovereigns; the one, subordinate, residing at the Burg in Vienna; the other, the omnipotent Master, having his throne in Rome, at the Vatican, or, more properly speaking, at the Jesuit establishment."

The Revue des deux Mondes had spoken of these words as wise, even as very wise, and the Civiltá replied, "To us they seem to be nothing but buffoonery."[99]

In November, Napoleon III proposed that the European Powers should meet in a Congress, to decide upon some solution of the Roman question. After this proposal had failed, his Minister, M. Rouher, pronounced, in the Assembly, his celebrated "Never!"—the French would never permit Rome to be occupied by the Italians. This exclamation is often printed by the "good Press" in the largest capitals.

A fortnight after the day of Mentana the activity of the Commissions was resumed, and invitations were sent out to the theologians already selected in different countries, to come to Rome and enter on their labours. The Nuncio at Munich had not recommended any one from the renowned faculty of that city, but had sought his men at Würzburg. England was represented by Monsignor Weathers, and the United States by Monsignor Corcoran. On October 2, Cardinal Caterini wrote to Bishop Ullathorne of Birmingham, instructing him, in the Pope's name, to invite "the priest John Newman." Three weeks later the bishop replied, enclosing Dr. Newman's answer, which, however, is not printed. According to the bishop, Dr. Newman said that a journey to Rome would be perilous to his life, and though deeply touched with the kindness of the Holy Father, he believed that the latter would not desire him to come at the risk of his life, especially as nothing would be advanced by his presence in an august solemnity of such moment, unskilled as he was in matters of the sort.[100]

The language of Dr. Newman, as reported in this correspondence, shows that he had but faint light on the part which mere divines were to play in the Council. Probably he was misled by history into supposing that their part would be public and considerable. His place, had he gone, would have been upon an unseen commission; his share probably anything but an important one; and, as likely as not, his opinion might have been asked only in writing, and upon a question of Oriental affairs, instead of upon theology, as was that of his famous fellow oratorian Theiner. Of the very few German scholars invited to Rome who were not of the Jesuit school, one was Haneberg, who, according to Michelis, was so little consulted that he was soon back in Munich, to avoid idling away his time.

In March the Pope intimated his intention of issuing in June the Bull of Convocation; and then the purpled had to consider who should be summoned. The most serious doubt arose as to those useful fictions called bishops in partibus. They have much of what goes to make a bishop—the orders, robes, title, and consequence, everything but the office. Their want of this is delicately expressed by Cecconi—they have no determinate flock; which in lay language means no flock at all. The number of these Court followers have been so increased that Sepp illustrates the case by that of a government creating a batch of peers to carry some measure.

But such peers do not depend for their living on the men who want their votes. Even the Cardinals had not the courage to assert that creatures like these had a right to sit in the Council. They did raise the question of right, and left it formally unanswered; but their next question was, Is it expedient to invite them? They boldly affirmed that it was expedient.

In May 1868, it was decided that the only proceeding to be observed with respect to Catholic princes was that of communicating a copy of the Bull of Convocation to each Court. But should the princes be invited to attend? This question "was much debated among the purpled consulters, and was negatived."[101]

The decision thus taken was logical, for no one is a Catholic prince "as such" who does not place the law of his land under canon law; or, in proper language, who does not maintain "harmonious laws," recognizing politics as lying in the domain of morals, and therefore as being under the spiritual authority. When the controversy on the Syllabus began, the Civiltá had enjoyed a triumphant laugh at M. Langlais, a distinguished French advocate. M. Langlais had argued that the Encyclical would not have transgressed its proper boundary had it treated only of faith and morals, but that having touched the foundations of political institutions, it had transgressed that boundary. The Civiltá cried—

There exist then, according to M. Langlais, foundations of political institutions outside of the circle of morals! outside, consequently, of the circle of manners; or maybe, outside of the circle of human actions.... His argument assumes that the political order cannot be at the same time moral, or at least founded in the moral order, and assumes further that it must be separate from it, else he could not say that the Pope, simply by entering upon the political order, had gone out of the moral order (VI. i. 652-53).

It is not said that Antonelli in particular took alarm. But it is said that fears arose lest the "novelty" resolved upon should prove perilous; therefore the subject had to be reconsidered in the presence of the Secretary of State. The danger that might follow the brusque exclusion of princes was so felt that the former decision was on the point of being reversed. This shows Antonelli's ascendant. But his colleagues had a resource. Only six days before the date fixed for publishing the Bull, a special summons, not from Giannelli, but from Antonelli himself, called together the Commission at a quarter past eight o'clock in the evening, to a meeting to be held "in presence of the Most Holy" (coram sanctissimo)—i.e. before the Pope.[102]

Before the Most Holy! Thus are we placed in presence of the Eleven, and the kings are on their trial. The Nine are joined by the two men so dissimilar and so indissoluble, Pius IX and Antonelli, in whom, as an official biographer puts it, he early discerned "the man of God," appointed as his succour and stay in his divine office. At the head of the Eleven sits the portly, good-looking Pope, the beau-ideal of an important squire in a remote place—full of will, spirit, and self-confidence, with more art in governing than he has got credit for, at least in that domineering and deluding which avails with priests. He would be as hilarious as a squire who never put to death anything more precious than a pheasant, and never cursed even a gamekeeper with any intention that his curse should be bound in heaven.

Pius IX would now feel all the weight of his office. He was sitting as supreme Judge, to decide upon the claims of the kings of the earth. Were they worthy or were they not worthy to be received into the Council which was to lay "the corner-stone of reconstruction," the Council in which the prerogatives rightfully claimed by his predecessors of blessed memory, but from which the Church, slow of heart to believe, had hitherto withheld her former sanction, were at last to be openly acknowledged in his person?

No one could doubt what view Pius IX would take. The kings were clearly guilty. They had consented to the voice of their people against the voice of the Church. They had abolished harmonious laws. The internal tribunal was reduced to a voluntary confessional; the external tribunal, in most places, was removed, and everywhere subordinated. Even as to the Supreme Tribunal, who hearkened to the words, "Know that thou art the Father of princes and of kings, and the Governor of the world?"

When the call for Trent went forth, the only doubtful crowns were two lying away between civilization and Cimmerian night in England and Sweden. Now on every hand the word was, There are no Catholic princes. That old English crown was now represented by two monsters of power, the British Empire and the United States. Two other monsters had come up, Prussia and Russia. Spain was fallen, Poland was extinct, Italy was hostile, Austria was enfeebled, France was strong but not sound—there were no Catholic States. The social system was indeed in ruins. It was only by clearing away that the foundations for reconstruction could be properly laid; but clearing away was attended with danger. The princes were not to be invited, but they were to be allowed to claim admission. The Bull was then and there altered in this sense.[103]

Meanwhile symptoms of the coming conflict began to appear. Catholics of all classes looked forward to great events for the Church and the nations. Those who did not share the hopes of the hidden Council, or who recoiled from the dogmas likely to be decreed, felt anxious. The Press began to pour out pamphlets and reprints, enabling all to read up on the question of Councils.

"The Crusaders of St. Peter" was the title of historical tales now regularly appearing in the Civiltá, which continued for years. The object was to make the blood of Mentana the seed of a great œcumenical army. Every incident was described with vivid conception and boundless faith in the destiny of the Papacy, with faith too in the duty of all to rear up sons for the Crusade, and faith that those who fell escaped purgatorial pains and found direct entrance among the beatified.

The following are passages scattered here and there—

It was a sight to rejoice the angels in heaven, that of these brave men laying down the carabine to perform the little office of the Virgin, and then turning from the little office of the Virgin to take up the carabine.... On the march fatigue was lightened by reciting the prayer which had so often conquered the foes of the Church, the rosary.... The masters of war know that on the field of battle the last army to deserve ridicule is an army fresh from confession and communion.... A young gentlewoman gave birth to her first-born. "How long it will be," she said, "ere he can carry a musket! But Pius IX can do anything. He can make a zouave even now of my Eugenio." Melted by such faith, the Pope wrote a benediction on a paper "consecrated to him" by the infant. The venerated word was placed in the domestic sanctum, and in return for it "the zouave at the breast will do a soldier's service." Some weeks later, on receiving from him a first oblation, the Pope again wrote a word for "his soldier in swaddling clothes." The family were overjoyed at being permitted within five months to kiss two Papal autographs. The mother wrote, "Eugenio was asleep. I ran to put the Papal benediction on his head and forehead. He immediately broke out in a smile, and to me he looked like an angel. I could not restrain my tears. He still slept, but bounded for joy as long as I kept the blessed letters on his little head.... Should the avengers of Mentana try their hand, the zouave will lisp his first word crying Viva Maria!"

Arthur Guillemin said to his crusaders as he led them to the attack at Monte Libretti, fresh from absolution, "You are all in the grace of God; do not count them, they will fall into our hands." They marched into battle, some with the rosary round their neck, some with the Carmelite scapular on their breast, and some with the cord of St. Francis round the loins, just like that model of a crusader St. Louis. The young Count de Quélen, who fell heroically at Monte Libretti, had just received a letter from his mother. "If thou art to die, my good Urban, die like a hero, like a soldier of God." After his death she writes to a friend in Rome—

"My beloved son is dead—died for his God. Oh what a comfort is that thought amid this desolation! He fell like the brave, defending the Church and our venerated Pontiff. Was it not a signal favour granted to him by that Lord who is so good that He put it into his heart to shed every drop of his blood for Him, and by this very means to bring him to paradise, where Urban henceforth—yes, I dare believe it—enjoys the vision of his God, and is beatified for all eternity, with beatitude unmixed?" [Thus it was plain that having fallen in battle he had, as the writer of the story says, "seized the palm of martyrdom, as he, following St. Louis, called it," and so had escaped the pains of purgatory.] "If," continues the mother to her friend, "you go to a reception of our holy and venerated Pontiff and King, assure him, I pray you, that I am happy that my son has shed his blood for him."

When the body arrived at Quimper, two hundred priests and a crowd uncounted from the surrounding Breton villages came, "rather to venerate than to pray for the departed." The houses were draped in black, the black was decked with the French and the Papal flags; on the coffin lay his sword, twined with laurels and crowned with vermilion. The bishop pronounced the panegyric "magnifying him as a martyr for religion." Mrs. Stone, a volunteer sister of charity, went from Rome to Nerola to visit the wounded prisoners in the hands of the Garibaldians, and especially Alfred Collingridge. The dying crusader said, "The Lord has given me the favour I asked—to die for the Holy Father. Oh, yes, may God accept of my death and my blood for the triumph of Holy Church and for the conversion of England!" He complained that his rosary had been taken away, and Mrs. Stone supplied him with her own. Alfred Collingridge, from Oxford, "was the first of the English who laid down his life in the Crusade of St. Peter." The writer prays, "May this first English blood shed on Roman soil rise up before God, and descend again in a dew of mercy on the land of Britain!" Of Alfred's countrymen were present, his own brother George, two Watts-Russells, David Shee, and Oswald Cary, "all soldiers of St. Peter" (VII. v. 155 ff.). The father hearing from George of the death of Alfred, had only one regret, that he could not himself step into his vacant place.

When Arthur Guillemin fell he was unhappily consigned to a grave in common with Garibaldians; because it "was not then possible to separate in the grave the friends of God from His enemies." Six months later, Fathers Wilde and Gerlache, with others, piously sought the body of the martyr to restore it to his native Aire-sur-la-Lys, by express desire of Pius IX. Canon Druot had come to Rome to claim it in the name of the family, the country, and the Church of Guillemin's birth. The seekers of the relic included an O'Reilly, a Le Dieu, a Bach, a Loonen, and a Mimmi. "You will find him," said a peasant, "with a Garibaldian at his feet." The first object recognized was a Carmelite scapular. "It is like mine," cried an officer; "two both alike were given to him and me by the Countess Macchi!" Soon was seen the end of the cord of St. Francis, worn by the deceased in imitation of St. Louis of France. As the corpse was borne off to Rome, the people pressed around and cried Evviva!—Long life to him! This cry "strange around a bier," expressed a "profound sense of the marvellous," and threw "a glittering light upon the idea formed by Christians of those who fall fighting in the modern crusade." At Rome, in the great Church of St. Louis of France, the bier was surrounded by ambassadors, prelates, and officers, including the Minister of War. At home, the "precious deposit" was received in an illuminated chapel, decorated, not with symbols of death, but of glory. "The crowd of pilgrims from the whole of northern France" thronged the town. The bier was adorned with symbols of victory, the work of Roman artists. The coffin was borne by the youth of the town, emulous by changes to come under the coveted burden. A party of pontifical zouaves in uniform attended. From the corners of the hearse rose trophies of the pontifical flag "garlanded with triumphal laurel." While yet the corpse lay in the illuminated chapel, a new-born nephew of Arthur was borne in by the mother, who "piously laid him upon the coffin, as used the ancient Christians to lay their little ones on the sepulchres of the martyrs. A thrill of reverence went through the assembly." During the funeral procession, the eyes of the multitude "were fixed with devout curiosity on a piece of his uniform spread out upon the bier, in which was seen the rent made by the wound" (VII. iv. 415).

Aire-sur-la-Lys is not very far from our own shores, beyond Calais.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER III

Bull of Convocation—Doctrine of the Sword—The Crusade of St. Peter—Incidents—Mission to the Orientals, and Overtures to Protestants in different Countries—June 1868 to December 1868-69.

It was on St. Peter's Day, June 29, 1868, that the Bull of Convocation was issued. According to the Pope's promise, the Council was to meet on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1869.

The language of the Bull was diplomatically vague as to the objects of the assembly, but awfully explicit as to the authority by which it was convened. Not in an obiter dictum, but in legislative language jointed to bear the strain of ages, a claim is set up, as Sepp points out, to exercise the authority of the whole Trinity, and, indeed, we may add, whatever further authority Peter and Paul can lend. "Confiding in and supported by the authority of Almighty God Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of His blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, which we also exercise upon earth."[104] It ought to be remembered that M. Veuillot writes down the date of this Bull as the day on which the middle ages died. The indication of objects, though vague to us, sufficed for the initiated. Ce qui se Passe au Concile says (p. 9)—

The Pope repeatedly intimates that the Church has the right "to redress the errors which turn civil society upside down, ... to preserve the nations from bad books and pernicious journals, and from those teachers of iniquity and error to whom the unhappy youth are confided whose education is withdrawn from the clergy; ... to defend justice, ... to assure the progress and solidity of the human sciences." This somewhat confounds things spiritual and temporal; but those political allusions drowned in the usual digressions of Pontifical documents, passed unobserved.

If they passed unobserved in Roman Catholic countries, where journalists did know a little of the modes of pontifical speech, how much more in countries like England and America, where at that time it was considered unintelligent to speak or write upon the subject from knowledge, the proper thing being a serene superiority to study, and a judicious expression of opinions caught in the air.

To obviate the objection that the assembly would be only a synod of the Western Church, and not an Œcumenical Council, the Bull was followed by Letters Apostolic addressed to all prelates of the Oriental Churches not holding communion with Rome.[105] Until the Vatican Council these were regarded only as schismatics, not as heretics. Therefore the Pope invited them to come, and by submitting to the See of Rome to complete the union. This invitation was dated September 8; and on the 13th of that month a "paternal letter" went forth, to Protestants and other non-Catholics. All these, from Anglican Ritualists down to the smallest sects, were grouped together, not being called to take any part in the Council, but to seize the occasion of joining the Pope's Church by renouncing their heresies and submitting to his authority.

Although the approach of the Council excited little attention in Protestant countries, it began to be discussed in Roman Catholic ones with an interest which rapidly warmed to excitement. The tremendous significance attached by Ultramontane authorities to the Bull, especially to the non-invitation of princes, and to the coming struggle with the Modern State, was enough to rouse Catholics who did not sympathize with the aims indicated. The Civiltá put the alternative as between the end of the world or its salvation by the Council. "Either, in the inscrutable designs of God, human society is destined to perish, and we are close upon the supreme cataclysm of the last day, or the salvation of the world is to be looked for from the Council and from nothing else."[106] Language like this is not to be smiled at when it goes to the heart of perhaps half a million of ecclesiastics, each one of whom transmits the impression through a wide circle. The following passage in the same article may be laid to heart. A good part of it is quoted by Janus, with the remark that it needs but a step further to declare the Pontiff an incarnation of God.

The Pope is not a power among men to be venerated like another. But he is a power altogether divine. He is the propounder and teacher of the law of the Lord in the whole universe; he is the supreme leader of the nations to guide them in the way of eternal salvation; he is the common father and universal guardian of the whole human species in the name of God.... The treasures of revelation, the treasures of truth, the treasures of righteousness, the treasures of supernatural graces upon earth, have been deposited by God in the hands of one man, who is the sole dispenser and keeper of them. The life-giving work of the divine incarnation, work of wisdom, of love, of mercy, is ceaselessly continued in the ceaseless action of one man, thereto ordained by Providence. This man is the Pope. This is evidently implied in his designation itself—The Vicar of Christ. For if he holds the place of Christ upon earth, that means that he continues the work of Christ in the world, and is in respect of us what Christ would be were He here below, Himself visibly governing the Church.... It is, then, no wonder if the Pope, in his language, shows that the care of the whole world is his, and if, forgetting his own peril, he thinks only of that of the faithful nations. He sees aberrations of mind, passions of the heart, overflowing vices; he sees new wants, new aspirations; and holding out to the nations a helping hand, with the tranquillity of one securely seated on the throne given him by God, he says to them, Draw nigh to me, and I will trace out for you the way of truth and charity which alone can lead to the desired happiness.[107]

Such divines as held that the proper work of a General Council was to heal schisms or combat heresies, remarked on the absence of both. Such as were unwilling to see the Church straining after temporal power, and placing herself in antagonism to freedom and light, could ill conceal their anxiety. But the Jesuits everywhere hailed the dawning of a wonderful day.

On Saturday, October 17, 1868, the Abbé Testa, accompanied by three other priests, went to the palace of the Patriarch of Constantinople, bearing the Pope's letter to the Oriental bishops. The Vicar-General received the four Latin priests, and introduced them to his Holiness the Patriarch, whose hand they kissed. The Patriarch, on his part, embraced them, and expressed his pleasure at seeing them. The Abbé Testa then drew a richly adorned little book from his pocket and offered it to the Patriarch, while one of his brethren told his Holiness, in Greek, that they had come to invite him to attend the Œcumenical Council, and begged him to receive the letter of invitation.

His Holiness motioned to the Abbé Testa to lay the little book down near him, and said, "Had not the Giornale di Roma published the letter whereby his Holiness summons us to Rome to a Council, which he calls œcumenical, and had we not thus learned the object and contents of the letter, and also the principles of his Holiness, we should have received a communication from the Patriarch of old Rome with the utmost pleasure, in hope of finding some change in his mode of thinking. As, however, this invitation is in the journals, and as his Holiness has proclaimed views in direct opposition to the principles of the orthodox Churches of the East, we declare to you, Reverend Fathers, with grief and at the same time with sincerity, that we cannot receive either such an invitation or such a letter, which only assert principles opposed to the spirit of the Gospel and to the declarations of the Œcumenical Councils and of the Holy Fathers."

The Patriarch proceeded to refer to the Pope's former advances, and delicately hinted that when they had objected that he held principles which were to be regretted, his reply showed that he was so much pained that it was better not to put him to grief a second time. "In short, we look for the true settlement of the question to history. Ten centuries ago there was one Church, confessing the same faith in East and West, in old Rome and new Rome. Let us go back for that period, and let us see who has added and taken away. Let us suppress innovations, if such there are, and then shall we imperceptibly find ourselves at that point of Catholic orthodoxy from which Rome was pleased gradually to diverge in the earlier centuries, ever widening the gulf of separation more and more by new dogmas and definitions which depart from the holy traditions."

The Abbé Testa asked what principles his Holiness spoke of.

"Without entering into minute points," replied the Patriarch, "we can never admit that wherever the Church of our Saviour extends upon earth any Chief Bishop exists in the midst of her except our Lord, or that there is a Patriarch who is infallible whenever he speaks ex cathedrâ, who is exalted above the Œcumenical Councils, to which alone infallibility attaches, seeing that they always held to holy scripture and apostolic tradition."

The Abbé referred to the Council of Florence, and received a full and courteous answer. The Patriarch at last said, "If you would see that union realized which we all desire, place yourselves on the ground of history and of the General Councils; or, if that is too hard upon you, let us all pray to God for peace to the world and prosperity and union to the Church. For the moment, we declare, with pain, that this invitation is fruitless and this circular of no effect."

The four Latins urged that prayer alone did not suffice; if one was sick we not only prayed but employed means of cure. "When the sickness is spiritual," replied the Patriarch, "the Lord alone knows who is the sick man, how he suffers, what is the root of the malady, and what the real cure. I say again there is urgent necessity for ceaseless prayer to the Lord of the whole earth, that He may guide all to conclusions well pleasing to God."

The Patriarch then directed the Vicar-General to hand back the little book, and the four abbés took their leave, accompanied to the stair by the Vicar-General.[108]

Speaking of this interview, the Stimmen aus Maria Laach said, "Neither by his words nor his deeds did the Patriarch manifest polish, theological science, or ecclesiastical education."[109]

The invitation was rejected by the Metropolitan of Ephesus, and the Bishops of Varna and Thessalonica. The Metropolitan of Chalcedon wrote upon it Epistrephete—"Be converted"—and returned it. The Patriarch of Antioch sent the letter back, and his ten bishops did the same. So also the orthodox Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem and his bishops (Friedberg, p. 70). The Bishop of Thessalonica assigned four reasons, the last of which called forth a laboured reply from the Jesuits of Laach. "The Pope is a king," said the Oriental, "and wields the sword, which is contrary to the gospel." The reply was that the existence of the small but heroic army of the Pope was not due so much to any will of his as to the nature of his office as chief shepherd of the universal Church. The army and the temporal power, "without which this office cannot exist," were manifestly necessary. But then the "schismatical bishop" asks if bearing the sword is not contrary to the gospel. No; for in the very words of the gospel Christ allowed the apostles to bear two swords.

Having reached this practical point in the teaching of Boniface VIII, the writer goes on to show that Peter was not told to cast his sword away, but only to put it up into the sheath; which clearly meant that he was to bear it. If he was reproved for using it, that was because, though he had asked permission to do so, he had not yet received it; for, in fact, at that point of time, the supreme power promised to Peter had not been actually bestowed upon him. But seeing that he was told to keep the sword, are we to suppose that when he did become ruler, he and his successors for all time were to keep it hanging at their sides, as a useless weight? Certainly not; "he beareth not the sword in vain." The writer would probably have called any one an infidel who expected a literal fulfilment of the words "all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."

In reviewing the reception given in the East to the Bull, consolation was drawn from the fact that the Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople had raised the brief to his forehead. But the Catholikos of the same Church in the See of Etschmiazin rejected it with decision. The ill-success of these overtures displeased the "good Press." Pius IX had been flattered into the belief that he had in great measure "restored" the ascendancy of the Pontiff over the East. Even Archbishop Manning had said enough in print to show that he came back from Rome in 1867 with some such idea, and prelates of more experience had done the same.

Representations as to the readiness of Protestants to submit, had led to the letter to Protestants. Bishop Martin of Paderborn had strong hopes of those in Germany, and set store by some odd letters, said to be from Protestant clergymen, which, however, seem to be either spurious, or from men not likely to lead anybody.[110] Archbishop Manning, after several sentences coloured by a pontifical imagination, had said, "The Council of Trent fixed the epoch after which Protestantism never spread. The next General Council will probably date the period of its dissolution."[111]

Between the date of the Bull of Convocation and that of the invitation to the Orientals, the Pope performed two journeys to the Alban Hills, which were celebrated by Court journalists. At Rocca di Papa, where Hannibal is said to have pitched his tents, the little army of his Holiness was, after modern usage, encamped. The Pontiff went on purpose across the Campagna and up the hills, passed through the ranks of his defenders, and himself celebrated Mass for their benefit. When his next birthday was celebrated, the zouaves made a special display in the Piazza of St. Peter's, of which the Civiltá gives a long but lively description. The last formation mentioned is to us new in military evolutions. The zouaves "formed so as to make the letters composing the august name Pius IX."[112]

Ever since 1860 the preaching of "taking up the cross," of the glory of "dying for religion," and of the pure, bright martyrdom of falling on the field for St. Peter, had been rather heavy work. Now the gleam of victory at Mentana lighted up the future. Vistas long and luminous led the eye of the fighting sons of Loyola away to other scenes, where John VIII as Admiral, or John X as General, or Pius V rejoicing over Lepanto, with other martial glories of the Papacy, paled before what the Virgin and St. Michael were about to bring to pass. Loud and ringing sounded forth to the faithful the call to the crusade of St. Peter. The youth of the Catholic world were assured that not the fall of Richmond nor the capture of Sebastopol, not Solferino nor Sadowa, had moved human society as did the tidings from Mentana. Stories true and often very touching were mixed with fables and with ecstasies.